
Merle
7.2A Night in Tuscany is the first DVD released by Italian singer Andrea Bocelli of a concert held in his native Tuscany, in 1997, highlighting the unique blend of Classical, Pop, and traditional Italian songs that made him a crossover success as an internationally acclaimed tenor. The concert takes place at the Piazza dei Cavalieri in Pisa. Bocelli performs two opera duets with soprano Nuccia Focile during the concert, before singing Miserere with Italian rock star Zucchero, who discovered him, and Time To Say Goodbye with English soprano Sarah Brightman
0.0A 1985 performance of Luchino Visconti's 1958 staging for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Bernard Haitink memorably directs a superb cast that includes Ileana Cotrubas at the height of her powers and Luis Lima, unequalled in his tortured introspection, in the title role. (5-act version, sung in Italian)
8.0The historic, original, live airing of what would become an annual Christmas tradition throughout the 1950s, this opera tells the story of Amahl, a crippled shepherd boy, and his destitute mother, who provide temporary shelter to three men who are following a star to the newly-born Christ child.
6.0Returning home with his friends, a soldier reunites with his wife, not knowing she's become a ghost. But her death's not the end of their love story.
0.0Sergey Prokofiev's operatic tragedy The Fiery Angel was never performed in the composers lifetime the musics brittle energy, drama and eloquent lyrical tenderness would re-emerge in his Third Symphony. The narrative focuses relentlessly on Renata, who is haunted by an angel who turns out to be the devil. Director Emma Dante describes the opera as an explosive mix of fantastical realism and endless confusion of nightmares, madness, sexual impulses and cultural clashes, and this Teatro dellOpera di Roma production was acclaimed as a presentation of Prokofievs masterpiece which sparkles in all its grotesque glory (operawire.com)
0.0Passion, jealousy and betrayal take center stage at Londons Royal Opera House in a spectacular production of the worlds most popular opera. Bizets Carmen is packed with some of the best-loved and memorable music in all of opera. In this characteristically vivid and vibrant stage production by Francesca Zambello, beautifully filmed in 3D by Julian Napier, Seville is brought to life with ranks of soldiers, crowds of peasants, gypsies and bullfighters as well as a magnificent horse, a donkey and even some chickens! This spectacular RealD and Royal Opera House production features a supremely talented cast, gripping drama and Bizets energetic and passionate score. It is truly a musical event to remember!
6.6The life and career of Italian opera singer Farinelli, considered one of the greatest castrato singers of all time.
0.0A romantic opera in three acts with music and libretto by Richard Wagner, performed by the Orchestra of the Teatro di San Carlo. The original title, Tannhauser und der Sangerkrieg auf Wartburg, reveals the real nature of the opera, born by a fusion of two traditional sagas and dedicated to the dualism of spirituality and sensuality and the possibility of redemption through love. Composed between 1843 and 1845, Tannhauser has a tormented musical theme, made up of constant variations. It debuted in Dresden in 1845 when Wagner was just over 30.
0.0It was assisted by the Qing army and some traitors (Fan Cheng-En), who captured Guangzhou and massacred the civilians for three days until Sun Yat-Sen established the Republic of China and Chiang Kai-Shek succeeded in the Northern Expedition.
1.0A lyric tragedy in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti, libretto by Salvatore Cammarano. Roberto Devereux was composed in the summer of 1837, the year, according to biographers, in which Donizetti seems to have suffered most, having lost his third son and his adored wife Virginia Vasselli. The opera made its debut at the San Carlo Theatre in Naples on October 28th in the same year and was a great success. The rehearsals of the original performance were postponed for a month due to censorship of the decapitation scene of the leading actor.
7.0Charles Mackerras teases the romantic beauty from Gounod's score, which has been widely admired since its first performance at the Théâtre Lyrique, Paris, in 1867. In this 1994 recording, the youthful Roberto Alagna as Roméo and Leontina Vaduva as the unattainable Juliette lead an excellent cast in this touching portrayal of impossible love, based on Shakespeare's play.
0.0A delightful fairy tale, Mozart's final operatic legacy remains a great work in the spirit of the Enlightenment. Intertwining music of awesome purity and beauty with the conventions of musical comedy, it explores Man's search for truth and his confusion between the forces of light and dark. This production from The Drottningholm Court Theatre is conducted by Arnold Ostman and played on authentic period instruments.
0.0The celebrated three-act opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart comes to life in this dynamic performance at the world-famous Salzburg Festival. Director Francois Abou Salem brings a modern Middle Eastern sensibility to this journey into Arabian and Muslim culture, filtering the comic tale of abduction for today's audiences. Soprano Christine Schafer portrays Constanze, a woman whose heart is torn between her fiance, Belmonte (Paul Groves), and her new master, Pasha Selim (Akram Tillawi). A sensual and resoundingly modern experience, this new interpretation casts new light on a classic musical work and infuses it with aching human emotion.
0.0"Orango" - prologue to an unfinished opera by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, performed by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Mariinsky Theatre Academy. In the 1920s, Soviet biologist Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov carried out a series of experiments to create a human/nonhuman ape hybrid. Three female chimpanzees were inseminated with human sperm. No pregnancy occurred.. In 1929 he organized a set of experiments involving nonhuman ape sperm and human volunteers, but was delayed by the death of his last orangutan.
0.0Lumee, one of the two main characters (of the opera p r i s m), sings this aria while smoking outside a nightclub in the second act, providing a window into her selfish fantasies. Not a recorded section of the opera, but a companion piece meant to depict the character's imagined realities.
0.0Award winning singer Katherine Jenkins performs an intimate concert in London's Cadogan Hall, accompanied by special guests, Collabro. Performing for a small audience of invited guests, and accompanied by a 25-piece orchestra, the celebrated artists will sing the songs that have made them famous - a selection that includes classical, popular, and musical theatre numbers.
0.0Axel Köhler’s production of Der Freischütz at the Dresden State Opera was described by Die Presse as “a minor miracle in Dresden”. In the words of the Salzburger Nachrichten, Köhler “scored a bulleye” with his sombre and satanic interpretation of Weber’s Romantic opera about love, temptation, souls sold to the Devil, obsession andfaith. According to the Financial Times, Christian Thielemann and the Dresden Staatskapelle conjured up a sense of “mortal terror from the orchestra pit. […] Thielemann is in command of every detail. That makes for utterly gripping listening.”
9.0Cio-Cio-San, the young Japanese bride of dashing American officer Lieutenant Pinkerton, finds her romantic idyll shattered when he deserts her shortly after their marriage. She lives in hope that one day he will return. Three years later, Cio-Cio-San and her little son see Pinkerton’s ship in the harbour. She excitedly expects his visit – but Pinkerton and his American wife Kate have come only to take the boy away, to raise him in America. Cio-Cio-San bids her son farewell and then takes her own life.
5.6It's the end of the century at a corner of the city in a building riddled with crime - Everyone in the building has turned into zombies. After Jenny's boyfriend is killed in a zombie attack, she faces the challenge of surviving in the face of adversity. In order to stay alive, she struggles with Andy to flee danger.
5.9Anton and Erika started out as friends for five years and got into a romantic relationship for seven years. Anton is a commercial director while Erika is a former band member and becomes his stay-at-home partner. The day finally comes when he asks her to marry him.
6.2Ella Blake, a stop-motion animator struggling to control her demons after the loss of her overbearing mother, embarks upon the creation of a film that becomes the battleground for her sanity. As Ella’s mind starts to fracture, the characters in her project take on a life of their own.
6.9Morbius Jr, now an OId Man, is nearing the end of life, when he finds the last hope for all Morbkind. However, as he fights to protect the future of Morbheads, he finds himself facing off against an unlikely of enemy... HIMSELF.
7.3Intertwined stories from the gladiator/athletes participating to the Calcio Storico Fiorentino yearly championship.
6.5BBC docudrama telling the story of the father of science fiction, HG Wells, and his ambition to avert mankind's headlong course towards self-destruction.
10.0A Thai conservationist takes on the powerful tourist industry to rescue abused elephants.
7.6Investigating judge Iman grapples with paranoia amid political unrest in Tehran. When his gun vanishes, he suspects his wife and daughters, imposing draconian measures that strain family ties as societal rules crumble.
7.2From the Atlantic to the Black Sea, Mathias and Philippe, two old friends, embark on a bicycle journey that Mathias’s son made before his tragic death. The two men ride through the ordeals with tenderness, humor and emotion.
6.7When a girl's body is found on a beach in Poland's Tricity, a prosecutor teams up with the victim's mother on an impassioned quest for the truth.
7.0The commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, and his wife Hedwig, strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the camp.
7.4The Year of Return is an initiative of the government of Ghana that is intended to encourage African diasporans to come to Africa to settle and invest in the continent. This film documents one diasporan family as they return to Africa.
6.8Self-important author Leon joins his best friend on a summer holiday near the Baltic Sea to complete his novel. When they arrive, they find their house is already occupied by a carefree woman who challenges Leon to open up. Meanwhile, forest wildfires rage around them and impending disaster looms.
6.5This is a documentary linking ecological and political problems. The planet has come to be less important than the multinational earnings, and with it politicians earnings as well. With this project we bring foreward this problem, witch not only affects the third world, but is a worldwide situation witch needs to be adressed.
7.4The 90s. A famous Spanish rock star travels around Latin America in the endeavour to reconnect with his vocation. There he meets an old musician down on his luck, prompting the birth of an unlikely duo with every chance of becoming an epic commercial failure.
6.1During the eve of the 6th of January, a record-breaking snowstorm sweeps across Spain. In the midst of its chaos, a group of robbers seizes the opportunity to hijack an armoured van. A few meters away is Leo, a finished policeman who has nothing to lose. With the unexpected aid of a young woman, he will try to stop the band from running away with their loot.
7.5Set against the backdrop of Iran's strict and oppressive legal system, this anthology film tells the stories of four men who each face a moral crisis when having to deal with death penalties.
7.4One night in his near-empty tower block in contemporary London, Adam has a chance encounter with a mysterious neighbor Harry, which punctures the rhythm of his everyday life.
6.8A man and his son arrive at a rave lost in the mountains of Morocco. They are looking for Marina, their daughter and sister, who disappeared months ago at another rave. Driven by fate, they decide to follow a group of ravers in search of one last party, in hopes Marina will be there.