Met Stars: Jonas Kaufmann(2020)

Die Nacht aus Blei(en)

A surreal movie by peter Weigl starring Michael Biehn and Lubomir Kafka.

Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor(it)

Lucia di Lammermoor, dramma tragico in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti (1797 - 1848). Libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, after Walter Scott's 'The Bride of Lammermoor'. First performance in Naples, Teatro San Carlo, 26 September 1835 Recording: December 23 2015 - Gran Teatre del Liceu | Barcelona Director: Fabrice Castanier Conductor: Marco Armiliato Orchestra & Chorus of the Gran Teatre del Liceu

Rusalka(cs)

Three arias from Antonín Dvořák´s fairytale opera Rusalka turned in to a movie, sung by Gabriela Beňačková (Rusalka), Libuše Márová (Witch), René Tuček (Hunter).

Paisiello Nina(en)

The opera: Nina, o sia La Pazza Per Amore itself, is an extra-ordinary sad and touching story, and seems very difficult to be performed if the singer has no acting talents. Therefore we adore Cecilia Bartoli for the magnificent performance as the crazy Nina who lost her mind totally. Her magnificent singing, we don't doubt at all, but her acting is amazingly such that it expressed a real situation of a girl becoming crazy and losing her mind caused by painful incidents in her love life. It is also supported by the other singers who are singing matching as perfectly and splendidly as the diva Cecilia Bartoli, especially the baritone Laszlo Polgar with his deep rich voice as the cruel father who has remorse and came back to see his daughter Nina and the young tenor Jonas Kauffmann with his clear light voice, resulting in a surprisingly beautifully performed opera.

Handel: Alcina(en)

Philippe Jaroussky as Ruggiero is in thrall to Patricia Petibon as the sorceress Alcina in Katie Mitchell’s virtuosic production of Handel’s opera from the 2015 Aix-en-Provence Festival, described by Bachtrack as “a night of a thousand delights”. Conducted by Andrea Marcon, this was, in the words of Opera News, “musically … a performance of the highest festival level”. The production of Alcina, by the British director Katie Mitchell, was welcomed by the Financial Times as “meticulously executed …, rich in detail, consummately polished”. As the New York Times wrote: “It involves a huge sorcery machine for turning people into animals (or whatever). And Ms. Mitchell works magic of her own onstage, constantly showing the enchantresses Alcina and Morgana alternating between glamorous public personas and their ‘real life’, older, private selves …There are also bits of simulated sex, mingling genders and suggesting, among other things, inventive new ways to hit high notes.”

Nicky Nicky Nine-Door(en)

Deleted scene from Nirvanna the Band the Show. Nicky Nicky Nine Doors up and down the Scarborough Bluffs.

Cenerentola - Una favola in diretta(it)

Adams: Doctor Atomic(en)

John Adams’s mesmerizing score, in the powerful production of Penny Woolcock, tells the story of one of the pivotal moments in human history—the creation of the atomic bomb. Conducted by Alan Gilbert in his Met debut, this gripping opera presents the human face of the scientists, military men, and others who were involved in the project, as they wrestled with the implications of their work. Baritone Gerald Finley gives a powerful star turn in the title role as the brilliant J. Robert Oppenheimer.

From the House of the Dead & Glagolitic Mass(cs)

Can the darkest moments of life also lift our souls? Drawing on his own experience in a Siberian prison in the company of misfits, murderers and theives, Dostoevsky was inspired to write his novel Notes from a Dead House, telling his brother at the time: ‘Believe me, there were among them deep, strong, beautiful natures, and it often gave me great joy to find gold under a rough exterior.’ In Janáček’s hands, Dostoevsky’s inspiration and the raw material drawn from an appalling world of incarceration find an even more powerful form of expression in his last opera, From the House of the Dead. Unfettered by conventional story-telling, Janáček wrote his own libretto, freely weaving together a series of stories of everyday prison life and of the fates of individual convicts.

Opera Gala - Live from Baden Baden(de)

Four Minutes(de)

Jenny is young. Her life is over. She killed someone. And she would do it again. When an 80-year-old piano teacher discovers the girl’s secret, her brutality and her dreams, she decides to transform her pupil into the musical wunderkind she once was.

The Phantom of the Opera(en)

The deformed Phantom who haunts the Paris Opera House causes murder and mayhem in an attempt to make the woman he loves a star.

The Beat That My Heart Skipped(fr)

A ruthless real estate agent discovers a passion for piano and auditions with help from a young virtuoso, but the pressures of his corrupt career threaten to derail his musical aspirations.

Theodora(en)

The oratorio concerns the Christian martyr Theodora and her Christian-converted Roman lover, Didymus.

Amadeus(en)

Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the hedonistic and remarkably talented young Salzburger composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Rigoletto(en)

Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. Despite serious initial problems with the Austrian censors who had control over northern Italian theatres at the time, the opera had a triumphant premiere at La Fenice in Venice on 11 March 1851. This 1994 recording, directed by Riccardo Muti, stars Roberto Alagna, Renato Bruson and Andrea Rost.

Arabella(en)

Arabella, Op. 79, is a lyric comedy or opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, their sixth and last operatic collaboration.

Rigoletto(it)

In Rigoletto, the deformed figure of the hunchbacked jester at the Mantuan court acts as a foil to his cynical and powerful master, an unscrupulous philanderer contrasted with his cruel and unforgiving fool. Rigoletto encourages and welcomes the Duke's conquests, pitilessly mocking his victims until he discovers that the Duke has abducted the one person he genuinely loves, his own daughter. As a result, the character of the court jester is transformed into a tragic figure who, in spite of his evident immorality and malice, allows us to sense the devotion he feels for his daughter and his horror at being destroyed by the same despotic world as that which he himself has helped to create.

let me come in(en)

Bill Morrison’s experimental short features decayed film reels from the lost, German silent film Pawns of Passion (1928).

A Cossack Beyond the Danube(uk)

A Ukrainian comic opera with spoken dialogue in three acts with music and libretto by the composer Semen Hulak-Artemovsky (1813–1873). The orchestration has subsequently been rewritten by composers such as Reinhold Glière and Heorhiy Maiboroda. This is one of the best-known Ukrainian comic operas depicting national themes.