
PRELIMINARY EVENINING OF THE RING CYCLE. Upon the banks of the ageless river Rhine, the Rhinemaidens play. Alberich, a Nibelung dwarf, tries vainly to seduce one of them. To taunt him, they reveal their secret: out of the gold they guard one can forge a Ring to rule the world, but at the cost of giving up Love forever. Alberich steals the gold, makes the ring and plans his world take-over. Meanwhile, Wotan, King of the Gods, must figure out how to finance the construction of Valhalla. He has promised his sister-in-law as payment to the giant construction workers led by Fafner, but his wife Fricka disapproves. Loge (God of Fire) tricks Alberich and brings him to Wotan, who takes the Ring. In revenge Alberich curses it: lack of the Ring will fuel desire for it and possession will only lead to misery. Wotan gives the Ring to Fafner as ransom for Fricka's sister. Filmed at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus in June & July 1991.

Donner
Froh
Loge
Alberich
Mime
Fasolt
Fafner
Fricka
Freia

PRELIMINARY EVENINING OF THE RING CYCLE. Upon the banks of the ageless river Rhine, the Rhinemaidens play. Alberich, a Nibelung dwarf, tries vainly to seduce one of them. To taunt him, they reveal their secret: out of the gold they guard one can forge a Ring to rule the world, but at the cost of giving up Love forever. Alberich steals the gold, makes the ring and plans his world take-over. Meanwhile, Wotan, King of the Gods, must figure out how to finance the construction of Valhalla. He has promised his sister-in-law as payment to the giant construction workers led by Fafner, but his wife Fricka disapproves. Loge (God of Fire) tricks Alberich and brings him to Wotan, who takes the Ring. In revenge Alberich curses it: lack of the Ring will fuel desire for it and possession will only lead to misery. Wotan gives the Ring to Fafner as ransom for Fricka's sister. Filmed at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus in June & July 1991.
1991-07-15
8.5
7.8SECOND DAY OF THE RING CYCLE. Alberich's brother Mime raises the orphan Siegfried, hoping that Siegfried will kill Fafner and enable Mime to gain the ring. Mime attempts unsuccessfully to reforge the Nothung. Fulfilling prophecy, Siegfried reforges the sword himself and kills Fafner, who has the form of a dragon. When he accidentally tastes the dragon's blood spilt on his hands, Siegfried understands the song of a woodbird, who instructs him to take the Ring from Fafner. Reading Mime's thoughts of betrayal, Siegfried kills the dwarf as well. The woodbird also informs Siegfried of a mysterious woman asleep in the midst of fire, and Siegfried sets off to find her. After defeating a disguised Wotan and breaking his spear, Siegfried successfully awakes Brünnhilde, and the two fall in love. Filmed at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus in June & July 1992.
6.0An archival investigation into the imperial image-making of the RAF ‘Z Unit’, which determined the destruction of human, animal and cultural life across Somaliland, as well as Africa and Asia.
7.0Handle With Care European Tour '89 is a live video released by Nuclear Assault in 1990. The video is a recording of a concert at the Hammersmith Odeon in London, England on October 4, 1989. Set List: 01. F# (Wake Up) 02. When Freedom Dies 03. Rise From The Ashes 04. Brainwashed 05. F# 06. New Song 07. Critical Mass 08. Game Over 09. Nightmares 10. Buttfuck 11. Fight To Be Free 12. Survive 13. Torture Tactics 14. Trail Of Tears 15. Mothers Day 16. My America 17. Hang The Pope 18. Lesbians 19. Emergency 20. Funky Noise 21. Good Times Bad Times 22. Technology 23. Equal Rights
6.1An array of outrageous people, including a desperate nymphomaniac and a terrorist with an acute sense of smell, seek love and happiness in Madrid.
0.0Unified MMA 50 took place Friday, March 31, 2023 with 10 fights at River Cree Resort & Casino in Enoch, Alberta, Canada.
6.4Pietro Rinaldi, an elderly writer, widower and tired of life, plans to commit suicide on his birthday. After the sudden and tragic death of his daughter and son-in-law, Pietro will have to look after his teenage nephew Mattia.
6.1On the edge of a crumbling city, 11-year-old Alexander lives in a sequestered commune alongside other children, their mothers, and charismatic leader, Gregori. Gregori teaches the children how to raise livestock, grow vegetables, work as a community - and how to kill. With the birth of a new baby brother weighing on his mind, Alexander begins to question Gregori’s overpowering influence on the children and their training to become assassins. Threatened by his increasing unwillingness to fall in line, Gregori’s behavior turns erratic and adversarial toward the child he once considered a son. With the two set dangerously at odds and the commune’s way of life disintegrating, the residents fear a violent resolution is at hand.
6.3Angélique is in a North African Muslim kingdom where she is now part of the Sultan's harem. She refuses to be bedded as her captors try to beat sense into her. She finally decides to escape with the help of two Christian prisoners.
6.9Shotgun Stories tracks a feud that erupts between two sets of half brothers following the death of their father. Set against the cotton fields and back roads of Southeast Arkansas, these brothers discover the lengths to which each will go to protect their family.
7.0For seven years, Antoine de Caunes and José Garcia made their mark on French comedy history each evening in prime-time on their show, "Nulle part Ailleurs".
7.2One of the key factors in Italian unification was the overthrow in 1860 of Francesco, the King of Naples and the two Sicilies, who went into elegant but impoverished exile in Rome with his Queen, Maria Sofia. This seriocomic drama follows the deposed royals as they adapt to their new lives. The former king has recognized the political finality of his deposition, but his queen has taken to traveling in men's clothing all over Italy trying to foment an uprising to restore them to the throne. She is also frantic to have a baby, an heir, but the king has become celibate as a kind of homage to his beloved mother; he spends all his time lobbying the Vatican to get her declared a saint.
6.7Eleven Tibetans prostrate themselves every few steps during a 1,200-mile pilgrimage that lasts for seven months.
5.9Taking more than six years to complete, The Cut is a feature-length documentary that conclusively proves that female genital mutilation or cutting (FGM) can be found as a native practice on all inhabitable continents. From war zones in the Middle-East to bucolic Middle America, the film visits 14 countries and features key interviews with FGM survivors, activists, cutters, doctors and researchers to uncover an often secret practice shrouded in centuries of traditions, mysticisms and irrationalities.
6.5An all-new documentary celebrating 10 years of adventure, camaraderie, and /dancing on mailboxes all around Azeroth. Explore the history of WoW with its creators, and journey into corners of Blizzard and the WoW community you’ve never seen before.
6.4A social romance that portrays the lives of 4 married couples who are friends. As they gather to celebrate the birthday of the daughter of one of them, their fundamental differences and their unstable marriages come to the surface as the men decide to leave for Alexandria.
7.5Mozart's genius in setting to music da Ponte's comic play of love, infidelity and forgiveness marks COSI FAN TUTTE as one of the great works of art from the Age of Enlightenment. Nicholas Hytner's beautiful new production, with its sure touch and theatrical know-how, lives up to its promise to be "shockingly traditional" as Iván Fischer teases artful performances from an outstanding international cast of convincing young lovers.
0.0As renowned for its harmonious overture as for its romantic storybook characters, this three-act masterwork features some of the composer’s most groundbreaking and unforgettable music, as well as a theme the young Wagner would revisit again and again later in his career—the redemptive and transcendent power of a woman’s love. The enchanting plot harks back to medieval history: Wolfram is a lovesick troubadour who desires the virtuous Elisabeth. She, however, has eyes for another: the rebellious knight Tannhäuser, who in turn cannot get over an overwhelming sensual experience in the realm of the goddess Venus, and is banished for singing her praises at court. Only saintly Elisabeth’s death can atone for his misdeeds.
0.0Xerxes is one of Handel’s latest and most frequently performed operas, famous for its marvelous opening aria ‘Ombra mai fu’. At the centre of the confusing tragicomedy, very loosely based upon the life of Xerxes I of Persia, is a powerful and lovesick royal eccentric, King Xerxes. Rising opera star Gaëlle Arquez in the title role of Xerxes ‘scintillates with her nimble, luminous mezzo-soprano’, singing ‘irresistibly beautiful, impassioned, furious – but never mean’ (Frankfurter Rundschau). Frankfurt’s excellent Opera and Museum Orchester contributes ‘all sorts of refinements’ to this ‘musical smash hit’ (Deutschlandfunk) and ‘In Frankfurt Tilman Köhler ensures a three-hour short abundant and furious banquett … a great evening of opera’ (Deutschlandfunk).
0.0This new production of Norma, directed by Grammy Award-nominated opera, theatre and film director Kevin Newbury (winner of the Irish Times Theatre Award 2010) and starring Sondra Radvanovsky as a "powerful, elegant" Norma (New York Times) and Gregory Kunde as Pollione, is "something very special. The word 'historic' is used perhaps a little too often but tonight there really is no other adjective to describe the sensational performances offered to us by Sondra Radvanovsky and Gregory Kunde."
10.0The Ballet de l'Opera National de Paris mounted this production of the late Pina Bausch's dance-opera Orpheus und Eurydike, which Bausch had adapted from composer Christoph Willibald-Gluck and Ranieri de' Calzabigi's 1762 opera Orfeo ed Euridice. As the title suggests, it takes its basic narrative from the myth of Orpheus, and his courageous but ill-fated attempt to rescue his lover Eurydice (also known as Eurydike) from the jaws of the underworld. This particular production finds Yann Bridard dancing as Orpheus and Marie-Agnès Gillot dancing as Eurydike , with mezzo-soprano Maria-Riccarda Wesseling accompanying Bridard and soprano Julia Kleiter accompanying Wesseling. Pina Bausch did the choreography and stage direction, while Rolf Borzik designed the sets, costumes and lighting. The Balthasar-Neumann Ensemble & Choir, under the direction of Thomas Hengelbrock, lend musical accompaniment.
10.0Besides the landing on the moon by the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, Richard Nixon’s meeting with China’s leader Mao Zedong in February 1972 then represented one of the biggest media spectacles in history. Nixon himself established the reference between the two events: “We came in peace for all mankind” not only marked the lunar module Eagle’s landing spot – Nixon also spoke of it into the microphones just before his departure to China. It was not John Adam’s aim to create a superficial or even a caricaturing representation of Nixon’s visit when composing his opera. He attempted to create a “heroic opera” about the construction of modern myths by using archetypical characters and situations. Director Marco Štorman stages Adams’ minimal music opera as a deconstruction review about the power of images, the politics of staging and the staging of politics.
0.0The most popular Czech comic opera, with a libretto by Karel Sabina, marking the 200th anniversary of the birth of Bedřich Smetana, in the current production of the National Theater in Prague. For more than 150 years, The Bartered Bride has dominated Czech opera. No one else, not even Smetana himself, has managed to surpass its popularity, which over the years has become part of our national DNA, so to speak. At the time of its creation in the 1860s, however, The Bartered Bride was actually quite a bold experiment – Bedřich Smetana and librettist Karel Sabina masterfully mocked all those who imagined "national opera" as an idyllic picture of the Czech countryside, where national virtues reign supreme.
0.0From the first steps of an emerging singer to the final bow of a celebrated soprano, 'PRIMADONNA OR NOTHING' follows three relentless women who sacrifice everything to be an opera star.
0.0Erich Wolfgang Korngold's "Die tote Stadt" in a Bayerische Staatsoper production from 2019, directed by Simon Stone. Kirill Petrenko is conducting Jonas Kaufmann and Marlis Petersen.
0.0Richard Wagner called Die Walküre the “first evening” of the Ring of the Nibelung; he called Das Rheingold the prologue or Vorabend. Musically and dramatically, we are introduced to a radically new and different world when the opening bars of Die Walküre resound. A fully developed orchestral palette of Leitmotivs paints a wild storm scene, and the curtain rises on a modest dwelling: a fully human scene that has nothing to do with the gods, dwarves and nymphs of Das Rheingold. At the same time, however, the way Die Walküre portrays radical beginnings reveals some telling reminiscences of the unfolding of Das Rheingold. Die Walküre is exciting and deeply feeling drama.
0.0"La Bohème" is one of Giacomo Puccini's most popular and timeless works and the second-most performed opera at New York's Metropolitan Opera. This production, directed by the legendary Franco Zeffirelli, features José Carreras, Teresa Stratas, Renata Scotto and Richard Stilwell. The opera is replete with extraordinary visual beauty as it presents the tragic story of young bohemians struggling to make it in the world.
1.0Gustav Von Aschenbach, a passionate composer, arrives in Venice as a result of wanderlust and there meets a young man by whose beauty he becomes obsessed.
0.0Simon Rattle conducts the Berliner Philharmoniker in Stepháne Braunschweig's production of Richard Wagner's Die Walküre. A Festival d'Aix-en-Provence 2007 production, in coproduction with Osterfestspiele Salzburg. Directed for HDTV and video by Don Kent.
0.0Shortly after WWII, the DEFA Studios produced a series of operas and operettas which belonged to the classical German musical heritage. This enchanting film, the very first opera production of DEFA, stands out because of its lavish decor and costumes, its outstanding actors and their masterful voices of that time.
0.0Johann Strauss, Jr., a would-be composer of waltzes in mid-19th Century Vienna, attempts to thwart his father's efforts to prevent his success when the older man becomes jealous of his melodic skill.
3.0Götterdämmerung, the final instalment of Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung, is a story of human passions. Two essentially benevolent creatures, involved with and possibly doomed by their traffic with the gods, find treachery and evil in the world of the humans, and are ruined by the dark side of humanity. Iréne Theorin, acclaimed worldwide for her portrayal of Wagner’s heroines, stars as Brünnhilde opposite Lance Ryan, who continues his radiant portrayal of the tragic hero Siegfried. The strong cast also includes Mikhail Petrenko as the dark antagonist Hagen and Johannes Martin Kränzle, who once again shines as his father Alberich. Waltraud Meier has a memorable appearance as Brünnhilde’s sister Waltraute. With this 2013 recording of Götterdämmerung, the musically and visually compelling Scala Ring Cycle by Daniel Barenboim and Guy Cassiers was completed and proved to be one of the highlights of the Richard Wagner bicentenary.