
The Met assembled an ideal cast for François Girard’s acclaimed new production of Wagner’s final masterpiece: Jonas Kaufmann in the title role of the fool “made wise by compassion”, René Pape as Gurnemanz, the veteran Knight of the Grail, Katarina Dalayman as Kundry, Peter Mattei is Amfortas, the anguished ruler of the Grail’s kingdom, and Evgeny Nikitin sings the evil magician Klingsor.
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The Met assembled an ideal cast for François Girard’s acclaimed new production of Wagner’s final masterpiece: Jonas Kaufmann in the title role of the fool “made wise by compassion”, René Pape as Gurnemanz, the veteran Knight of the Grail, Katarina Dalayman as Kundry, Peter Mattei is Amfortas, the anguished ruler of the Grail’s kingdom, and Evgeny Nikitin sings the evil magician Klingsor.
2013-03-02
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The Metropolitan Opera: Parsifal
7.8During the Napoleonic wars, a Spanish officer and an opposing officer find a book written by the former's grandfather.
7.4The Marx Brothers take on high society and the opera world to bring two lovers together. A sly business manager and two wacky friends of two opera singers help them achieve success while humiliating their stuffy and snobbish enemies.
8.2The mother of a feudal lord's only heir is kidnapped by the lord. Her husband and his samurai father must decide whether to accept the unjust decision, or risk death to rescue her.
7.5Dr. Frankenstein and his monster both turn out to be alive after being attacked by an angry mob. The now-chastened scientist attempts to escape his past, but a former mentor forces him to assist with the creation of a new creature.
7.01982, Poland. A translator loses her husband and becomes a victim of her own sorrow. She looks to sex, to her son, to law, and to hypnotism when she has nothing else in this time of martial law when Solidarity was banned.
5.7Aïcha, a high-school student, is a passionate kung fu fighter. Her Turkish parents expect her to get good grades so she can get into medical school, like her brother Ali. But school doesn´t inspire her. Defying her family, Aïcha starts secretly training at a professional, co-ed kung fu club. A boy, Emil, helps Aïcha train for the club championship and they fall in love. But the rules of life are not as simple as the rules of kung fu, and Aïcha is forced to decide who she is and what she wants.
6.1A duo of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations about a greedy wife's attempt to embezzle her dying husband's fortune, and a sleazy reporter's adoption of a strange black cat.
6.7Father Maurice, a priest living in a residential college for priests in Rome, is called out one day to "exorcise" the devil from someone. The devil turns out to be in the form of a fun-loving man called Giuditta. What Father Maurice doesn't know is that this type of devil will turn his life around.
6.9When a princess is shrunken by an evil wizard, Sinbad must undertake a quest to an island of monsters to cure her and prevent a war.
7.0Cissie Colpitts drowns her cheating husband and, in the ensuing cover-up, enlists the help of lonely coroner Henry Madgett, an old friend with a longstanding weakness for her charms. But when Cissie's daughter and granddaughter—both also named Cissie Colpitts—decide to resort to the same methods for solving conflicts with their own frustrating husbands, the women and their repeated appeals for help begin to wear on Madgett's conscience.
7.9A day in the life of an unfaithful married couple and their steadily deteriorating relationship in Milan.
6.1Fracchia is desperate: he has to sell a house with at least five bathrooms within three days or his boss will fire him. Incredibly, he and his pal Filini manage to find the perfect house, a castle in Transylvania owned by some count Vlad... things get even worse when they meet the Count and his sister, who has a crush on Fracchia and decides to marry him!
4.5A collection of death scenes, ranging from TV-material to home-made super-8 movies. The common factor is death by some means.
7.1After the end of WWII, a young Lithuanian woman and a young Italian man from Stromboli impulsively marry, but married life on the island is more demanding than she can accept.
7.3The owner of a seedy small-town Texas bar discovers that one of his employees is having an affair with his wife. A chaotic chain of misunderstandings, lies and mischief ensues after he devises a plot to have them murdered.
7.1Pierre Lachenay is a well-known publisher and lecturer, married to Franca and father of Sabine. He starts a love affair with air hostess Nicole, which Pierre is hiding, but he cannot stay away from her.
6.3Mater finds a small UFO called Mator and they have a night out. Later, when Mator is captured by military forces, Mater sneaks up and saves him with the help of Lightning McQueen and the UFO's mother.
7.1The wealthy and impulsive Rollo Treadway decides to propose to his beautiful socialite neighbor, Betsy O'Brien. Although Betsy turns Rollo down, he still opts to go on the cruise that he intended as their honeymoon. When circumstances find both Rollo and Betsy on the wrong ship, they end up having adventures on the high seas.
6.3Arn has served his term in the Holy land and returns home to be reunited with his beloved Cecilia. When he returns home, he discovers that political forces tries to separate him and Cecilia - but thanks to queen Blanka they can finally get married. Arn knows that war is looming and with his martial knowledge he starts to build an army at his new home at Forsvik.
6.0Fantozzi is now retired but continues to go to the office where it is held up as a fine example of employees intending to do career.
0.0Handel's 1724 opera Tamerlano followed the success of his previous year's Giulio Cesare with another colourful historical costume drama. This time the setting is the court of "Timur the Tartar", who has just defeated the Turkish Sultan Bajazet at the battle of Angora. There are, naturally enough, romantic complications when both Tamerlano and his ally, the Greek Prince Andronico, fall in love with Bajazet's daughter Asteria. She, however, has plans to revenge her father's defeat. This production was directed by Jonathan Miller and staged in the intimate surroundings of the Goethe Theatre of Bad Lauchstadt as part of the 2001 Halle Handel Festival.
Live performance from Cologne Opera. Conlon conducts a skittishly dynamic performance of Don Giovanni. He relies on Thomas Allen’s tough Don to give the work much of its dark menace and on Holle’s terrifying Commendatore to provide the moral outrage – his job is to keep things moving, and he does. The exteriors – blank city spaces reminiscent of the paintings of Giorgio De Chirico – and moodily claustrophobic interiors mirror effectively the anguish of the orphaned Anna and the abandoned Elvira; this is a performance in which the two women victims of the Don function effectively as correctives to his libertine charm. Andrea Rost as Zerlina brings real delicacy to her role, reminding us that “La ci darem la mano” is a duet about her flirtation with Don Giovanni and not just a famous stand-alone moment. This is an admirable presentation of a fine performance.
0.0John Eliot Gardiner conducts Gluck’s 1776 French version of “Alceste” at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. Soprano Anne Sofie von Otter takes the title role of Alceste, Queen of Thessaly, who offers to die at the hands of the gods in place of her husband, Admète (Paul Groves), so that the people will not lose their king. Alceste is then saved from the underworld by Hercule (Dietrich Henschel).
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!
6.8The Tortoise composed a song and the Lion cub learnt it by heart and they sang it together.
The writer Dario Fo applies his inventive genius to Rossini's comic opera in its premiere DVD release. Recorded in 2005 under the musical direction of Maurizio Barbacini, Fo's production brings fresh vitality and colour to the story of Lisetta, and of her father Don Pomponio's increasingly ridiculous attempts to find a husband for her through an advertisement in the newspaper LA GAZZETTA. Filmed using high definition cameras with multitrack sound.
0.0Axel Kohler, the internationally renowned countertenor has brought Admeto into the modern era in timeless style by the skillful application of imaginative theatrical digressions. Köhler's production at the Halle Opernhaus revisits a work that encompasses comedy, tragedy and almost absurd grotesqueness, couching it in the convincing metaphor of a modern hospital.
0.0Jean-Marie Villegier's modern interpretation of Handel's "Rodelinda" – filmed live at the world-renowned Glyndebourne Opera House in the United Kingdom, sets the timeless tale of jealousy and treachery in the black-and-white world of the silent-movie era. Soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci sings the title role of Rodelinda, with tenor Kurt Streit and bass Umberto Chiummo performing the parts of Grimoaldo and Garibaldo, respectively.
0.0A film about the Tibetan Freedom Concert in San Francisco in 1996.
0.0Officers Ferrando and Guglielmo are certain that their lovers Dorabella and Fiordiligi are faithful to them, but the cynical Don Alfonso challenges them to a bet that the women will be unfaithful given the chance. The officers thus pretend to go off to war, and return in disguise as Albanian strangers, to woo Dorabella and Fiordiligi incognito. The ladies are initially frosty, but soon warm to their new suitors, spurred on by their maid Despina. Performed at the La Scala Theatre in Milan.
0.0The complete version of Verdi's Otello performed by Placido Domingo and Kiri Te Kanawa, at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Gala Performance in honour of Sir Georg Solti's 80th birthday.. 27 October 1992. BBC 2 Television live relay.
0.0A production of Mozart's opera recorded live at Zurich Opera House in 2000. Cecilia Bartoli leads an all-star cast including Roberto Saccà, Liliana Nikiteanu, and Agnes Baltsa. The conductor is Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Filmed live at the Zurich Opera House in February 2000 on a set which visualises the subtitle "The School for Lovers", the plot revolves around two army officers arguing about the fidelity of their brides, then setting out to test their chastity. Despite the often playful humour, this is not only psychologically telling music-making, but reveals Mozart exploring the structure of opera, discarding convention to mix large ensemble sections with arias for as many different combinations of singers as possible. With Liliana Nikiteanu attractively contrasted with Bartoli, and thoroughly convincing performances by Roberto Sacca (Ferrando) and Oliver Widmer (Guilelmo), this Così has a freshness and flow which, coupled with the timeless romantic themes, feels very contemporary.
6.0Inspired by one of the twentieth century's greatest novels, composer Lorin Maazel evokes Orwell's totalitarian nightmare, where "Big Brother" is always watching, and those guilty of "thoughtcrime" are condemned to face their worst fears in the infamous "Room 101". Filmed during world premiere performances of Robert Lepage's spectacular and psychologically gripping Royal Opera production and conducted by the composer, an international cast brings George Orwell's dark vision to shattering operatic life.
0.0What happened to Figaro and his friends after the events told in Rossini’s and Mozart’s operas? One possible sequel is told in John Corigliano’s “grand opera buffa” The Ghosts of Versailles—an uproariously funny and deeply moving work inspired by Beaumarchais’s third Figaro play, La Mère Coupable, and commissioned by the Met to celebrate its 100th anniversary. This telecast captures its world premiere run, conducted by James Levine. Håkan Hagegård is Beaumarchais, Figaro’s creator, who is deeply in love with Marie Antoinette (Teresa Stratas in a heart-searing performance) and determined to rewrite history and save her from the guillotine. A young Renée Fleming, at the beginning of her international career, sings the unfaithful Rosina. Gino Quilico is the wily Figaro who tries to take matters in his own hands, and Marilyn Horne stops the show as the exotic entertainer Samira.
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.
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.
8.0A pioneer in the world of rock-'n'-roll guitar, Chuck Berry has created a legacy that spans decades. Berry performs some of his greatest hits and all-time favorites in this concert video that was filmed on September 13, 1969 at 'Toronto Rock'n'Roll Revival.' The Concert includes the songs "Rock and Roll Music," "Long Live Rock and Roll," "Johnny B. Goode," "Promised Land," "Carol," "Hoochie Koochie Man," "Maybellene," "Too Much Monkey Business," "Reelin' and Rockin'," "Sweet Little Sixteen" and "In the Wee, Wee Hours."