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- A tragic and secretive romance ensues over many years after two men meet while herding sheep on Brokeback Mountain in this opera based on Annie Proulx's short story and its subsequent Oscar-winning film adaptation.
- Who was Moliere? He is known everywhere as one of the world's greatest playwrights. But who was he? Born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin in 1622, the son of a prosperous tapestry maker. His mother died when he was a boy. Growing up in the teeming streets of 17th century Paris, Jean Baptiste received a good Jesuit education and was fascinated by the street fairs and traveling carnivals that flourished in spite of the religious repression and hypocrisy of those cruel times. As a young man he joined the theatrical Bejart family to establish the Illustre-Theatre, which soon went bankrupt. The troupe reformed, found patronage, and went on the road for thirteen years, performing all over France. Poquelin developed his stagecraft adapting Commedia dell Arte plots to please brutalized peasants and cynical townspeople. He also married Madeline Bejart, the widowed daughter of the troupe's founder. Later he entered into a love affair with Mme Bejart's daughter, to the dismay of all. The troupe eventually returned to Paris and, on October 24, 1658, greatly impressed the 20-year old King Louis XIV, later to be called the Sun King. Moliere's life became bound up with the magnificent court at Versailles, and with its intrigues. He wrote, staged and acted in the plays now famous all over the world. He fought with his enemies and his friends, enjoyed success followed by failure, organized court festivities and defended himself against increasingly fanatic religious authorities. Above all, his theater was taken from life as his life was theatrical.
- A choreographer must face an unresolved romantic encounter from her past as she creates a new dance work.
- A magical version of Tchaikovsky's masterpiece by the Zurich Ballet and choreographer Heinz Spoerli.
- A small part of a large cemetery. End of fall. It has just rained. Black trees, a few leaves are still attached, other leaves litter the ground. A gravel driveway. A bench whose painting flakes. A man advances in the aisle, leaves the aisle, goes to a grave, reads what is written on the tombstone, stays there and looks at the stone, goes to another tomb, also reads this Who is written on the tombstone, remains for a moment to look at it, then joins the aisle and will sit on the bench.
- The 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 and Choir, under the direction of Thomas Hengelbrock, lend musical accompaniment.
- This "dynamite new production" (Opera Today) of Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto inaugurated Cecilia Bartoli's first season as Artistic Director of the Salzburg Whitsun Festival in 2012. "Bartoli's Dream Start with Dream Voices" wrote the Vienna Kurier of this uproarious Moshe Leiser/Patrice Caurier in which Bartoli heads a hand-picked cast including Andreas Scholl, Philippe Jaroussky and Anne Sofie Von Otter with Il Giardino Armonico conducted by Giovanni Antonini. "[Andreas Scholl's] coloratura is note perfect, he phrases recitatives with as much musicianship as arias, and the steadiness and purity of his voice are remarkable." The Financial Times "Bartoli remains at her peak. Not only is her coloratura flawless, and her voice as colorful and ravishingly beautiful as ever, but her ability to use her incomparable technique at the service of expression has also deepened with age. As a seductress, Bartoli was irresistible. Teasing out her incomparably agile coloratura runs, she softened high notes to tickle the senses with a mixture of sweetness and delight. When, in the second act, she mounted a missile and diagonally ascended into the heavens, it felt as though she were riding the ultimate pink Cadillac off to her honeymoon rendezvous. And in her final aria, "Da tempeste il legno infranto" when she danced around the stage and adorned herself with strings of lights while flashing the trademark Bartoli smile, it was all one could do to resist running onstage and give her a huge hug."
- Carmen, a wild Spanish gypsy, is unscrupulous in matters of the law and of the heart. A knife fight breaks out between Carmen and another woman, and José, an incorruptible constable in Seville, is ordered to arrest Carmen.
- Mixing history, romanticism and passion for the arts, this film tells the saga of the Morozov brothers, Russian textile industrialists. Mikhail and Ivan Morozov assembled one of the most remarkable collections of French art in the world.
- This film follows Polish countertenor Jakub Josef Orlinski and three facets of his singing, evoked through three countries. In New York, it will be opera for his debut at the MET, in Warsaw it will be Lied accompanied by piano and finally in Barcelona, it will be Baroque arias with the ensemble Il Pomo d'Oro. Each of these three cities will also be the occasion to evoke an aspect of his personality. The whole, will be embellished by breakdance that he has been practicing for a long time as well as by extracts filmed by Orlinski himself with his phone and integrated into the material of the film itself, as a dialogue between the media and formats supposed to draw at the end an intimate and digital portrait with multiple points of view.
- Two youths have secretly married ladies but not the ones their fathers who are away on trips had selected.A mischievous valet plays tricks to see that the lovers can stay together.
- Entirely composed of visual and audio archives; German fictions and musical operettas of the period, news clippings and documentary footage, musical shorts, home movies, restored in HD, as well as photographs and photo montages, paintings and drawings. "CABARET-BERLIN, THE WILD SCENE" offers an inside view of the Berlin artistic kabarett scene, as an eye witness to the Weimar Republic's history, and doing so, reveals "the true story of Cabaret". With unheard-of artistic expressions, and serving as a lightening rod for criticism and protest, the Berlin cabarets became critically reflective mirrors of topical events, politics and culture of the unstable Weimar Republic, as well as the symbol of Berlin Tempo, too. Alongside the dramatic events accompanying the Era of Inflation, the Golden Years, the Depression and the surge of Nazism, the film shines a spotlight on this watchtower of unbroken conscience. The film itself is structured as a cabaret show led by its Master of Ceremony, the famous actor Ulrich Tukur who, off-screen, narrates necessary background information, connecting songs and sketches to their historical, political and social context. The treatment sticks to the aesthetic style of the period and uses the archive sources not as documentary samples, but as a stock of edited rushes which weave the dramatization of the story. At the end of the day, CABARET-BERLIN, THE WILD SCENE is a film about the birth of modernity.
- As the first collaboration ever between conductor William Christie and director Luc Bondy, this production of Hercules was the major event of the 2004 opera season. Originally Created in Aix-en-Provence in July 2004, the show then moved on to the Palais Garnier in Paris where it was recorded in December of the same year. The Hercules received the student prize at the Golden Prague 2005.
- A dramatic, energetic adaptation of Heinz Spoerli's ballet based on Grieg's Peer Gynt by the Zurich ballet. Marijn Rademaker is excellent as the title character, clearly telegraphing the emotional range required. Each of the characters and the dramatic scenes are supported by the orchestral passages and songs provided by Grieg; some spoken word passages extracted from the Ibsen play.
- A spoof on the Ancient Greek myth, Orpheus and Eurydice are two bickering spouses who are happily separated when she is kidnapped by the gods and forms a love triangle with Pluton and Jupiter. But Public Opinion forces a reluctant Orpheus to go into the Underworld to save her.
- In Geneva, Martha Argerich invites her lifelong music partner, the cellist Mischa Maisky, to play in private chamber music. Between each piece, Martha opens up to her daughter Annie Dutoit, in an intimate interview.
- Latin origin, Panamanian on their mother's side and Peruvian on their father's, the two Castro-Balbi brothers were born and raised in Besançon, France. After learning music there (cello for Alexandre, violin for David), they became professional musicians and now make a living from their profession. After many years, they returned to Panama and Peru for two major concerts. Based in Besançon, where the family continues to live, the film tells the story of their return to their origins, the better to anchor themselves in the present and move forward.
- Composed in the 1930s by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, this is a mordant satire on capitalism and the inexorable industrialization of a society in which the ultimate crime is not having money.
- The rare biblical opera 'David and Jonathas' is like 'Médée', one of the major works of the French Baroque composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier. The opera has been in the repertoire of Les Arts Florissants since 1988 and was first presented in a stage production by William Christie at the Aix-en-Provence Festival 2012. This DVD release is a special event for all Baroque music lovers. Written a year after the death of Lully, this lyric tragedy allows Charpentier to develop beyond the religious dimension, a story of male friendship and forbidden love between David and Jonathas. An excellent cast gathered around William Christie and Les Arts Florissants brings young singers to the title roles: Pascal Charbonneau, a tenor and a former student of the European Academy of Music, sings David. The role of Jonathas is given to a woman: soprano Ana Quintans. The staging by Andreas Homoki (Director of the Zurich Opera since summer 2012) focuses on the psychological aspect of this forbidden love story, giving a moving reading of the drama.
- The Chinese government provides the villages in the mountains of Sichuan (China) with films. The main character of this film is a projectionist who, 37 years ago, used to carry his old projector on foot and bicycle. He would display a small screen across the road or between trees in front of a farm... It's the same today except that he rides a motorcycle, carries a large screen and that the films travel two thousand kilometers from Beijing to Chengdu by satellite, before he picks them up on his motorcycle. Up in the mountains, people bring a stool out on the road and watch. That story takes place in Beijing and the beautiful mountains covered with bamboos above Chengdu
- Nina Stemme marks her theatrical role debut as Aida with an astounding performance in a new staging by Nicolas Joel at the Zurich Opera - sharing the stage with a star-packed cast including Salvatore Licitra, Luiciana d'intino and Juan Pons.
- Philippe Boesmans sign his fourth opera with Julie. Harking back to the model of the chamber opera, the composer focused on the chemistry of human relationships that lead heroine of the drama of Strindberg to end his life. Three voices, a chamber orchestra, a unique place, a night time make us witness the fate of this young woman touching. Composer in residence at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie for nearly 20 years, the Belgian Philippe Boesmans, born in 1936, is undoubtedly a major figure in the musical landscape of our time. Julie is an intimate work, a chamber opera in one act, based on the drama of the Swedish August Strindberg's Miss Julie, written in 1888. Boesmans music is very personal: his writing is dense and precise, rich and colorful, delicate and colorful and his writing for the voice proves that with opera, the composer was in his natural element.