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Suzuki
Madama Butterfly (Cio-Cio-San)
Kate Pinkerton
F.B. Pinkerton
Sharpless
Goro
Il principe Yamadori
Lo zio bonzo
In his 'new life' as a baritone, Placido Domingo has triumphed in the role of Francesco Foscari in Los Angeles, London and Vienna. Now he takes to the role to La Scala, Milan, the theatre that is the symbol of Italian opera. I due Foscari, premiered in 1844, famously one of Verdi's darkest operas, is staged by Alvis Hermanis, who made such an impact at the Salzburg Festival with "Die Soldaten" and "Il trovatore". Domingo is joined by two of Italy's most exciting singers, the soprano Anna Pirozzi and the tenor Francesco Meli, and the acclaimed Italian conductor Michele Mariotti. The Financial Times was deeply moved by Domingo's performance, calling his interpretation of the role "sublime".
Messiaen's breathtakingly intense opera on the life of St Francis of Assisi stars Rod Gilfry as the charismatic visionary, beguiled by the glory of creation, yet fearful of both its imperfections and its transience. Pierre Audi's thoroughly engaging production for The Netherlands Opera brings out the naive imagery, the grandeur, and above all the vast tenderness of the resplendent score, revealed as a grandiose ritual with the meaning and purpose of life as its central theme. But the real drama of the work takes place in the orchestra. Elevated to stupendous heights by the sublimely inspired Ingo Metzmacher, The Hague Philharmonic and the Chorus of De Nederlandse Opera combine forces with a brilliant cast to produce the finest possible musical pilgrimage.
Violetta, a courtesan much wooed by Parisian society, organizes a grand party that is attended, amongst others, by the young Alfredo Germont. He confesses his feelings to Violetta, who is already suffering from consumption. She vacillates between genuine affection and a realistic assessment of her situation as a "fallen woman", which precludes any lasting relationship with a man. The Franco Zeffirelli production of LA TRAVIATA, recorded live at the Teatro Giuseppe Verdi, Februari 2002.
Recorded on the 13th. of August 2016 in the city Torre del Lago doing the Festival Puccini at the Gran Teatro Puccini venue.
Stefan Zucker, the world's highest tenor, visits the opera divas of his childhood. The journey from apartment to apartment, from diva to diva, from Rome to Milan, turns into an opera road movie.
With this DVD and Blu-ray of Rodelinda, one of Handel’s most emotionally complex operas, conductor Emmanuelle Haïm adds to her impressive Erato catalogue of the composer’s works. The imaginative production, by Jean Bellorini, was seen at the Opéra de Lille in Autumn 2018, and the cast features soprano Jeanine De Bique in the title role, countertenor Tim Mead as her husband Bertarido and another countertenor, Erato’s rising star Jakub Józef Orliński as Unulfo. Reviewing the production, Le Monde noted Emmanuelle Haïm’s “intimate connection with this music, which she knows how to unleash in all its violence, passion and heart-wrenching expressivity.”
A freedom fighter in Austrian-occupied Switzerland. An oppressive Habsburg governor. The most famous Swiss apple. And a love story that crosses national divides. Rossini’s thrilling epic, his final masterpiece with the world’s most famous overture, is his most ambitious, forward-looking and vocally challenging opera. Having become the rallying cry of the 1830 revolution in France, Rossini’s final opera is nothing short of revolutionary itself. Retelling the legend of the Swiss folk hero based on Schiller’s play, William Tell is a grandiose ode to freedom. Staged for the first time in Ireland since 1875, this production is conducted by Fergus Sheil and directed by Julien Chavaz who takes a mythological approach. For him, ‘the story is not just about a remote Swiss community facing Austrian invaders. It is the story of a society that suddenly has to face a threat to its model of civilisation.’
In this musical, an enigmatic masked woman catches the roving eye of a wily playboy gambler at a masquerade ball. If he knew that she was using her wiles as bait and was planning to reform him of his gambling womanizing ways after catching him, he may have head for different waters.
After over a century out of the Met’s repertoire, audiences were thrilled to discover just what a sensational evening in the theater Thomas’s Hamlet can be. Simon Keenlyside’s riveting performance as the tortured Prince of Denmark in Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser’s starkly brooding production had critics raving that Keenlyside’s superb singing, coupled with his deftly delineated three-dimensional Hamlet, was one of the greatest examples of operatic drama of our time. The cast includes Marlis Petersen as the long suffering Ophélie, who brilliantly shows why her mad scene is so justly famous, along with Jennifer Larmore and James Morris as Gertrude and Claudius.
Salzburg Festival’s first-ever performance of Charles Gounod´s most famous and most performed opera! Internationally-acclaimed tenor Piotr Beczala triumphs in the title role as soul-selling philosopher Faust: “Piotr Beczala is a world-Faust” (Kurier) and “The well-deserved crown goes to a perfectly-cast Piotr Beczala” (Abendzeitung). Ildar Abdrazakov was “celebrated” (Broadway World) for his signature role as seductive and demonic Méphistophélès. Maria Agresta as convincingly innocent Marguerite struggling to resist temptation and to gain salvation: “She is fabulous!” (Süddeutsche Zeitung). “Spectacular and photogenic” staging (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) by award winning stage director and designer Reinhard von der Thannen. The Philharmonia Chor Wien and the Wiener Philharmoniker are performing under the baton of young Argentinian conductor Alejo Pérez.
Jessye Norman Sings Carmen is a gripping vérité study of the famous dramatic soprano’s approach to mastering Bizet’s heroine in recording sessions with Seiji Ozawa and the Orchestre National de France. Musical segments include performances of three arias and the great duets between Carmen and Don José
Live performance by Les Arts Florissants at the Théâtre de Caen, recorded on 18 Octorber 2011. "One of the earliest operas deserving of the name, Didone is our first surviving musical version of the famous episode in Virgil's Aeneid where the Trojan Hero loves and then cruelly leaves the noble Dido." — from the DVD back cover
‘In reality, this Lohengrin is an entirely new phenomenon for the modern consciousness!’ Richard Wagner himself understood the innovative character of his sixth piece of music theatre, completed in 1848, the year of revolutions. Although it is reckoned among his ‘romantic operas’, his new vision of musical drama is already clearly heralded in this work. In his hands, the mediaeval saga of the Knight of the Swan becomes a meditation on the true love that asks no questions. Alain Altinoglu, our Music Director, who has already conducted this work in Bayreuth, guarantees the quality of the music, while the director Olivier Py, known at La Monnaie for his brilliant productions of Les Huguenots and Hamlet, can be relied on not to downplay Wagner’s revolutionary political side. Wagner’s own opinion was that ‘one can only understand Lohengrin if one can liberate oneself from any modern-looking, generalising form of representation so as to see the phenomena of real life’. A challenge to us all?
Xerxes 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).
The film takes place in Baku in 1918-19 and then several years later. The film is based on the opera of the same name by Fikret Amirov. Sevil became the first film opera in the history of Azerbaijani cinema.
This opera revolves around the demonic collective possession suffered by the Ursuline nuns in the convent of Loudun in 1634. The story concentrates on the handsome but doomed Urbain Grandier who fights against fanaticism and evil.
At the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, the stage director Nikolaus Lehnhoff signs a remarkable production of Wagner's LOHENGRIN, the third of the German composer's main operas. This production stars an incredible cast, including Hans-Peter König, Klaus Florian Vogt, Solveig Kringelborn, Tom Fox and Waltraud Meier, accompanied by the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin under Kent Nagano's baton.
Benjamin Britten’s opera Gloriana was written in 1953 for celebrations around the Coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, to whom the opera is dedicated. It had its first performance at the Royal Opera House on 8 June 1953, in the presence of The Queen then just 6 days into her reign. The centenary in 2013 of Britten’s birth prompted this new Royal Opera production, in which director Richard Jones uses the setting of a celebratory pageant in 1953 to explore the work’s alternating splendour and intimacy. This theatrical, inventive and colourful staging has at its core the symbolic reflections between the Tudor Elizabethan and the New Elizabethan ages that characterize the opera. The juxtaposition of the modern and the archaic in William Plomer’s libretto is wonderfully amplified in music that artfully fuses the sounds and manners of Tudor England – from lute songs to courtly dances – with Britten’s own distinctive style.
Don Camillo (now bishop) and Peppone (now senator) return to the town of Brescello and rekindle their friendly rivalry.
A film about the Yakut rock musician Gavril Kolesov - Hannibal.
11-year old Julia and Martin are tired of having to flip back and forth between their divorced parents and when they realize how much they look like, they realize to swap places. After meeting at an airport, the each embark on a journey that will change their lives forever.
Based on the real warrior Hannibal, considered one of the greatest military commanders in history, the film will cover the crucial battles he led against the Roman Republic during the Second Punic War.
A serial killer and the detective who tracked him down find themselves in an unexpected stalemate.
A terrorist group invades a laboratory containing a deadly bacteria and destroys the lab with an explosion. They later announce via the internet they have gained possession of the bacteria and declare themselves to be the Red Siamese Cats, a terrorist group that was eradicated a decade ago.
Like the Japanese Special Editions of other Gundam and Sunrise anime series, this is the last of three volumes, that will condense the second half of the second season of Gundam 00 into feature-length videos. They all feature some new animated sequences and some partially re-recorded dialogue.
Story about three youthful couples in contemporary Los Angeles.
Mei is eating a caramel on one very windy day, when suddenly a whirlwind appears and starts chasing her. The whirlwind turns out to be a baby cat bus. Mei offers the kitten a caramel and the two become friends. That night, the baby cat bus visits Mei. Letting Mei ride inside him, he leaps out into the sky. They head for the midnight forest full of ghosts. Other cat buses large and small have also gathered together.
A group of people inside an underground complex which possesses high tech computers which tracks world events consider all options as nuclear war is at hand, air supplies may last only eight days and Biblical prophesy unfolds.
Once again billed as Montgomery Wood, Giuliano Gemma plays a civil war soldier who returns to his family land to find his family decimated, his property taken over by a family of Mexican bandits and his fiancee about to marry the Mexican gangster behind all this. Bent on revenge, he goes undercover disguised as a Mexican and discovers he has a daughter!
And again a heroes of "Yolki" series are ready and prepared for a New Year.
The powerful evil wizard Tarabas gets knowledge about a prophecy that a king's child will defeat him. So he sends out his army of dead soldiers to kidnap all royal children. When the soldiers attack Fantaghiro's castle to steal the babies of her sisters, the battle seems to be lost until she discovers the secret to defeat the solders but by doing that she loses Romualdo. Now Fantaghiro must find the evil wizard Tarabas and convince him to break the spell and bring back Romualdo.
A year to the day after Dorothy and the people of the Emerald City defeated Urfin Jus, the villain is trying to exact his revenge. To command the army of Carraci, however, Urfin needs not only the magic book, but also Dorothy’s silver slippers. The slippers are safely hidden away in Dorothy’s house. Unfortunately, Dorothy’s guest, Tim, is overcome by curiosity and picks up the shoes, accidentally transporting himself, Dorothy and the slippers to the Land of Oz. The Emerald City and its citizens are in danger once again.
Guillermo seems like your average high school student, but in fact he's a suave expert at cruising his local shopping malls for gay sex. From a random trick, to his English tutor, to the hottest guy he's ever seen, Guillermo is completely honest and reveals everything.
Red panda Retsuko, worked to the bone, unleashes her frustration in the form of death metal. Lately, though, she's found another joy—getting the most likes possible on her Instagram posts. In fact, it is said that social media attention can release endorphins. As Christmas falls upon the city, Retsuko's hunger for validation only grows, pushing her to find new ways to embellish and sugarcoat her otherwise drab life for the internet to see.
Hitman Returns was filmed before a sold out crowd last year at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. The lineup of talent, lead by Foster as maestro of ceremonies, includes performances by Seal, Donna Summer, Martina McBride, Earth, Wind & Fire, Natalie Cole, Ruben Studdard, All-4-One,'Glee' star Charice, Chaka Khan, Jackie Evancho, Lara Fabian and other artists whose careers have been touched by Foster, a 15-time Grammy winning producer and songwriter.
Set in New York City's gritty East Village, the revolutionary rock opera RENT tells the story of a group of bohemians struggling to live and pay their rent. "Measuring their lives in love," these starving artists strive for success and acceptance while enduring the obstacles of poverty, illness and the AIDS epidemic.