2017-07-20
6
Six vignettes pit an assortment of characters against each other in everyday situations.
Russia, January 25, 1725. "Give it all...". The emperor's weakening hand was able to write in his will only these two short incomprehensible words that kept Russia in a bloody struggle for the crown for a century.
Eddie, Dov, Yvan and the others ... Our warm friends have migrated from the moribund Sentier to the flourishing suburb of Aubervilliers ... Where the old Jewish entrepreneurs left the ground to young courageous and dynamic Chinese wholesalers ... The little band is as close to each other as in previous episodes, and life goes on at the mercy of small family events and business. Dov still seems frivolous, enterprising Eddie, chilled Yvan, casual Karine, resolute Sandra, naive Chochana, irresponsible Serge and mythomaniac. As for Patrick, he is in love and the happy elected is far from easy to access. Everything would be fine until a bad wind brings its share of adversity seriously compromising the cohesion of the group. Will they succumb under the storm to the turmoil, or, once again, by mutual aid, cunning and skill, will they triumph over the crisis with panache?
An army major goes undercover as a college student. His mission is both professional and personal: to protect his general's daughter from a radical militant, and to find his estranged half-brother.
Angel, a selfish rotter is hanging around in a local bar, groping the wife of the barman and dealing with weapons. One morning he wakes up finding a pair of wings growing at his back. These wings do good deeds against his nature. But suddenly he finds himself fighting those who want these wings for their own dark plans.
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.
Stand-up comedian John Mulaney tackles such red-hot topics as quicksand, Motown singers and an elderly man he once met in a bathroom.
More summer stories from the beaches of Tuscany.
An Egyptian high priest travels to America to reclaim the bodies of ancient Egyptian princess Ananka and her living guardian mummy Kharis. Learning that Ananka's spirit has been reincarnated into another body, he kidnaps a young woman of Egyptian descent with a mysterious resemblance to the princess. However, the high priest's greedy desires cause him to lose control of the mummy...
This is yet another telling of the adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn as the two try to clear their friend Jim of murder charges.
Three young boys, Rocky, Colt and Tum Tum together with their neighbor girl, computer whiz Amanda are visiting Mega Mountain amusement park when it is invaded by an army of ninjas led by evil Medusa, who wants to take over the park and hold the owners for ransom. Kids and retired TV star Dave Dragon, who made his farewell appearance at the park at the time the ninjas appeared, have to break Medusa's vicious plans.
The wife of an Irish school teacher is branded a traitor when she falls for a British officer who is part of an occupying force in 1917 Ireland.
A cat named Lorenzo is dismayed to discover that his tail has developed a personality of its own.
Sid and Bernie keep having their amorous intentions snubbed by their girlfriends Joan and Anthea, so when they decide to take them on a holiday to Paradise Camp, they think they're off to a nudist colony—but they couldn't be more wrong, and meet up with the weirdest bunch of campers you can imagine.
Sara Shaw is the type of woman who prefers to sit on the sidelines at work, but when her big idea for a Christmas initiative is stolen, she makes a wish to Santa that she'll finally have the courage to stand up for herself. Santa grants her wish, but only gives her 48 hours. As the clock ticks, Sara will discover how to channel the Christmas magic and speak her mind all on her own.
"Maine-Ocean" is the name of a train that rides from Paris to Saint-Nazaire (near the ocean). In that train, Dejanira, a Brazilian, has a brush with the two ticket inspectors. Mimi, another traveler and also a lawyer, helps her. The four of them will meet together later and live a few shifted adventures with a strange-speaking sailor (Mimi's client).
"Jennifer Lopez: All I Have" was the first concert residency by American entertainer Jennifer Lopez. Performed at Zappos Theater (formerly The AXIS Theater) located in the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, the residency began on January 20, 2016 and concluded on September 29, 2018. The show has received critical acclaim for its production and Lopez's showmanship. The residency grossed $101.9 million after 120 shows, making it the sixth highest-grossing Las Vegas residency of all time, and the top residency by a Latin artist.
Christmas is now more beautiful and cosy than ever! Experience Christmas in London, together with André Rieu. Decorated Christmas trees everywhere you look, beautifully lit streets, tempting Christmas window displays... Combine the unique London Christmas atmosphere with a magnificent Christmas concert by André Rieu, and you have all the ingredients for a lovely party in the dark December days. Together with fantastic soloists and his always joyful Johann Strauss orchestra, André Rieu provides a fabulous evening with the most beautiful and moving Christmas carols, but also with emotional songs such as Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, The Holy City and the classic Concierto de Aranjuez. Christmas in London means an evening enjoying lovely music, beautiful costumes and plenty of London cosiness.
A young woman, married to a wealthy man, but miserably lonely; trapped within a world ruled with an iron fist. Katerina is driven by a lust for life and for love. Her husband, though, is impotent; her father-in-law a tyrant. No wonder, then, that she longs to free herself from this yoke. When Sergei starts work on the family estate, she sees in him a chance for salvation. However, their subsequent affair marks the beginning of a descent into crime.
Franco Zeffirelli directs these two legendary La Scala productions telling tragic tales of jealousy. Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana features performances by Elena Obraztsova, Plácido Domingo, and Renato Bruson. Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci stars Teresa Stratas, Plácido Domingo, and Juan Pons. Both are conducted by George Pretre. This production of Pagliacci earned director Franco Zeffirelli the coveted Emmy as Best Director in the category of Classical Music Programming.
This is Laurent Pelly’s Théâtre des Champs-Élysées staging of Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, with a cast featuring Florian Sempey as Figaro, Catherine Trottmann as Rosina, and Michele Angelini as Il Conte Almaviva. Jérémie Rhorer conducts Le Cercle de l-Harmonie.
Weber was at the forefront of the rise of German Romantic opera and sought to dethrone Rossini from his position as the leading operatic composer in Europe. In his breakthrough and most popular opera Der Freischütz (The Marksman) composed in 1821, he succeeded in his aim of establishing a truly German form. Turning to the folklore and folk songs of his native land he took a story of a marksman who makes a pact with the Devil, vesting it with powerful intensity not least in the famous Wolfs Glen scene and an astonishing control of orchestral color and atmosphere.
“La Bohème” follows a group of artists struggling to make a living in 19th-century Paris. The poet Rodolfo falls in love with the fragile seamstress Mimi. Love and joy are intertwined with poverty and illness in this story filmed live.
One night in Judea, a disabled shepherd boy-turned-beggar and his mother are visited by three strangers. They are the Three Kings, and they are on their way to Bethlehem to visit the Christ Child, who has just been born.
Simultaneously filmed English language version of a period operetta, in which a Polish noblewoman is romantically linked with a revolutionary student activist.
This all-star cast is framed by Peter Hall’s gritty, realistic production and conducted by James Levine, who brings out all the surging emotion and gripping drama in Bizet’s score. At the center of the story is Agnes Baltsa, whose smoky mezzo is tailor-made for the gypsy Carmen, an independent woman who glories in obeying only her own rules, but who is haunted by fate. Superstar tenor José Carreras is Don José, the solider from a small town who catches Carmen’s eye and is destroyed by his growing obsession with her. Samuel Ramey is the charismatic matador Escamillo, who lures Carmen away from Don José with tragic result. Leona Mitchell is Micaëla, the simple girl from Don José’s hometown who cannot save him. March 21, 1987 Matinee Broadcast.
The deformed Phantom who haunts the Paris Opera House causes murder and mayhem in an attempt to make the woman he loves a star.
Soprano Anna Netrebko appears in her highly anticipated Met role debut as Leonora, the tortured heroine who sacrifices her own life for the love of the Gypsy troubadour. Dmitri Hvorostovsky sings Count di Luna, Yonghoon Lee is Manrico in his Met role debut as the title character, Dolora Zajick sings her signature role of the gypsy Azucena, and Štefan Kocán is Ferrando. Marco Armiliato conducts Sir David McVicar’s Goya-inspired production.
Renée Fleming sings one of her signature roles, the title character in Dvořák’s sumptuously melodic Rusalka. The story of the opera, which is about a water spirit’s tragic romance with a human prince, is drawn from several folktale sources including Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid.” Star conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads a cast that also includes Piotr Beczala as the handsome Prince whom Rusalka yearns to love; Dolora Zajick as the cackling swamp witch Ježibaba; Emily Magee as the Foreign Princess, Rusalka’s rival; and John Relyea as Rusalka’s father, the Water Sprite.
Radiant mezzo-soprano Susan Graham and dashing Italian tenor Marcello Giordani are unlucky lovers in La Damnation de Faust, Hector Berlioz’s classic take on dancing with the devil.
Valery Gergiev conducts Mariusz Trelinski’s thrilling new production of these rarely heard one-act operas. Anna Netrebko stars as the blind princess of the title in Tchaikovsky’s lyrical work, opposite Piotr Beczala as Vaudémont, the man who wins her love—and wakes her desire to be able to see. Nadja Michael and Mikhail Petrenko are Judith and Bluebeard in Bartók’s gripping psychological thriller about a woman discovering her new husband’s murderous past.
Siegfried is the third of the four operas that constitute Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), by Richard Wagner.
This DVD of a live 2005 performance from the Zürich Opera under the musical direction of Franz Welser-Möst has many things to recommend it -- the young tenor Piotr Beczala as Alfredo, the marvelous Thomas Hampson as Giorgio Germont, the playing of the Zurich Opera orchestra, the simple but effective sets by by Erich Wonder, the uncluttered stage direction by Jürgen Flimm. It also has some flaws: strangely variable volume level of the recorded sound sometimes coming on so loud as to make one reach for the volume control, and the uneven performance of the Violetta, Eva Mei who, for all her merits, gives a dramatically effective performance marred by occasional difficulties with vocal production. Still, overall I felt this was a moving production, one that I would recommend, although perhaps not as an only DVD of one of Verdi's most popular operas.
With more than 50 years of experience as film director, Peter Greenaway (Nightwatching, Eisenstein in Guanajuato) combines the worlds of film and opera at the Verdi Festival in Parma, demonstrating what magic those two can do together with an all new approach to Giuseppe Verdi's Giovanna d'Arco, staged and edited by himself and his wife, Saskia Boddeke. The opera's libretto is based on Friedrich Schiller's 'The Maid of Orleans'. It tells the story of the French national hero Jeanne d'Arc, who defends her country against the English troops during the Hundred Years' War. Constantly torn between her humble roots, her love for King Charles VII and her heavenly task to fight for France, she gains eternal glory by giving her life in the final, victorious battle against England.
The historic Toscanini television concerts with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. This concert, broadcast in two parts, on 26 March and 2 April 1949, from NBC Studio 8H, features the opera "Aida" by Giuseppe Verdi. (Both broadcasts were released as "Vol. 3" in the DVD series.)
Alone in the woods, a young man is pursued by a horrifying specter and by visions of his deceased sisters. A meditation on the precarious uncertainty of the American Dream and the role that uncontrollable forces play in our lives, The West is a Land of Infinite Beginnings is inspired by a harrowing scene from the opera Proving Up, by composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek.