After a successful South African tour in 2010, the Vrijthof concerts were all about Africa that year. André invited the South African soloists from the tour to take part in this summer’s Vrijthof concerts: the fantastic young soprano Kimmy Skota from Cape Town, the Bloemfontein Children’s Choir and the children from the Hout Bay Music Project provided a real South African atmosphere. This fabulous summer evening concert also featured the sopranos Mirusia Louwerse and Carmen Monarcha, the Platinum Tenors and the Berlin Comedian Harmonists. The evening has an upbeat end with a guest appearance from DJ Ötzi. This is a truly fantastic concert that you really can’t miss!
2010-09-22
6
Although he is unanimously credited with having democratised opera, making it accessible to the greatest number, focus is rarely put on the strategy he devised and implemented in order to carry out his actions, nor what his actions reveal of the man and artist, and of the resulting metamorphosis from opera singer to pop artist. Through this angle, this film sets out to pay tribute to the man who summed up his credo, obsession and life’s work, in the following way: “They led the public to believe that classical music belonged to a restricted elite. I was the way to prove to the world that was wrong.
The historic Toscanini television concerts with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. Broadcast #9 was of a concert on March 22, 1952, at Carnegie Hall, featuring Beethoven's 5th Symphony and Respighi's Pines of Rome. (Concerts #8 and #9 were released on "Vol. 5" in the DVD series.)
Letters, Riddles and Writs is a one act opera for television by Michael Nyman broadcast in 1991.
At the beginning of 1964, the music world experiences something completely unexpected. Maria Callas returns to the opera stage as the prima donna. Her “Tosca” at the Royal Opera House becomes a sensation. Maria Callas wants to show everyone once again that she deserves the title of “prima donna assoluta.” On the condition that star director Franco Zeffirelli take over the direction, the exceptional singer agrees to sing the role of Tosca. The BBC recorded the 2nd act of the opera for television. It is one of the most dramatic acts in opera history: in order to free the painter Cavaradossi from the hands of torturers, Tosca ends up murdering the police chief Scarpia. The film footage is one of the rare opportunities to see Maria Callas in an opera performance and to experience her highly emotional performance art and vocal abilities...
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.
The film covers a hundred years in the lives of the Ricordi family, the Milan publishing house of the title, and the various composers and other historic personalities, whose careers intersected with the growth of the Ricordi house. It beautifully draws the parallel between the great music of the composers, the historic and social upheavals of their times, as well as the "smaller stories" of the successive generations of Ricordi.
Set against the backdrop of a 1960s jungle seaport in tropical Australia and the rich concert halls of wintry Vienna, talented eighteen year old pianist Paul Crabbe moves to an exotic outpost of far Northern Australia. There, he is forced to study under the only piano teacher his father can find – the eccentric, enigmatic Herr Keller, a Viennese refugee with a shadowed past. Living above a dilapidated hotel in the dripping heat of this seaport, Keller is known to the locals as 'Maestro', a broken, elegant drunkard. But who is he? Does he come from a lineage of great European pianists, or is he a fraud?
Lyrical biography of the classical composer, depicted as a romantic hero, an accursed artist.
A documentary that explores the challenges that a life in music can bring.
A ruthless real estate agent discovers a passion for piano and auditions with help from a young virtuoso, but the pressures of his corrupt career threaten to derail his musical aspirations.
At 41 years old, the Quebecois conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin has established himself as one of the most gifted maestros of his generation, with numerous prestigious posts with some of the world’s greatest orchestras already under his belt, including the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra (music director), London Philharmonic Orchestra (principal guest conductor), and the Orchestre métropolitain de Montréal. One week before Nézet-Séguin's official nomination as music director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra in 2008, filmmaker Christiaan van Schermbeek met the maestro for the first time. The once-in-a-lifetime event inspired Schermbeek to begin this documentary project, giving us a fascinating glimpse into the life of a truly extraordinary individual.
After failing to be admitted into the OSESP Orchestra, a talented violinist is forced to give music classes to teenagers in a public school. He soon finds his world transformed by the power of music and friendships formed with his pupils.
The first part of this Academy Award-winning short consists of a behind-the-scenes look at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra as it prepares to perform Ravel's "Bolero." Individual musicians offer their thoughts as workers set up chairs and music stands; there are also comments by conductor Zubin Mehta and scenes of Mehta and the orchestra rehearsing. The rest of the film features a complete performance of "Bolero" with striking images of the orchestra as the music relentlessly approaches its climax.
Frederick Ashton's La Fille mal gardée (The Wayward Daughter) is one of the choreographer's most joyous and colourful creations. Inspired by his love for the Suffolk countryside, the ballet is set on a farm and tells a story of love between Lise, the daughter of Widow Simone, and Colas, a young farmer. It contains some of Ashton's most stunning choreography, most strikingly in the series of energetic pas de deux that express the youthful passion of the young lovers, performed here by Natalia Osipova and Steven McRae. The ballet is laced with exuberant good humour, and elements of national folk dance, from dancing chickens and a maypole dance to a Lancashire clog dance for Widow Simone, performed by Philip Mosley.
In Search of Beethoven offers a comprehensive documentary about the life and works of the great composer. Over 65 performances by the world's finest musicians were recorded and 100 interviews conducted in the making of this beautifully crafted film. Eleven interviews are included in the Extras and Six complete movements.
Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli grew up in Lajatico, a rural village in Tuscany, where his family still farms nearby. In July 2007, on the slopes of his ancient hill town, a special theater was constructed for a one-night-only concert of his greatest popular hits along with new songs performed to honor the occasion. Some famous musical friends dropped by and the magical result is Andrea Bocelli - Vivere - Live in Tuscany, premiering this December on PBS.
After marrying her long lost love, a pianist finds the relationship threatened by a wealthy composer who is besotted with her.
Performing some of Strauss's most popular waltzes, André Rieu's stunning orchestra travel to a huge array of European locations in this PBS produced extravaganza.
Anger discusses his Aleister Crowley-inspired theories of art: How he views his camera like a wand and how he casts his films, preferring to consider his actors, not human beings but as elemental spirits. In fact, he reveals that he goes so far as to use astrology when making these choices. This is as direct an explanation of Anger’s cinemagical modus operandi as I have ever heard him articulate anywhere. It’s a must see for anyone interested in his work and showcases the Magus of cinema at the very height of his artistic powers. Fascinating. (Dangerous Minds)
A frightening creature from unknown depths rises to attack a lone teenager.
Adithya Varma, his wife Subhadra and daughter Kaveri live in the same compound where Sasi and his wife Parvathy lives. Sasi and Parvathi go to the office along with Varma. Kuttan Pillai, a gossip manager, does not like their relationship. He tries to drive a wedge between Varma and Sasi families. Varma asks his advocate to look for a man for his company. Advocate recommends Jayan, son of his friend for the job. Jayan is appointed in the company. Kuttan Pillai tells Varma's wife that it was not fair for Varma to go with Sasi and Parvathi. One day Parvathi come late from the office. A quarrel takes place between her and her husband on this account.
A man grapples with the trappings of the modern world and refuses to conform to the system, man.
A 30-something failed businessman moves into his grandpa's house, the defunct WW2 veteran. His quest to live up to his legacy, will redefine both the family hero and himself.
After a big night, a girl wakes to find her self in bed with a regretful one night stand. She does what ever she can to escape without waking him up.
A group of military personnel transporting a hydrogen bomb are left to figure out how and why swarms of killer bugs took down their plane; the answer is more deliriously nihilistic, and convoluted, than you could imagine. Also known as War of the Insects, GENOCIDE enacts a cracked doomsday scenario like no other.
This 12-minute Brazilian short film employs the found footage style in a slightly different way. The film is presented as a merge of two separate files extracted from the police archives in Sao Paulo, Brazil. On the first one, two policemen talk to each other, while watching and analysing images captured by surveillance cameras that shows a woman being stabbed to death by a couple, just before the two aggressors get killed by a mysterious man that shows up at the place. The second portion of the movie shows the intriguing facts that happen during a police raid on the apartment where the suspect of killing the previous couple lives.
The Future Doesn't Need Us… Or So We've Been Told. With the rise of technology and the real-time pressures of an online, global economy, humans will have to be very clever – and very careful – not to be left behind by the future. From the perspective of those in charge, human labor is losing its value, and people are becoming a liability. This documentary reveals the real motivation behind the secretive effort to reduce the population and bring resource use into strict, centralized control. Could it be that the biggest threat we face isn't just automation and robots destroying jobs, but the larger sense that humans could become obsolete altogether?
Dr. Janet Furie comes to believe that her husband and fellow scientist were set up to die in a lab accident. She blames another scientist, not only for the murder but also for taking credit for her husband's groundbreaking work. When she can't prove her husband was murdered, she spins a web of intrigue and deceit that results in the suspected scientist being framed for another murder that never actually happened.
Everything you always wanted to know about pornography (but were afraid to ask).
A young wild boy finds he must confront a hostile environment to recover his precious pot, but beware the wild beasts.
A man must decide whether to intervene and stop a casual commuting rule breaker, or live with a lifetime of regret. A comedy about a passive man with an overactive imagination.
The DaVinci Code sold over 20 million copies in 44 languages by grossly distorting the truth and re-writing history. Is it possible that the Bible was a work of fiction? Did Jesus escape death on the cross? If you believe recent accounts Jesus did not die on the cross, but instead married Mary Magdalene who gave birth to his daughter......that this great secret has been hidden from us for the past two thousand years by covert societies whose alleged members included Renaissance painter Leonardo DaVinci. The Christian faith is under attack - arm yourself with the facts by watching Challenging the DaVinci Code. World-renowned religious scholars refute the dramatic and shockingly distorted facts that attempt to derail centuries of religious beliefs and the very foundation of the Bible. In this revealing documentary, the 190-
"Peep Show" is a strange amalgam of dank noir drama and cheesy journalism, recounting Sam “Momo” Giancana's reign with the Outfit. Styled as a confessional by one of Momo's gunsels, the tabloid tell-all traces the Cosa Nostra's connections first to the fall of Cuba and Kennedy's mob-supported presidency, then to a spreading blight of drug trafficking that swept through Vegas on the way to the White House.
A young, egoistic couple are taught a valuable lesson when their souls get accidentally swapped and they find out what it`s like to walk in the other person`s shoes.