Salome

Korngold: Die tote Stadt(de)

Erich Wolfgang Korngold's "Die tote Stadt" in a Bayerische Staatsoper production from 2019, directed by Simon Stone. Kirill Petrenko is conducting Jonas Kaufmann and Marlis Petersen.

John Adams: Nixon in China(de)

Besides the landing on the moon by the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, Richard Nixon’s meeting with China’s leader Mao Zedong in February 1972 then represented one of the biggest media spectacles in history. Nixon himself established the reference between the two events: “We came in peace for all mankind” not only marked the lunar module Eagle’s landing spot – Nixon also spoke of it into the microphones just before his departure to China. It was not John Adam’s aim to create a superficial or even a caricaturing representation of Nixon’s visit when composing his opera. He attempted to create a “heroic opera” about the construction of modern myths by using archetypical characters and situations. Director Marco Štorman stages Adams’ minimal music opera as a deconstruction review about the power of images, the politics of staging and the staging of politics.

Royal Opera House: The Magic Flute(de)

Prince Tamino promises the Queen of the Night that he will rescue her daughter Pamina from the enchanter Sarastro. He begins his quest, accompanied by the bird-catcher Papageno – but all is not as it seems… Tamino and Papageno discover Sarastro is a wise and kind leader. They undergo three ordeals. By the end they are united with their true loves: Tamino with Pamina, and Papageno with his Papagena.

The ROH Live: Rigoletto(en)

Rigoletto, court jester to the libertine Duke of Mantua, is cursed by the father of one of the Duke’s victims for his irreverent laughter. When the Duke seduces Rigoletto’s daughter Gilda, it seems the curse is taking effect… Rigoletto arranges to have the Duke assassinated. But Gilda still loves the womanizing Duke and sacrifices herself in his place. Rigoletto eagerly uncovers the corpse only to find instead his fatally wounded daughter, who dies in his arms.

The ROH Live: Tosca(en)

The painter Mario Cavaradossi helps a fugitive escape – and so attracts the attention of Scarpia, the sadistic Chief of Police. Scarpia captures Cavaradossi and has him tortured within earshot of his lover, the singer Tosca. Scarpia sentences Cavaradossi to death – but promises Tosca that her lover can be saved if she gives herself to Scarpia. Tosca consents but as soon as the order has been given kills Scarpia. Scarpia’s menace continues even in death: betrayed by a double-cross, Cavaradossi dies and Tosca leaps to her death.

Gurrelieder(en)

Performance of Schoenberg's Gurrelieder by SBR, conducted by Mariss Jansons

The Metropolitan Opera: Francesca da Rimini(en)

Eva-Maria Westbroek stars in the title role of Zandonai’s sensuous drama, opposite Marcello Giordani as Paolo. Piero Faggioni’s lush production provides the perfect setting for one of the all-time great tales of tragic passion, adapted from an episode in Dante’s Inferno. Mark Delavan co-stars as Giovanni, the husband and brother of the star-crossed lovers, whose jealousy leads him to kill them both. Robert Brubaker is Malatestino and Marco Armiliato conducts.

Massenet: Manon(fr)

Star soprano Anna Netrebko scored a triumph in Laurent Pelly’s acclaimed 2012 production, singing the title heroine for the first time at the Met. Manon’s story—from innocent country girl to celebrated courtesan to destitute prisoner—is one of the great tragic tales in literature and music, and this performance brings out all of its colors, as seen through Massenet’s masterful score, from the comedic beginning to the heart-wrenching finale. Piotr Bezcala is des Grieux, Manon’s lover, who decides to become a priest when she leaves him, but ultimately is reunited with her, only to lose her again. Paulo Szot sings Lescaut, and Fabio Luisi conducts the Met Orchestra and Chorus.

Strauss: Elektra(en)

The great singing actress Nina Stemme gives a heart-wrenching performance in the title role of Strauss’s blazing one-act drama, adapted from the ancient Greek myth. Patrice Chéreau’s acclaimed production—the last staging he worked on before his death in 2013—also stars Waltraud Meier as Klytämnestra, Elektra’s nightmare-haunted mother, Adrianne Pieczonka as Chrysothemis, her sister, and Eric Owens as Orest, their brother, whose return home brings their family story to a terrifying climax. Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the monumental and highly influential score.

Carmen(fr)

Jonas Kaufmann and Anna Caterina Antonacci bring rare erotic intensity to the drama of Don José and Carmen in this darkly passionate reading of one of the most popular operas. Kaufmann uses his burnished tenor and smouldering good looks to portray the man undone by Carmen's love. As the object of his desire, Antonacci gives a physical and compelling performance.

Opéra National de Paris: Castor et Pollux by Jean-Philippe Rameau(fr)

A return to its roots for Castor et Pollux, Jean-Philippe Rameau’s lyric tragedy first performed in 1737 at the Académie royale and inspired by the mythological episode of the Gemini. Rarely performed in its original version – the score was reworked by Rameau himself in 1754 –, this daring work plays on contrasts and expressiveness, as in the famous “Tristes apprêts”. The aria is sung by Télaïre mourning the death of her fiancé Castor, killed in battle, before his twin brother Pollux descends into the Underworld to ask his father, Jupiter, to bring him back to life. While this opera celebrates brotherly love, its prologue poses an essential question for director Peter Sellars: how do you stop a war and its attendant hatred and resentment?

Carmen(fr)

This ever-popular opera is given a fresh point of view in Barrie Kosky’s highly physical production, originally created for Frankfurt Opera. The Australian director is one of the world’s most sought-after opera directors, whose Royal Opera debut with Shostakovich’s The Nose in 2016 was greeted with delight. For Carmen he has devised a far-from-traditional version, incorporating music written by Bizet for the score but not usually heard, and giving a new voice to the opera’s endlessly fascinating central character.

Falling for Figaro(en)

A brilliant young fund manager leaves her unfulfilling job and long-term boyfriend to chase her lifelong dream of becoming an opera singer in the Scottish Highlands.

Richard Wagner - Lohengrin(de)

A dream came true at Dresden's Semperoper in May 2016 when opera superstars Piotr Beczala and Anna Netrebko made their Wagner debuts as Lohengrin and Elsa, inspired to take on their new roles by Christian Thielmann, the Dresden Staatskapelle's principal conductor and one of the leading Wagner conductors of our day. Die Welt described the performance captured here as "musically one of the finest Lohengrins of all time". Contributing to the triumph are Evelyn Herlitzius's Ortrud. Tomasz Konieczny's Telramund, Georg Zeppenfeld's King Henry and the Dresden State Opera Chorus.

Thomas: Hamlet(fr)

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.

Opera of Cruelty(en)

In this surreal drama, a Young Victim invited to an immersive operatic production led by the Famed Fiend, a collector and protector of talent, finds himself infatuated with the Tempestuous Tigress, a young woman and the favorite performer, who wants nothing but to escape.

Boris Godounov(fr)

A possible impostor torments a newly crowned medieval czar who may have ordered the real successor's death.

The Copper Queen(en)

Still healing from her grandmother’s death, Addison Moore finds herself checking into The Copper Queen Hotel in Bisbee, Arizona. Aware of the ghost stories and hauntings, Addison fearlessly elects to stay in Room 315, the location of the heartbroken Julia Lowell’s death a century ago.

Les contes d'Hoffmann - Opéra Bastille novembre 2016(fr)

Britten: Gloriana(en)

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.

Truth and Lies: The Murder of Laci Peterson(en)

New details and new interviews look at the arrest and conviction of Scott Peterson in the murders of his wife, Laci Peterson, and their unborn son.

Balas & Bolinhos: O Regresso(pt)

A group of friends meet after some years apart and decide to go on a treasure hunt.

Adı: Yunus(tr)

Keep the Change(en)

When aspiring filmmaker David is mandated by a judge to attend a social program at the Jewish Community Center, he is sure of one thing: he doesn't belong there. But when he's assigned to visit the Brooklyn Bridge with the vivacious Sarah, sparks fly and his convictions are tested. Their budding relationship must weather Sarah's romantic past, David's judgmental mother, and their own pre-conceptions of what love is supposed to look like.

The Secret of Oz(en)

It is well known in economics academia that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz written by L. Frank Baum in 1900 is loaded with powerful symbols of monetary reform which were the core of the Populist movement and the 1896 and 1900 president bid of Democrat William Jennings Bryan. The yellow brick road (gold standard), the emerald city of Oz (greenback money), even Dorothy’s silver slippers (changed to ruby slippers for the movie version) were the symbol of Baum’s and Bryan’s belief that adding silver coinage to gold would provide much needed money to a depression-strapped, 1890s America. We believe Baum’s symbols represent the only solution to relieve the growing economic hardship here in America – and the rest of the world. Practically speaking, 2009 marks the 70th anniversary of the 1939 MGM release of the The Wizard of Oz movie, so interest will be very high. Even Oz websites put up by kids get millions of hits.

Korla(en)

Organist Korla Pandit was an alluring enigma, a television pioneer and the godfather of exotica music. He never spoke a word on 900 episodes of his groundbreaking 1950s TV program but captured the hearts of countless Los Angeles housewives with his soulful, hypnotic gaze and theatrical performance of popular tunes and East Indian compositions on the newly developed Hammond B3 organ. In the ’90s he resurfaced as a cult figure with the tiki/lounge music aficionados and ended up immortalized in the film Ed Wood. Often pegged as a “man of mystery,” Korla lived up to that billing when he took an amazing secret with him to his grave in 1998—one that is finally revealed in KORLA.

The Crane and the Giraffe(es)

What happens when a port crane and a cute giraffe fell in love with each other?

Mutta Kallan(ml)

Britto, a skinny young man striving to get fit, relies on eggs for his protein boost. But when his eggs mysteriously start disappearing, suspicions rise among his four housemates. As frustration builds, Britto is determined to catch the culprit behind the missing eggs.

Timro Chanchale Chulbule Yoban(en)

The music video Timro Chanchale Chulbule Yoban weaves a story of longing, fleeting connections, and unfulfilled desires. Aanchal and Udip, a married couple from Nepal, are struggling with an unhappy relationship. Seeking a break, Aanchal travels to the UK for a holiday. Meanwhile, Paul, a handsome and strong man living in London, dreams of finding the perfect woman to marry. Their paths cross at Tower Bridge, where Paul is instantly captivated by Aanchal's beauty. Mesmerized, he begins to follow her through the city-Tower Bridge to Waterloo Station, and finally to London Bridge-imagining a future together filled with love and happiness. But when Paul turns to approach her, Aanchal suddenly disappears. Reality strikes, and Paul learns she is already married, her sadness hidden behind her beauty. This realization brings Paul back to reality, leaving him to reflect on the bittersweet nature of love and missed chances.

The Squeeker(de)

tricotMOVIE2月号(en)

tricot movie 2

Unexpected Challenges(cn)

Retired Win Kao used to be reknowned as the "Prince of Golf" for over a decade, but now suffers from financial hardship when his golf facilities store hits hard times. Reluctant to seek help because of his pride, he finally approaches strong career girl Jenny Wu after his economic situation hits the headlines in the local newspaper. Win blames Zsa-zsa for the story, the journalist who is dating his son Charles, and begins a campaign to separate them. But his son's relationship seems sincere and reminds him of his lost love with May, his childhood sweetheart who had committed suicide after she gets pregnant and her parents forbid their love.

Gothalo(ne)

Story about a farmer.

Mansion of Blood(en)

Millionaire Mason Murphy renovates the haunted Mayhew mansion. He plans a tremendous lunar eclipse viewing party to celebrate his return to his hometown of River Ridge Iowa. At the party, magic runs out of control and the party guests are murdered one by one.

Nasib Do Re Mi(ms)

Do, Re and Mi in this sequeal tells the tale of a group of gangsters who are planning to rob a bank. So they use this oppurtunity to con them out of it and capture them at the same time. Many comedic memorable moments are carried out through the movie.