The sensational hit of Salzburg's 2008 festival season arrives on DVD! Starring tenor Rolando Villazón in a stunning performance, this was the must have ticket of the season. Soprano Nino Machaidze, only 25 years old, burst upon the Salzburg stage with an emotionally vulnerable and vocally spectacular performance. With movie star good looks and a large, warm voice, Machaidze wowed the press and audiences alike. Tony Award winner (South Pacific) Bartlett Sher directs this production of Gounod's classic opera. With sets by Michael Yeargan and costumes by Catherine Zuber, the visually vibrant production is sure to become the benchmark. Bonus materials includes "Salzburg Impressions--Behind the Scenes of Roméo et Juliette," "Love and Death in Verona" and Villazón giving an introduction to the opera.
Gertrude
Stephano
Benvolio
Paris
The sensational hit of Salzburg's 2008 festival season arrives on DVD! Starring tenor Rolando Villazón in a stunning performance, this was the must have ticket of the season. Soprano Nino Machaidze, only 25 years old, burst upon the Salzburg stage with an emotionally vulnerable and vocally spectacular performance. With movie star good looks and a large, warm voice, Machaidze wowed the press and audiences alike. Tony Award winner (South Pacific) Bartlett Sher directs this production of Gounod's classic opera. With sets by Michael Yeargan and costumes by Catherine Zuber, the visually vibrant production is sure to become the benchmark. Bonus materials includes "Salzburg Impressions--Behind the Scenes of Roméo et Juliette," "Love and Death in Verona" and Villazón giving an introduction to the opera.
2008-01-20
8.7
A stellar Roméo et Juliette from Salzburg!
In Verona, bad blood between the Montague and Capulet families leads to much bitterness. Despite the hostility, Romeo Montague manages an invitation to a masked ball at the estate of the Capulets and meets Juliet, their daughter. The two are instantly smitten but dismayed to learn that their families are enemies. Romeo and Juliet figure out a way to pursue their romance, but Romeo is banished for his part in the slaying of Juliet's cousin, Tybalt.
Follow the mythic journey of Paul Atreides as he unites with Chani and the Fremen while on a path of revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family. Facing a choice between the love of his life and the fate of the known universe, Paul endeavors to prevent a terrible future only he can foresee.
Spanning the years 1945 to 1955, a chronicle of the fictional Italian-American Corleone crime family. When organized crime family patriarch, Vito Corleone barely survives an attempt on his life, his youngest son, Michael steps in to take care of the would-be killers, launching a campaign of bloody revenge.
Ambitious overachiever Hanna just needs one more kid before her life is perfect. Instead, her baby daddy unexpectedly dumps her. Suddenly, she finds herself without a place to live, job or family. With every fiber of her being set for victory, Hanna refuses to give up and decides to win him back. But to get there means having to win something much more important, love and desire for herself and who she is.
Hana spends twenty years suppressing a maleficent curse that was placed upon her bloodline, only to have a family member knowingly release it forcing her to kill or to be killed.
After a pawn shop robbery goes askew, two criminals take refuge at a remote farmhouse to try to let the heat die down, but find something much more menacing.
When the local mafia shows up to burn down her restaurant, Ana, a chef with a meticulous past, defends her turf and proves her knife skills both in and out of the kitchen.
Maria is a cleaning lady, who is reserved, shy and clumsy. When she is assigned to the School of Fine Arts, she meets Hubert, the school's whimsical guardian. There she discovers a fascinating place where freedom, creativity and daring reign.
As New York City is invaded by alien creatures who hunt by sound, a woman named Sam fights to survive with her cat.
Nedumaaran Rajangam "Maara" sets out to make the common man fly and in the process takes on the world's most capital intensive industry and several enemies who stand in his way.
When a group of friends discover how to conjure spirits using an embalmed hand, they become hooked on the new thrill, until one of them goes too far and unleashes terrifying supernatural forces.
Mismatched cousins David and Benji reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the pair's old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history.
International action star Jackie Chan is invited to the adoption ceremony of a rare baby panda, but after an international crime syndicate attempts to kidnap the bear, Jackie has to save the bear using his stunt work skills.
A local activist and a budding young mayor clash over the best path forward for their impoverished suburb.
While working underground to fix a water main, Brooklyn plumbers—and brothers—Mario and Luigi are transported down a mysterious pipe and wander into a magical new world. But when the brothers are separated, Mario embarks on an epic quest to find Luigi.
The hunt for imperial gold continues. A priceless scepter, a treasure that could secure a worry-free life in sunny Rio de Janeiro for Ibrahim Bender and his young apprentice Ostap, has slipped from under their noses and ended up in possession of Nestor Makhno, an anarchist army commander. Makhno is convinced that the scepter is one of many imperial relics hidden in the area. With mafia, partisans, and officers of the Red and White armies all determined to get their hands on the fabled gold cache, Ostap and his mentor Ibrahim must surpass their own brilliance to outmaneuver their rivals and snatch the prize. And with Ostap’s beloved fair maiden losing her trust in him, he must do everything in his power to win her back and stop her from marrying another man.
Revolves around Castro, who was once a very famous TV host, but as he grows old, his popularity is dwindling.
Despite his family’s baffling generations-old ban on music, Miguel dreams of becoming an accomplished musician like his idol, Ernesto de la Cruz. Desperate to prove his talent, Miguel finds himself in the stunning and colorful Land of the Dead following a mysterious chain of events. Along the way, he meets charming trickster Hector, and together, they set off on an extraordinary journey to unlock the real story behind Miguel's family history.
Franco Zeffirelli's magnificient staging of Puccini's final opera - a fairy tale set in a mythical China - is one of the most popular in the Met repertory. In this Live in HD production, Maria Guleghina takes on the title role and Marcello Giordani is Calaf, the unknown prince. Marina Poplavskaya and Samuel Ramey co-star, and Andris Nelsons conducts in his Met debut.
The production bears the imprint of the conductor, Marko Letonja, and the director, Tobias Richter, whose understanding is ideal: both breathe a troupe spirit - specific to comedy - into this heterogeneous cast, which brings together young and old. Both give as much importance to recitatives as to arias and ensembles.
It's an event that draws many thousands of music lovers to one of the most beautiful cities in the world every summer: the opera season at the ancient Arena di Verona. The 2,000-year-old roman amphiteatre with its gigantic stage dimensions is one of the largest and best preserved Roman construction of its kind, and with over 22,000 seats it is undoubtedly one of the most spectacular open-air venues of the world! The revered master of opera Franco Zeffirelli, who died shortly before the premiere of Il Trovatore, created a legendary scenery with groups of giant sized armoured knights, a fortress turning into a luminous cathedral, an enormous choir, horses, breathtaking fights: “his perhaps best arena production” (Opernglas). It brings Anna Netrebko to the Arena of Verona where she is giving her much-anticipated debut in one of Giuseppe Verdi’s most popular operas.
Zaporozhets za Dunayem (Ukrainian: Запорожець за Дунаєм, translated as A Zaporozhian (Cossack) Beyond the Danube, also referred to as Cossacks in Exile) is a Ukrainian comic opera with spoken dialogue in three acts with music and libretto by the composer Semen Hulak-Artemovsky (1813–1873). The orchestration has subsequently been rewritten by composers such as Reinhold Glière and Heorhiy Maiboroda. This is one of the best-known Ukrainian comic operas depicting national themes.
Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the hedonistic and remarkably talented young Viennese composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
The deformed Phantom who haunts the Paris Opera House causes murder and mayhem in an attempt to make the woman he loves a star.
"La Bohème" is one of Giacomo Puccini's most popular and timeless works and the second-most performed opera at New York's Metropolitan Opera. This production, directed by the legendary Franco Zeffirelli, features José Carreras, Teresa Stratas, Renata Scotto and Richard Stilwell. The opera is replete with extraordinary visual beauty as it presents the tragic story of young bohemians struggling to make it in the world.
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. Despite serious initial problems with the Austrian censors who had control over northern Italian theatres at the time, the opera had a triumphant premiere at La Fenice in Venice on 11 March 1851. This 1994 recording, directed by Riccardo Muti, stars Roberto Alagna, Renato Bruson and Andrea Rost.
Semyon Bychkov conducts a cast of young, up-and-coming talent including American soprano Corinne Winters in a new production of Mozart’s opera on the nature of love.
Diana Damrau and Vittorio Grigolo are opera’s classic lovers in Gounod’s lush Shakespeare adaptation. Director Bartlett Sher’s “brilliant and inspired new production … is a revelation” (Huffington Post), and has already won acclaim for its vivid 18th-century milieu and stunning costumes during runs at Salzburg and La Scala. Emmanuel Villaume conducts the sumptuous score.
The legendary Plácido Domingo brings another new baritone role to the Met under the baton of his longtime collaborator James Levine. Liudmyla Monastyrska is Abigaille, the warrior woman determined to rule empires, and Jamie Barton is the heroic Fenena. Dmitri Belosselskiy is the stentorian voice of the oppressed Hebrew people.
The first words uttered by Carmen mark one of the greatest entrances in the history of opera and express all that need be said: “Love is a rebellious bird that no one can tame…” With a devilish sway of the hips and a hint of Andalusian flair, the beautiful cigar-maker sets her sights on a soldier: Don José. Fate will do the rest.
Opera in one act, libretto by G. Forzano based on Dante's Divine Comedy. Third part of his opera Triptych. The plot is based on canto XXX of "Inferno" from "The Divine Comedy", which are dedicated to the rogue and deceiver Gianni Schicchi, who was punished for his sins: he impersonated a dying rich man in order to make a forged will on his behalf. Gianni Schicchi is Puccini's only comic opera, a brilliant example of a modern opera buffa based on the tradition of Verdi's Falstaff. The most expressive recitative, bubbling melody, sharp character, impetuous tempo distinguish her music. Recorded live at Glyndebourne Opera House, Sussex, UK on 11 July 2004.
This was Domingo's last set of performances as Otello in La Scala. In spite of his relatively advanced age, he is still in excellent form, both vocally and in terms of stage presence. Nucci is also his usual self, delivering a performance of very high standard. Barbara Frittoli is an excellent Desdemona, in good voice and gives a very moving performance. Muti conducts with great emotion and tight accuracy, conveying the full orchestral drama of the score.
When Sir John Falstaff decides that he wants to have a little fun he writes two letters to a pair of Window wives: Mistress Ford and Mistress Page. When they put their heads together and compare missives, they plan a practical joke or two to teach the knight a lesson. But Mistress Ford's husband is a very jealous man and is pumping Falstaff for information of the affair. Meanwhile the Pages' daughter Anne is besieged by suitors.
Pagliacci, is a 1948 Italian film based on Ruggero Leoncavallo's opera Pagliacci, directed by Mario Costa. The film stars Tito Gobbi and Gina Lollobrigida. It recounts the tragedy of Canio, the lead clown (or pagliaccio in Italian) in a commedia dell'arte troupe, his wife Nedda, and her lover, Silvio. When Nedda spurns the advances of Tonio, another player in the troupe, he tells Canio about Nedda's betrayal. In a jealous rage Canio murders both Nedda and Silvio. The only actor in the cast who also sang his role was the celebrated Italian baritone, Tito Gobbi, but the film is largely very faithful to its source material, presenting the opera nearly complete.
A film version of the famous Bizet opera, where a soldier (Don Jose) falls in love with a beautiful factory worker (Carmen), but she does not reciprocate his feelings.
Cio-Cio-San, a young Japanese geisha, seeks to fulfill her dreams through marriage to an American naval officer. Her faith in their future is shattered by his empty vows and the loss she endures touches something deep within us all.
Take a perfect cast, a great conductor and a groundbreaking staging in-out makes a 'Tristan' for eternity. The 1983 performance in Bayreuth was a great moment for the world of opera. The ensemble performance of René Kollo, Johanna Meier and Matti Salminen with, then as now the Wagner admirer, Daniel Barenboim conducting the Bayreuth orchestra inspired singers and instrumentalists to peak performance. Jean-Pierre Ponnelle created a dream-beautiful stage.