The Metropolitan Opera: Cavalleria Rusticana & Pagliacci (2015)

Six Reasons Why

In a desolate place called the Badlands, four men stand off with guns drawn, their fingers ready at the trigger. Among them are a fugitive seeking redemption, a son out to avenge his father's murder, a loyal servant with a secret and a murderous criminal hired to kill with a vengeance. This is their story...in a place where revenge, deception and cruelty are a way of life.

Mythica: The Iron Crown

When a team of unlikely heroes hijacks a steam-powered battle wagon, a daring young wizard (Marek) steals the final piece of the all-powerful Darkspore and embarks on a desperate quest to deliver the cursed artifact to the gods for safe keeping; but when they are caught in a death race between a ruthless team of elite mercenaries and a trinity of demons, Marek must learn to believe in herself before her friends are killed and the Darkspore is lost, to stop the evil necromancer (Szorlok) from uniting the Darkspore and flooding the living world with his legions of undead.

The Day After

On her first day at work, Areum replaces a woman who broke up with the boss. The wife of the boss finds a love note, bursts into the office, and mistakes Areum for the other woman.

George W. Bush

This two-part, four-hour look at the life and presidency of George W. Bush features interviews with historians, journalists and several members of the president’s inner circle. Part One chronicles Bush’s unorthodox road to the White House. The once wild son of a political dynasty, few expected Bush to ascend to the presidency. Yet 36 days after the November 2000 election, Bush emerged the victor of the most hotly contested race in the nation's history. Little in the new president’s past could have prepared him for the events that unfolded on September 11, 2001. Thrust into the role of war president, Bush's response to the deadly terrorist attack would come to define a new era in American foreign policy. Part Two opens with the ensuing war in Iraq and continues through Bush’s second term, as the president confronts the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina and the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression.

The American Backyard

A troubled young man falls for an American military auxiliary in postwar Italy. A year later, he relocates to the American Midwest to write his first novel, next to her elderly mother's house—separated by a grim garden.

The Spirit of Christmas: Jesus vs. Santa

Four carolling children meet Jesus and Santa Claus and learn the true meaning of Christmas.

The Falls: Testament of Love

The Falls: Testament of Love is a continuation of the story of RJ Smith and Chris Merrill, two Mormon missionaries that fell in love during their mission in a small town in Oregon. The boys haven't spoken in five years, but when an unexpected tragedy compells them back to the Oregon town where they served, they find themselves, once again, thrust into one another's lives. As old feelings begin to surface they find themselves again facing difficult choices. If they pursue their desire to be together, RJ and Chris risk hurting the ones they care about as they embark on a spiritual journey to discover love, freedom, and happiness.

Instant Dreams

There could hardly be a more telling contrast between the analog and digital eras than the beautifully blurry memories captured in a Polaroid picture and the thousands of pin-sharp photos on an iPhone. In this ambitious visual essay, Willem Baptist explores the visionary genius of Edwin H. Land, the inventor of the Polaroid camera. Even today, all sorts of people are keeping his instant dream alive. Former Polaroid employee Stephen Herchen moved from the United States to Europe to work in a laboratory developing the 2.0 version of Polaroid. Christopher Bonanos, the author of Instant: The Story of Polaroid, tells us, "When I heard Polaroid would stop making film, it felt like a close friend had died." Artist Stefanie Schneider, who is working with the last of her stock of Polaroid film, is using the blurring that occurs with expired film as an additional aesthetic layer in her photographic work.

Would I Lie to You? 2

Eddie, Dov, and Yvan are back, still working in Paris' Sentier textile district, This time they're confronting the high-stakes world of large distribution after striking a deal with Eurodiscount, a European hypermarket chain.

Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

The bonds between Naomi and Ely are tested when they fall for the same guy.

The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years

The Beatles stormed through Europe's music scene in 1963, and, in 1964, they conquered America. Their groundbreaking world tours changed global youth culture forever and, arguably, invented mass entertainment as we know it today. All the while, the group were composing and recording a series of extraordinarily successful singles and albums. However the relentless pressure of such unprecedented fame, that in 1966 became uncontrollable turmoil, led to the decision to stop touring. In the ensuing years The Beatles were then free to focus on a series of albums that changed the face of recorded music.

State and Main

A movie crew invades a small town whose residents are all too ready to give up their values for showbiz glitz.

Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces

Ninety minutes of deleted and alternate takes from Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, assembled by David Lynch to continue the story of the final week of Laura Palmer’s life.

Things to Come

Nathalie teaches philosophy at a high school in Paris. She is passionate about her job and particularly enjoys passing on the pleasure of thinking. Married with two children, she divides her time between her family, former students and her very possessive mother. One day, Nathalie’s husband announces he is leaving her for another woman. With freedom thrust upon her, Nathalie must reinvent her life.

The Inner Scar

A composition of symbolic, surreal and almost mystic images.

Gad Elmaleh - Papa est en haut

Dans ce spectacle, mis en scène par sa soeur Judith Elmaleh, il parle de son enfance, de son fils et de son père ; 750 000 places seront vendus.

Beethoven's 5th

When Sara takes Beethoven to spend summer vacation with wacky Uncle Freddie in an old mining town, the mischievous canine "digs up" the missing clue to a legendary hidden fortune of Rita and Moe Selig. Now everybody wants to be the dog's best friend as his discovery unleashes a frenzy of treasure hunting among the community's cast of kooky creatures. With help from Uncle Freddie and Garrett (a friend or maybe more), Sara and Beethoven try to help uncover a secret that has been in the crazy little town for years.

Eye of the Leopard

Eye of the Leopard follows the remarkable life of one small leopard from when she is just 8 days old every step of the way until she is 3 years old and on the brink of adulthood. Legadema, as she is named, works her way into your heart as she slips in and out of danger virtually every day, running from baboons and hyenas but also making landmark strides in hunting and surviving. Narrated by Jeremy Irons it is the story of a mother and daughter relationship as well as that of an emerging huntress in Botswana’s magnificent Mombo region of the Okavango Delta.

About Our Astronauts

Three cosmonauts bid farewell to their loved ones and embark on a journey into space, where they encounter discoveries in uncharted territory yet to be explored by humankind.

Night of the Living Dead: Re-Animation

After inheriting the family mortuary, a pyrophobic mortician accidentally exposes hundreds of un-cremated bodies to toxic medical waste. As the corpses re-animate, the mortician's inheritance-seeking younger brother unexpectantly shows up, stumbling upon a full zombie outbreak!

Wonderstruck

The story of a young boy in the Midwest is told simultaneously with a tale about a young girl in New York from fifty years ago as they both seek the same mysterious connection.

Six Hundred and Sixty-Six

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.

Welcome to Me

A year in the life of Alice Klieg, a woman with Borderline personality disorder who wins the Mega Millions lottery, quits her meds and buys her own talk show.

Thi Mai

After losing her daughter in an accident, Carmen loses all incentive to keep going, until she receives an unexpected letter from the adoption agency: her daughter was finally granted the Vietnamese girl she had asked for adoption and whose name is Thi Mai.

Mother's Day

Sandy is a stressed-out, single mom who learns that her ex-husband is marrying a younger woman. Her friend Jesse's parents don't know that she has a family or that her sister, Gabi is married to a woman. Jesse's friend, Kristin, is juggling motherhood of a toddler, a patient boyfriend who keeps proposing, and searching for her biological mother. Bradley is a widower who's trying to raise two daughters on his own, while Miranda is too busy with her career to worry about children. When their respective problems intersect and start coming to a head, the Mother's Day holiday takes on a special meaning for all.

The Avenger

Aeneas leads escapees from the Trojan war to new land in Italy, and must deal with new threats to his people.

Naruto OVA 11: Sunny Side Battle

Sunny Side Battle! is an OVA that was released with Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution. It features Itachi making breakfast for Sasuke in their old home.

Growing Up Smith

In 1979, an Indian family moves to America with hopes of living the American Dream. While their 10-year-old boy Smith falls head-over-heels for the girl next door, his desire to become a "good old boy" propels him further away from his family's ideals than ever before.

The Empire

In a quiet fishing village on northern France's Opal Coast, the birth of a peculiar child sparks a hidden war between extraterrestrial forces of good and evil.

Wedding in Blood

Lucienne Delamare and Pierre Maury are having an affair. Lucienne's husband Paul is the mayor, and a French deputy. Pierre's wife Clotilde has been weak and sickly for years. Lucienne's husband holds no excitement for her, and he is always away in Paris on business. Pierre is now the vice-mayor, thanks to Paul. Lucienne and Pierre have a secret meeting spot by a lake along a country lane. Pierre's wife dies suddenly, by suicide the town gossips believe. Pierre confesses otherwise to Lucienne. Paul proposes a shady land deal which will "benefit the town", and wants Pierre's political support and collusion. Then Paul discovers proof of his wife's affair...

Slaughterhouse-Five

Billy Pilgrim, a veteran of the Second World War, finds himself mysteriously detached from time, so that he is able to travel, without being able to help it, from the days of his childhood to those of his peculiar life on a distant planet called Tralfamadore, passing through his bitter experience as a prisoner of war in the German city of Dresden, over which looms the inevitable shadow of an unspeakable tragedy.

Che: Part One

The Argentine, begins as Che and a band of Cuban exiles (led by Fidel Castro) reach the Cuban shore from Mexico in 1956. Within two years, they mobilized popular support and an army and toppled the U.S.-friendly regime of dictator Fulgencio Batista.

Liquid Sky

An alien creature invades New York's punk subculture in its search for an opiate released by the brain during an orgasm.

Patti Cake$

Straight out of Jersey comes Patricia Dombrowski, a.k.a. Killa P, a.k.a. Patti Cake$, an aspiring rapper fighting through a world of strip malls and strip clubs on an unlikely quest for glory.

The Invisible Man Returns

The owner of a coal mining operation, falsely imprisoned for fratricide, takes a drug to make him invisible, despite its side effect: gradual madness.

First Day of School

A documentary about an Iranian boy's first day of school. The beginning of hardships and understanding the realities of life, and perhaps unwanted pain and suffering.

The Magician

Dr. Vogler's, a nineteenth-century traveling mesmerist and peddler of potions, magic is put to the test in Stockholm by the cruel, eminently rational royal medical adviser Dr. Vergérus.

Amadeus

Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the hedonistic and remarkably talented young Viennese composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Bellini: La Sonnambula

Just as a young woman is about to marry her sweetheart, she is discovered—by the entire village, to say nothing of her fiancé—asleep in the bedroom of a stranger. It takes the young man two acts to figure out that sleepwalking is to blame, and everything ends happily. Natalie Dessay as Amina and Juan Diego Flórez as Elvino deliver bel canto magic and vocal fireworks in Mary Zimmerman’s 2009 production. The Tony award-winning director transfers Bellini’s bucolic tale to a rehearsal room in contemporary New York, where an opera company rehearses La Sonnambula—and where the singers are truly in love with each other.

The Phantom of the Opera

The deformed Phantom who haunts the Paris Opera House causes murder and mayhem in an attempt to make the woman he loves a star.

Birth

It took Anna 10 years to recover from the death of her husband, Sean, but now she's on the verge of marrying her boyfriend, Joseph, and finally moving on. However, on the night of her engagement party, a young boy named Sean turns up, saying he is her dead husband reincarnated. At first she ignores the child, but his knowledge of her former husband's life is uncanny, leading her to believe that he might be telling the truth.

Così fan tutte

Who loves whom in Così fan tutte, Mozart’s and Da Ponte’s cruelly comic reflection on desire, fidelity and betrayal? Or have the confusions to which the main characters subject one another ensured that in spite of the heartfelt love duets and superficially fleetfooted comedy nothing will work any longer and that a sense of emotional erosion has replaced true feelings? Così fan tutte is a timeless work full of questions that affect us all. The Academy Award-winning director Michael Haneke once said that he was merely being precise and did not want to distort reality. In only his second opera production after Don Giovanni in 2006, he presents what ARTE described as a “disillusioned vision of love in an ice-cold, realistic interpretation”.

Tosca

Non-musical account of Puccini's opera: Tosca and Cavaradossi are in love, but the tyrant Scarpia desires Tosca and oppresses Cavaradossi who is fighting for freedom.

The Secret Lives of Dentists

An introspective dentist's suspicions about his wife's infidelity stresses his mental well being and family life to the breaking point.

Carmen

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.

Madame Butterfly

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.

Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali - Wexford Festival Opera

Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali (Conventions and Inconveniences of the Stage) is a two-act opera that shines an exaggerated spotlight on the behind-the-scenes working of a theatre and the rehearsal process, showing what can go wrong when the egos of the performers get in the way of putting on a good show. A regional (and mediocre) operatic troupe is rehearsing a new work and faces numerous obstacles. The prima donna acts every bit the diva, refusing to rehearse. The Tenor finds himself in the wrong production and quite out of his depth. The Seconda Donna’s mother (played by a baritone) demands that her daughter be given a more prominent role, before deciding to take on several roles herself. Not be outshone, the Prima Donna’s husband takes to the stage too. When the show eventually collapses and the company tries to flee under cover of night, rather than pay back all the investors (whose money has already been spent), the Impresario has other plans…

Aria

Ten short pieces directed by ten different directors, including Ken Russell, Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Altman, Bruce Beresford, and Nicolas Roeg. Each short uses an aria as soundtrack/sound, and is an interpretation of the particular aria.

Moonstruck

37-year-old Italian-American widow Loretta Castorini believes she is unlucky in love, and so accepts a marriage proposal from her boyfriend Johnny, even though she doesn't love him. When she meets his estranged younger brother Ronny, an emotional and passionate man, she finds herself drawn to him. She tries to resist, but Ronny, who blames his brother for the loss of his hand, has no scruples about aggressively pursuing her while Johnny is out of the country. As Loretta falls for Ronny, she learns that she's not the only one in her family with a secret romance.

The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh

Opera lies at the heart of Rimsky-Korsakov's colourful idiom, but performances are few and far between; this realisation of his penultimate and grandest stage work is a very rare and special experience. Kitezh is known as "the Russian Parsifal", which encapsulates its mystical flavour and steady unfolding of a legend of redemption

Hannah and Her Sisters

Between two Thanksgivings, Hannah's husband falls in love with her sister Lee, while her hypochondriac ex-husband rekindles his relationship with her sister Holly.

Nabucco

St. Margarethen is a magnificent structure and a grand setting for Nabucco. This venue, along with the gorgeous costumes, spectacular lighting, lasers and pyrotechnics made for one grand, five star production! This is reason enough to see it and it must be an advantage to view it on DVD.--It would probably be harder to digest the whole spectacle if you were actually sitting in the audience, as there is so much to take in. The whole cast was in great form, both in singing and acting. Simon Yang as Zaccaria and Igor Morosow as Nabucco were excellent. Gabriella Morigi was a convincing Abigail who got better and better. Bruno Ribeiro as Ismaele and Elisabeth Kulman as Fenena were great, too.

Death in Venice

Gustav Von Aschenbach, a passionate composer, arrives in Venice as a result of wanderlust and there meets a young man by whose beauty he becomes obsessed.

The Climax

Dr. Hohner, theatre physician at the Vienna Royal Theatre, murders his mistress, the star soprano when his jealousy drives him to the point of mad obsession. Ten years later, another young singer reminds Hohner of the late diva and his old mania kicks in. Hohner wants to prevent her from singing for anyone but him, even if it means silencing her forever.

The Metropolitan Opera: Tosca

Sir David McVicar’s bold new staging of Tosca, Puccini’s operatic thriller of Napoleonic Rome, thrilled Met audiences when it rang in the New Year in 2018. Only weeks later, the production was seen by opera lovers worldwide as part of the Met’s Live in HD series of cinema presentations. In this performance, Bulgarian soprano Sonya Yoncheva is the passionate title diva, opposite charismatic tenor Vittorio Grigolo as her lover, the idealistic painter Mario Cavaradossi. Baritone Željko Lučić is the menacing Baron Scarpia, the evil chief of police who employs brutal tactics to ensnare both criminals and sexual conquests. On the podium, Emmanuel Villaume conducts the electrifying score, which features some of Puccini’s most memorable melodies.

Rabbit of Seville

Behind the Hollywood Bowl stage which is playing the opera The Barber of Seville, Bugs Bunny flees into the backstage area with Elmer Fudd in close pursuit. Seeing his opportunity to fight on his terms, Bugs raises the curtain on Elmer, trapping him on stage. As the orchestra begins playing, Bugs comes into play as the barber who is going to make sure that Elmer is going to get a grooming he will never forget.

What's Opera, Doc?

Elmer Fudd is again hunting rabbits - only this time it's an opera. Wagner's Siegfried with Elmer as the titular hero and Bugs as Brunnhilde. They sing, they dance, they eat the scenery.

Carmen Jones

At an all-Black army camp, civilian parachute maker and "hot bundle" Carmen Jones is desired by many of the men. Naturally, she wants Joe, who's engaged to sweet Cindy Lou and about to go into pilot training for the Korean War.

La traviata

This “Traviata” became one of the most succesful of all opera films, especially in France, where 800,000 Parisian cinemagoers flocked to it in the first six week. It was nominated for two Oscars (for production and costume design) and won BAFTAs in those two categories, as well as receiving BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations as 1983’s Best Foreign-Language Film.

Rossini: Guillaume Tell

The hero of this admirably complete August 2013 Guillaume Tell from Pesaro is homegrown maestro Michele Mariotti. The inimitable overture is (mercifully) unstaged and terrifically played, with splendid cello and flute solos: the fine standard never flags. Rossini’s extraordinary 1829 score audibly presages Meyerbeer, Berlioz, Glinka, Verdi and Wagner, among many others. Graham Vick’s direction privileges class conflict, with a clenched fist on the red-and-white forecurtain. The Edwardian costumes place Austrians in white evening garb; the black-clad Swiss polish the floor while the rulers savor a filming (much of that to follow) — the fisherman Ruodi, in a boat with a blonde and fake scenery, with Tell and his family providing tech support. Vick deploys geographical and historical kitsch liberally but not (always) pointlessly. Ron Howell’s pretentious, mannered choreography, however, beggars belief.

The 3 Tenors in Concert 1994

It's not opera; it's not a pop concert; it's not Broadway. It's all of these and none of them. Once you accept the fact that this sequel to the original blockbuster concert recording is less about music and more about entertainment and the power of musical personalities, you can appreciate what you're hearing as an event--phenomenal and bizarre, momentous and frivolous. This is an occasion to celebrate the voices and egos of three huge superstars, and to have fun listening as Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, and Jose Carreras interact, bouncing lines off each other and playing to the overwhelmingly enthusiastic audience.

The Magic Flute

During World War I, in an unnamed country, a soldier named Tamino is sent by the Queen of the Night to rescue her daughter Pamina from the clutches of the supposedly evil Sarastro. But all is not as it seems.

A Night at the Opera

The Marx Brothers take on high society and the opera world to bring two lovers together. A sly business manager and two wacky friends of two opera singers help them achieve success while humiliating their stuffy and snobbish enemies.

Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny

John Dexter’s brilliant production, James Levine’s masterful conducting of the eclectic score, and a sensational cast come together to make this Kurt Weill–Bertolt Brecht masterpiece a riveting evening of music theater. At the center of the action is Jimmy Mahoney (Richard Cassilly), a logger who stumbles onto the city of Mahagonny, where (almost) anything is allowed. Teresa Stratas gives a mesmerizing performance as Jenny, the prostitute who takes up with Jimmy, until he is executed for the greatest of all crimes in Mahagonny—to not have any money. The legendary Astrid Varnay, in her final Met appearances, is Leocadia Begbick, and Cornell MacNeil sings Trinity Moses.

Evensong

Loosely based on the story of the singer Nellie Melba...

The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes

Dark fairytale about a demonic doctor who abducts a beautiful opera singer with designs on transforming her into a mechanical nightingale.

The Magic Flute

The Queen of the Night enlists a handsome prince named Tamino to rescue her beautiful kidnapped daughter, Princess Pamina, in this screen adaptation of the beloved Mozart opera. Aided by the lovelorn bird hunter Papageno and a magical flute that holds the power to change the hearts of men, young Tamino embarks on a quest for true love, leading to the evil Sarastro's temple where Pamina is held captive.

Aida

This Italian film version of Verdi's opera stars Sophia Loren on the screen, with Renata Tebaldi providing the vocals.

Swan Lake

The Royal Ballet performs Tchaikovsky's classic ballet, choreographed by Liam Scarlett and starring Marianela Nunez as Odette/Odile and Vadim Muntagirov as Prince Siegfried.

Interrupted Melody

Interrupted Melody is the inspirational filmed biography of world-renowned Australian soprano Marjorie Lawrence. She’s a foremost Wagnerian, equal to the vocal and physical demands of the composer’s oeuvre. And she’s a beacon of triumph to anyone who fights back when personal tragedy strikes.

Margaret

A young woman witnesses a bus accident, and is caught up in the aftermath, where the question of whether or not it was intentional affects many people's lives.

Maria

Maria Callas, the world's greatest opera singer, lives the last days of her life in 1970s Paris, as she confronts her identity and life.

Maytime

An aging opera singer looks back on her long life, including her relationships with her vocal teacher and a student.

The Tales of Hoffmann

A young poet named Hoffman broods over his failed romances. First, his affair with the beautiful Olympia is shattered when he realizes that she is really a mechanical woman designed by a scientist. Next, he believes that a striking prostitute loves him, only to find out she was hired to fake her affections by the dastardly Dapertutto. Lastly, a magic spell claims the life of his final lover.

Rossini: La Cenerentola

"Irresistible" (Opera News) rising-star mezzo Elina Garanca triumphs as Rossini's Cinderella in this delightful Metropolitan Opera production. "As close to pure joy as you will find in a big-time opera house" (New Yorker), conquering audiences and critics alike, "Garanca has a gorgeous voice that she uses with exceptional skill, melting tenderness; but when the part calls for coloratura fireworks, she unleashes a flawless technique and ringing high notes of impressive power" (Associated Press). Filmed in High Definition Widescreen.

Orphée aux enfers

Marc Minkowski conducts the Orchestra and Chorus of the Opera National de Lyon in this 1997 production of Offenbach's opera starring Natalie Dessay, Yann Beuron, Jean-Paul Fouchecourt and Laurent Naouri.

Callas Forever

Aging opera singer Maria Callas tries to make a comeback by performing in a production of Bizet's "Carmen."

And the Spring Comes

In a grimy provincial industrial city, a talented but unattractive schoolteacher dreams of an operatic career.

Celeste

Celeste is a renowned opera diva who retired early for the man she loved to live on a crumbling and beautiful estate in the heart of a rainforest in Far North Queensland. Ten years after the tragic death of her husband, Mateos, in a boating accident, Celeste is set to return to the stage for her final performance. Her husband’s son Jack, still haunted by the past, arrives amidst the preparations for the performance and finds Celeste is as he remembered – beautiful, intoxicating and dangerous. Celeste wants Jack to stay at the estate, but needs him to perform one last request.

The Lilac Domino

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.

The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall

A disfigured musical genius, hidden away in the Paris Opera House, terrorises the opera company for the unwitting benefit of a young protégée whom he trains and loves. The 25th anniversary of the first public performance of Phantom of the Opera was celebrated with a grand performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

Serenade

A wealthy woman discovers a vineyard worker with a beautiful operatic singing voice. She helps make him a star but then breaks his heart. He flees in misery to Mexico where he meets a sweet farm girl.

Berlioz: Les Troyens

Berlioz’s epic masterpiece retells the magnificent saga of the aftermath of the Trojan War and the exploits of Aeneas. Rising tenor Bryan Hymel, in his Met debut, stars as the hero charged by the gods with the founding of the city of Rome. Susan Graham is Dido, Queen of Carthage, who becomes Aeneas’s lover, and Deborah Voigt sings Cassandra, the Trojan princess whose warnings about the impending destruction of Troy go unheeded. Francesca Zambello’s atmospheric production, featuring choreography by Doug Varone, is led by Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi.

Long-Haired Hare

Bugs Bunny vs. a famous opera singer at the Hollywood Bowl.

Mozart, l'Opéra Rock

The show is a dramatization of the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart beginning from the age of 17 and culminating with his death in 1791 at the age of 35.

Wagner: Das Rheingold

This is a beautifully conducted and thoughtfully staged performance of the first opera (the prologue) in Wagner's Ring Cycle. As soon as the clouds of mist have dissipated, while the daring, long-held opening chord is still reverberating, the screen clears to show not only the River Rhine and the three maidens (dressed like prostitutes in this production) assigned to guard the gold hidden there. It also shows an enormous dam (not mentioned in Wagner's text). This is the underwater base of a hydroelectric plant, and its presence tells us two things immediately: that this production takes the story out of the vaguely medieval fantasy world in which Wagner had placed it, and that a basic theme of the four-opera cycle would be power. Alberich, the Nibelung, is willing to renounce the love of women, after stealing the gold from the Rhine, to become the ruler of the world. Another basic theme is greed.

Mozart: Don Giovanni

Premiered in 1787, “Don Giovanni” exposes the timeless theme of a man hovering between vitality and destruction. Neither morality nor the law can stop this serial lover in his quest to conquer all women as he places his own pleasure above all other principles. Today, the rich depth of Mozart’s masterpiece still astonishes audiences with its mix of comedy and seriousness, pleasure and love, entertainment and murder. At the helm of this new Salzburg Festival production, in a near-live broadcast from the Great Festival Hall, director Romeo Castellucci promises to focus on the ambiguity and inner turmoil of this serial lover whose immoral behaviour condemns him to a deadly solitude. The exceptional cast – featuring Italian baritone Davide Luciano (Don Giovanni), Russian soprano Nadezhda Pavlova (Donna Anna) and Finnish bass Mika Kares (the Commendatore) – is accompanied by the chorus and musicians of the musicAeterna ensemble, conducted by Vitaly Polonsky and Teodor Currentzis.

Brokeback Mountain

A tragic and secretive romance ensues over many years after two men meet while herding sheep on Brokeback Mountain in this opera based on Annie Proulx's short story and its subsequent Oscar-winning film adaptation.

I, Don Giovanni

A drama based on the life of 18th century Italian lyricist Lorenzo da Ponte, who collaborated with Mozart on his "Don Giovanni" opera.

La Bohème

Giacomo Puccini's immortal opera, in a high budget feature-film version directed by Academy Award nominee Robert Dornhelm, stars opera's 'Golden Couple', Rolando Villazon and Anna Netrebko as the protagonists, Rodolfo and Mimi. The chemistry between them is electric, unrivalled in the theatre today. Russian soprano Anna Netrebko is not only beautiful but has a marvelous voice and technique; Mexican tenor Rolando Villazon, has a wonderful voice and an incredible charisma. The director not only wanted to remain steadfastly faithful to Puccini's design but also document two of the leading singers of the modern age rather than embarking on a 'trendy' contemporary re-creation.

The Nutcracker

Clara is given an enchanted Nutcracker doll on Christmas Eve. As midnight strikes, she creeps downstairs to find a magical adventure awaiting her and her Nutcracker. The magician Drosselmeyer transforms the drawing room into a battle between mice and toy soldiers. During the battle, Clara saves the Nutcracker’s life – so breaking a magical spell that turned him from a boy to a toy – and the Mouse King is defeated. In celebration, Drosselmeyer sweeps Clara and the Nutcracker off to the Kingdom of Sweets, where they meet the Sugar Plum Fairy and take part in a wonderful display of dances. The next morning, Clara’s adventures seem to have been more than just a dream.