Good Stock On The Dimension Floor: An Opera (2014)

Cosi Fan Tutte

An excellent performance of this delightful opera. The principals are superb, especially the sisters. Bruscantini as Don Alfonso is past his prime, but he knows and understands the role inside out, so one does not even notice his vocal limitations. Araiza is in top form as Ferrando, and Morris makes virile Guglielmo. The only disappointment is Battle as Despina. Unlike her partners, she does not have feel for the Mozart ensemble, and her vocal mannerisms are totally unbecoming. How the producers allowed that to happen is a mystery. Muti's conducting is terrific, much better than on his La Scala video, where he is uninvolved.

Benvenuto Cellini

With his affinity for the 16th-century sculptor Benvenuto Cellini's advocacy of artistic and personal freedom, Hector Berlioz went straight for the grand gesture with his first completed opera. Returning to it years after initial production debacles, Berlioz stated that he would 'never again find such verve and Cellinian impetuosity, nor such a variety of ideas.' The plot revolves around Cellini's wooing of Teresa, a match frustrated at every opportunity by his rival, the cowardly Fieramosca. Benvenuto Cellini is a pithy work combining romance, excitement, violence, comedy and spectacle; the perfect stage for Terry Gilliam's stylishly colorful and larger than life directing.

Aida - Arena di Verona

The grand scale and magnificent acoustics of the Roman arena in Verona are ideally suited to the pageantry of Verdi's Egyptian opera, presented here in a staging that is true to the original 1913 production, framed by obelisks and sphinxes and filled with chorus and dancers. Chinese soprano Hui He has won international acclaim for her portrayal of the eponymous slave girl whose forbidden love for the war hero Radamés (Marco Berti, the experienced Verdi tenor) brings death to them both.

The Blues Brothers

Jake Blues, just released from prison, puts his old band back together to save the Catholic home where he and his brother Elwood were raised.

Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story

The final 17 years of American singer and musician Karen Carpenter, performed almost entirely by modified Barbie dolls.

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.

Elektra

Strauss's opera adapted to the screen by Gotz Friedrich.

Daybreak Express

Set to a classic Duke Ellington recording "Daybreak Express", this is a five-minute short of the soon-to-be-demolished Third Avenue elevated subway station in New York City.

Ray

Born on a sharecropping plantation in Northern Florida, Ray Charles went blind at seven. Inspired by a fiercely independent mom who insisted he make his own way, He found his calling and his gift behind a piano keyboard. Touring across the Southern musical circuit, the soulful singer gained a reputation and then exploded with worldwide fame when he pioneered coupling gospel and country together.

Amadeus

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

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”.

Puccini: La bohème

"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.

La Vie parisienne

La Vie parisienne (Parisian life) is an opéra bouffe, or operetta, composed by Jacques Offenbach in 1866, with a libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. This work was Offenbach's first full-length piece to portray contemporary Parisian life, unlike his earlier period pieces and mythological subjects. It became one of Offenbach's most popular operettas.

Queercore: How to Punk a Revolution

A documentary on Queercore, the cultural and social movement that began as an offshoot of punk and was distinguished by its discontent with society's disapproval of the gay, bisexual, lesbian and transgender communities.

We Could All Do With a Little Back & Forth As Far As It Concerns the To & Fro of Everywhere Each of Us Go

(Some of us) Still run down the same [mental&emotional] streets we revered/reproached/replaced as children.

The Metropolitan Opera - Puccini: Manon Lescaut

Kristine Opolais is the young woman whose conflicting desires for love and luxury lead to her tragic end, and Roberto Alagna plays the man who falls for her in Puccini’s early hit. Richard Eyre’s elegant production, which sets the action in 1940s occupied France, was one of the highlights of the Met’s 2015–16 season. Massimo Cavalletti as Manon’s brother and Brindley Sherratt as her aging admirer co-star, and Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi is on the podium.

Hiding Under a Copy of the Strokes' Single 'Under Cover of Darkness'

Hiding inside&out, writhing about, taken out&in.

Mefistofele

The director, Roland Schwab, has created his version of Hell. The set is like a high iron walled hanger and the stage is continually occupied with people who look like fugitives from Mad Max and who interact with Mefistofele. The orchestra and choir are wonderful. Rene Pape gives a nuanced interpretation with a certain amount of sardonic humour under the evil. His singing and acting are first rate, as is that of Kristine Opolais and Joseph Calleja.

Farinelli

The life and career of Italian opera singer Farinelli, considered one of the greatest castrato singers of all time.

Kaija Saariaho: Innocence

The world premiere of composer Kaija Saariaho's opera, "Innocence", at the 2021 Aix-en-Provence Festival. Finland is the setting but the protagonists come from the four corners of Europe: a Finnish groom and his Romanian bride, a French mother-in-law and a Czech maid. Around them memories unravel in a contemporary tragedy of guilt and lost innocence.

Rudi Stephan: Die ersten Menschen

The 2021 production by the Dutch National Opera of the work by German composer Rudi Stephan (1887–1915) "Die ersten Menschen" ("The First Humans"), completed in 1914 to a libretto by Otto Borngräber interpreting the Biblical story of the Garden of Eden through symbolism and the then nascent science of psychoanalysis. This production was part of the Holland Festival of Amsterdam.

Sting : My Songs au château de Chambord

Plot unavailable

Beatles Electroniques

Part of a collection of restored early works by Nam June Paik, the haunting Beatles Electronique reveals Paik's engagement with manipulation of pop icons and electronic images. Snippets of footage from A Hard Day's Night are countered with Paik's early electronic processing.

Space Is the Place

Sun Ra and his Solar Myth Arkestra return to Earth after several years in space. Ra proclaims himself "the alter-destiny", meets with inner-city youths and battles with the devil himself to save the black race.

Freydís and Gudrid

A group of merchants and vikings navigate dramatic events both within and without in this epic musical based on the Icelandic Vinland sagas. As secrets are exposed, two women (Freydís and Gudrid) have a reckoning.

The Glenn Miller Story

A vibrant tribute to one of America's legendary bandleaders, charting Glenn Miller's rise from obscurity and poverty to fame and wealth in the early 1940s.

Wagner: Die Walküre

Richard Wagner called Die Walküre the “first evening” of the Ring of the Nibelung; he called Das Rheingold the prologue or Vorabend. Musically and dramatically, we are introduced to a radically new and different world when the opening bars of Die Walküre resound. A fully developed orchestral palette of Leitmotivs paints a wild storm scene, and the curtain rises on a modest dwelling: a fully human scene that has nothing to do with the gods, dwarves and nymphs of Das Rheingold. At the same time, however, the way Die Walküre portrays radical beginnings reveals some telling reminiscences of the unfolding of Das Rheingold. Die Walküre is exciting and deeply feeling drama.

The Bartered Bride

Frantisek Filip film version of the Smetana opera.

Rigoletto

This tragic story revolves around the licentious Duke of Mantua, his hunch-backed court jester Rigoletto, and Rigoletto's beautiful daughter Gilda. The opera's original title, La maledizione (The Curse), refers to the curse placed on both the Duke and Rigoletto by a courtier whose daughter had been seduced by the Duke with Rigoletto's encouragement. The curse comes to fruition when Gilda likewise falls in love with the Duke and eventually sacrifices her life to save him from the assassins hired by her father.

Charlie Parker: Bird Songs

In 1955, on his report, a medical examiner wrote in the box: age, “about 53 years”. Charlie Parker nicknamed Bird just died, at 34. His death will be the ransom of a life that was not denied to the excesses or the consuming flame of genius. His wildest improvisations will open the door to future jazzmen. Between shadow and light this film will pay tribute to one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century.

Crazy

Crazy is the story of a legendary guitar player who emerged from Nashville in the 1950s. Blessed with incomparable, natural talent, Hank Garland quickly established his reputation as the finest sessions player in Nashville.

Tosca

To open its 2019-2020 season, La Scala in Milan has chosen Tosca, in a new production directed by Davide Livermore. The production is part of the rediscovery of Italian opera led by Riccardo Chailly, the conductor of the production and music director of La Scala. He has chosen the original version of Tosca, as created by Puccini in Rome in January 1900, which included eight "additional musical inserts" that were removed from the work after its second performance in Turin in February 1900 and will now be rediscovered for the first time on December 7 at La Scala.

Wagner: Parsifal

German composer Richard Wagner wrote Parsifal, which is a three-act opera that tells the story of the title character's quest to save the Knights of the Holy Grail by returning the Holy Spear, healing King Amfortas, and carrying out the sacred ceremony of uncovering the Holy Grail.

Revisited Remunerations Rapturously Collapse When Recompensed

Your raging romp results only in rescinded regret @ the hands of radder cadets.

Cosi Fan Tutte

There are elements of Eurotrash in this outdoor Aix-en-Provence summer opera production. Nevertheless, the splendid singing and acting transform the story, normally treated as farce, into something considerably more serious. As many other critics have noted, the young lovers have not yet sorted everything out as this performance ends. Act One begins with the principal characters running around in the outdoor theater -- while the audience takes it in as if they had been advised to sit back and enjoy the novelty. Very likely they were also asked to refrain from applauding at the end of arias and ensemble pieces, in which the three-hour opera abounds.

The Metropolitan Opera: Norma

Deep in a forest where druids and warriors seek revenge against the conquering Romans, Norma is scorned by the Roman proconsul Pollione, with whom she has two children. Her kindness turns to fury when she discovers that Pollione has taken Adalgisa, a novice priestess, as his new lover. When Pollione loses his high rank in the army and is offered as a sacrifice, Norma promises him freedom under one condition.

The Metropolitan Opera: The Exterminating Angel

After the acclaimed Met premiere of Thomas Adès's "The Tempest" in 2012, the composer returned with another masterpiece, this time inspired by filmmaker Luis Buñuel's seminal surrealist classic "El Ángel Exterminador", during the 2017–18 season. As the opera opens, a group of elegant socialites gather for a lavish dinner party, but when it is time to leave for the night, no one is able to escape. Soon, their behavior becomes increasingly erratic and savage. The large ensemble cast tackles both the vocal and dramatic demands of Adès's opera with one riveting performance after another. Tom Cairns, who also penned the work's libretto, directs an engrossing and inventive production, using a towering wooden archway to trap the characters onstage. And Adès himself takes the podium to conduct the frenzied score, which features a host of unconventional instruments, including the eerie electronic ondes Martenot.

Noble Sissle's Syncopated Ragtime

Combining footage unseen since WWI with original scores from the era, this film tells the story of Noble Sissle's incredible journey that spans "The Harlem Hellfighters" of World War I, Broadway Theatre, the Civil Rights movement, and decades of Black cultural development.

Prom Party Massacre

A gay high school student throws a swinging prom party in the hopes of finally wooing the football captain - but when popular kids start turning up dead, the partygoers discover a slasher killer amongst the student body!