Social & External
Valery Gergiev leads the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in this production of Puccini's opera, recorded live at the Salzburger Festspiele in 2002. David Pountney's production features performances by Gabriele Schnaut, Paata Burchuladze, Johan Botha and Cristina Gallardo-Domas. This production uses Luciano Berio's 2001 completion of this unfinished opera.
This Wagner opera is rarely performed because of the scandals that engulfed the Magdeburg Theatre when it was performed in 1836 under the title The Novice of Palermo, and became known as a cursed opera from which the composer had to distance himself. Wagner's adaptation of the story reflects the rebellious mood of a Revolutionary Germany, vindicating sensual love and attack the fanatical repression of sexuality by a puritanical and hypocritical authority. As the prose says, "Shame to him whose cruel striking/Kills for faults of his own liking!". One of the most extraordinary musicals based on a text by Shakespeare, especially worthy of a new performance as it is four hundred years since the death of the Bard.
One of the greatest revolutions in the history of mankind happened around 3000 years ago: the transition from polytheism to monotheism through the prophet Moses. God revealed himself directly to Moses, instructing him in absolute truth. Moses was charged with leading the people of Israel to the Promised Land and escaping from Egyptian slavery. Moses came to embody the relationship between the human and divine truth. God’s call to Moses presented a new idea that exploded all previous religious concepts: ‘One God – unique, eternal, intangible, inconceivable’. Moses understands this concept, but is unable to express it, and therefore God appoints Moses’ brother Aaron as his spokesman. They are bound to fail: Aaron can only approach sharing the idea by compromising its meaning, whilst Moses is left to search fruitlessly for “the word I lack …” This production of Arnold Schoenbergs opera was filmed during the Ruhrtriennale 2009.
Shostakovich’s satirical opera adapted from the classic short story by Nikolai Gogol. Baritone Eduard Akimov leads the cast as Kovalyov, the hapless bureaucrat whose nose has mysteriously gone missing.
During harvest festival at a collective farm, a visiting dance troupe reunites a ballerina with her childhood friend Zina. In order to teach her unfaithful husband a lesson, Zina, the ballerina, and the ballerina’s husband decide to swap roles for the evening… Alexei Ratmansky invokes the genius of Shostakovich’s score at the Bolshoi, creating a laugh-out-loud masterpiece with its bits of slapstick comedy, hilarious deceptions, false identities including Principal Dancer Ruslan Skvortsov dressed as a Sylph and its many colorful characters! The Bolshoi bursts with vivid life and bright spirits in Ratmansky’s brilliantly choreographed smash. Captured live on Apr 29, 2012.
Two playwrights and a former burlesque queen travel to Louisiana to research a musical they're planning on a local Southern hero.
The gorgeous and evocative Otto Schenk/Günther Schneider-Siemssen production continues with this second opera in Wagner’s Ring cycle. Hildegard Behrens brings deep empathy to Brünnhilde, the favorite daughter of the god Wotan (James Morris) who nevertheless defies him. Morris’s portrayal of Wotan is deservedly legendary, as is Christa Ludwig, as Fricka. Jessye Norman and Gary Lakes are Sieglinde and Siegmund, and Kurt Moll is the threatening Hunding. James Levine and the Met orchestra provide astonishing color and drama. (Performed April 8, 1989)
Siegfried is the third of the four operas that constitute Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), by Richard Wagner.
Requiring 38 soloists, chorus, and large orchestra, Hans Pfitzner's "Palestrina" is a challenging opera to stage. In Munich, the city in which it was premiered in 1917, director Christian Stückle, conductor Simone Young, and the Bavarian State Opera met those challenges with stunning success.
The opera: Nina, o sia La Pazza Per Amore itself, is an extra-ordinary sad and touching story, and seems very difficult to be performed if the singer has no acting talents. Therefore we adore Cecilia Bartoli for the magnificent performance as the crazy Nina who lost her mind totally. Her magnificent singing, we don't doubt at all, but her acting is amazingly such that it expressed a real situation of a girl becoming crazy and losing her mind caused by painful incidents in her love life. It is also supported by the other singers who are singing matching as perfectly and splendidly as the diva Cecilia Bartoli, especially the baritone Laszlo Polgar with his deep rich voice as the cruel father who has remorse and came back to see his daughter Nina and the young tenor Jonas Kauffmann with his clear light voice, resulting in a surprisingly beautifully performed opera.
When her niece is cast in The Philadelphia Ballet’s production of the Nutcracker, a jaded ex-ballerina is forced to come to terms with the life and love she left behind.
Three arias from Antonín Dvořák´s fairytale opera Rusalka turned in to a movie, sung by Gabriela Beňačková (Rusalka), Libuše Márová (Witch), René Tuček (Hunter).
County Durham, England, 1984. The miners' strike has started and the police have started coming up from Bethnal Green, starting a class war with the lower classes suffering. Caught in the middle of the conflict is 11-year old Billy Elliot, who, after leaving his boxing club for the day, stumbles upon a ballet class and finds out that he's naturally talented. He practices with his teacher Mrs. Wilkinson for an upcoming audition in Newcastle-upon Tyne for the royal Ballet school in London.
Adaptation of John Gay's 18th century opera, featuring Laurence Olivier as MacHeath and Hugh Griffith as the Beggar.
Ring Cycle, pt 4. Siegfried is drugged and tricked into kidnapping his wife, since she has the Ring now. More double-crossings, Siegfried ends up dead. Brunnhilde has had enough of this, tosses the Ring into the river and torches the place.
A vengeful beauty foils the plans of the bloodthirsty Hun warrior to conquer Rome.
Henry Purcell's opera Dido & Aeneas, completed in 1689, was the subject of a memorable and breathtaking performance at the Staatsoper Berlin in 2005. In Dido & Aeneas Sasha Waltz opens up new horizons in music theatre, creating a fusion of dance, singing and music the choreographic opera. The (extended, revised) libretto, the (reconstructed) music, vocal parts, dance, the stage set featuring a rousing underwater ballet combine to form a sublime total choreography and parallel action involving dancers, singers and musicians. In this choreographic opera, Sasha Waltz demonstrates not only her familiarity with Emile Jaques-Dalcroze and Pina Bausch, but also the confidence she has in her own style. Sensational!
Robert Lepage’s remarkable Met Opera production of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, the 2013 Grammy Award Winner for Best Opera Recording, is now available as individual DVDs. Siegfried features Bryn Terfel, Jay Hunter Morris, and Deborah Voigt, with Fabio Luisi conducting.
This film takes you through the inspiring journey of Venezuela's Coro de Manos Blancas (White Hands Choir) while exploring their daily struggles and lives. Established in 1995 as part of Venezuela's El Sistema program, the White Hands Choir provides artistic opportunities for children, youth, and adults with disabilities, utilizing music for social development and inclusion.
A contemporary musical version of the classic Cinderella story in which the servant step daughter hope to compete in a musical competition for a famous pop star.
A musical adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel "Notre Dame de Paris" which follows the gypsy dancer Esmeralda and the three men who vie for her love: the kind hunchback Quadimodo, the twisted priest Frollo, and the unfaithful soldier Phoebus.
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.
A guy who danced with what could be the girl of his dreams at a costume ball only has one hint at her identity: the Zune she left behind as she rushed home in order to make her curfew. And with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in front of him, he sets out to find his masked beauty.
A struggling female soprano finds work playing a male female impersonator, but it complicates her personal life.
Janey is new in town. She soon meets Lynne, a classmate who shares her passion for the local show 'Dance TV'. When a competition is announced to find new Dance TV performers, Janey and Lynne are determined to audition. The only problem is that Janey's father doesn't approve of that kind of thing.
A fading music hall comedian tries to help a despondent ballet dancer learn to walk and to again feel confident about life.
Street dancer Skyler comes out of the shadow of her trained dancer sister, Tosha, & joins a dance competition with the Honey dance studio; the prize is a college scholarship.
Jerry Mulligan is an exuberant American expatriate in Paris trying to make a reputation as a painter. His friend Adam is a struggling concert pianist who's a long time associate of a famous French singer, Henri Baurel. A lonely society woman, Milo Roberts, takes Jerry under her wing and supports him, but is interested in more than his art.
Emma relinquishes her job so a colleague with a family will keep his. Contemplating life’s next steps, Emma meets a professional dancer, Leo whose love for competitive dancing is waning, until a once in a lifetime opportunity arises for the novice to join the pro and sweep all of Paris off its feet.
Kat is an aspiring singer-songwriter who dreams of making it big. However, her dreams are stalled by her reality: a conniving and cruel stepfamily and a demoralizing job working as a singing elf at billionaire Terrence Wintergarden’s Santa Land.
A young refugee travels from Russia to America in search of her lost father and falls in love with a gypsy horseman.
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.
When a hip hop violinist busking in the New York subway encounters a classical dancer on scholarship at the Manhattan Conservatory of the Arts, sparks fly. With the help of a hip hop dance crew they must find a common ground while preparing for a competition that could change their lives forever.
In modern-day New York City, John the Baptist calls out to a group of young men and women to learn from the teachings of Jesus. Through song and dance, they relive Christ's crucifixion.
Marinette’s class is headed to New York, the city of superheroes, for French-American Friendship Week.
The deformed Phantom who haunts the Paris Opera House causes murder and mayhem in an attempt to make the woman he loves a star.
A brother and sister dance act encounter challenges and romance when booked in London during the Royal Wedding.
Delinquent Tyler Gage receives the opportunity of a lifetime after vandalizing a performing arts school, gaining him the chance to earn a scholarship and dance with up-and-coming dancer Nora.
While attending college in Cape Town, Melea Martin feels constrained by the school's strict policies, and decides to set out on her own. Searching for a way to use her talents as a dancer and inspire the community around her, Melea rents a failing theater in order to put on a Hip-Hop Romeo and Juliet performance. But much like the Capulets and Montagues, conflicts between cast members threaten to bring the whole performance to a halt...
