Lohengrin

6.4

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.

2000

Mozart: Così Fan Tutte (Zurich Opera House)

A production of Mozart's opera recorded live at Zurich Opera House in 2000. Cecilia Bartoli leads an all-star cast including Roberto Saccà, Liliana Nikiteanu, and Agnes Baltsa. The conductor is Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Filmed live at the Zurich Opera House in February 2000 on a set which visualises the subtitle "The School for Lovers", the plot revolves around two army officers arguing about the fidelity of their brides, then setting out to test their chastity. Despite the often playful humour, this is not only psychologically telling music-making, but reveals Mozart exploring the structure of opera, discarding convention to mix large ensemble sections with arias for as many different combinations of singers as possible. With Liliana Nikiteanu attractively contrasted with Bartoli, and thoroughly convincing performances by Roberto Sacca (Ferrando) and Oliver Widmer (Guilelmo), this Così has a freshness and flow which, coupled with the timeless romantic themes, feels very contemporary.

1989

Cosi Fan Tutte

Officers Ferrando and Guglielmo are certain that their lovers Dorabella and Fiordiligi are faithful to them, but the cynical Don Alfonso challenges them to a bet that the women will be unfaithful given the chance. The officers thus pretend to go off to war, and return in disguise as Albanian strangers, to woo Dorabella and Fiordiligi incognito. The ladies are initially frosty, but soon warm to their new suitors, spurred on by their maid Despina. Performed at the La Scala Theatre in Milan.

6.5

Gianni Schicchi

Woody Allen's production of the Puccini comic opera at LA Opera in 2015

1998

Bartoli in Italy

In the awe-inspiring Teatro Olimpico,Vicenza, Cecilia Bartoli, recognised as one of the best singers of our time, gives the most outstanding recital of work from a variety of composers such as Caccini, Schubert, Handel, Vivaldi, Bellini, Donizetti,Mozart, Rossini, Viardot and Bizet.

2004

Macbeth

Carlos Álvarez takes the title role in the first of Verdi's Shakespearean operas, with Maria Guleghina as the manipulative wife whose desire to gain the Scottish throne drives her husband to murder and leaves both with blood on their hands. Bruno Campanella conducts the Symphony Orchestra and Chorus of the Gran Teatre del Liceu in the 2004 recording of Phyllida Lloyd's powerful production, first staged at London's Royal Opera House.

2019

The Bleeding Nun

This Blu-ray is a splendid record of a creative production with terrific voices and direction, as good as the Met's videos any day. It also tends to be creepy and atmospheric, with music as good as anything Gounod wrote for his FAUST. Recommended to lovers of horror and opera!

Turandot

Visually this is a gripping production which captures the drama of this opera perfectly. It's downright exciting! and I found the singing, acting, and orchestral playing reasonably fine. I found only one major problem with it, a problem that kept Puccini for quite a few years. Turandot has been looking for an opportunity to kill Calif and Calif has singlemindedly tried to get Turandot to love and wed him focusing on her and ignoring a better looking girl who loves him truly. The problem is how to get the audience to applaud the match once Calif gets his wish. Puccini couldn't figure out how to do it. The traditional quick ending doesn't do it, and Berio's attempt is longer , tries its best, but ends up making it plain this is one wierd couple.

5.0

1965

Don Carlos

The production by Deutsche Oper Berlin achieves a beautiful balance between the stage drama and the music. It proves that there are still singers who can perform Verdi's melodies at the highest level and that it is also possible to bring them together into an ensemble. The production fulfills all one's expectations of the modern city of Berlin in terms of stylishness and performance.

1990

Meyerbeer: Les Huguenots

Joan Sutherland's farewell performance to the operatic stage offsets this story of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre and the magnificence of 16th century France.

1989

Puccini: Madama Butterfly

The Lyric Opera of Chicago's 1985 production of Puccini's opera, set in the late nineteenth century in the city of Nagasaki, about a young Japanese woman who weds an American naval officer who later abandons her and the child she bore him.

Verdi Aida

Originally commissioned to celebrate the completion of the Suez Canal and the opening of Cairos new opera house, Verdis Egyptian epic Aida is here seen in a spectacular new staging in the Teatro Regio Torino by the Oscar-winning American film director William Friedkin, creator of such famous movies as The Exorcist and The French Connection. The cast features American soprano Kristin Lewis who has been heralded for her remarkable voice, which she uses with powerful dramatic instinct, and Georgian mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili, whose Amneris dominates the stage with her dark, rounded, irresistible voice and extraordinary stage presence. Gianandrea Noseda leading the Orchestra and Chorus Teatro Regio Torino received accolaides from all: he controls everything- orchestra, singers, chorus, dancers, acrobats- with an all-encompassing overview. He knows exactly when its time to linger over a timbre, a color, an expressive chord.

2006

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.

2025

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

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?

Kaufmann's Otello at the Royal Opera House

7.0

2017

Kaufmann's Otello at the Royal Opera House

On a June night in 2017, opera lovers thronged to the Royal Opera House in London to hear tenor Jonas Kaufmann, recently acclaimed by The Daily Telegraph as the world s greatest tenor, make his eagerly anticipated debut in the title role of Otello Verdi s greatest and most demanding role for tenor voice. As the New York Times wrote Mr. Kaufmann made his debut in the part, and he calmly, confidently sang it for the ages.

7.0

2013

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.

1986

Tosca

This live version of Puccini s superbly dramatic opera was recorded in Rome in the exact locations and at the precise times of day as Puccini had written into his score. The action opens in Rome's beautiful 16th-century church of Sant Andrea della Valle, where Cavaradossi (Plácido Domingo) is innocently painting, moves to the Farnese Palace where Tosca (Catherine Malfitano) dramatically stabs the lustful Scarpia (Ruggero Raimondi), and finally to the battlements of the Castle Sant Angelo at dawn the following day where Cavaradossi is cruelly killed, and Tosca takes her own life.

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.

2017

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.

Recommended Movies

7.0

1949

Fast and Furry-ous

This was the debut for Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. It was also their only cartoon made in the 1940s. It set the template for the series, in which Wile E. Coyote (here given the ersatz Latin name Carnivorous Vulgaris) tries to catch Roadrunner (Accelleratii Incredibus) through many traps, plans and products, although in this first cartoon not all of the products are yet made by the Acme Corporation.

6.9

1968

Star!

Gertrude Lawrence rises to stage stardom at the cost of happiness.

7.5

2021

The Suicide Squad

Supervillains Harley Quinn, Bloodsport, Peacemaker and a collection of nutty cons at Belle Reve prison join the super-secret, super-shady Task Force X as they are dropped off at the remote, enemy-infused island of Corto Maltese.

8.0

2023

Oppenheimer

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7.7

2023

Past Lives

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6.5

The Return

After twenty years away, Odysseus washes up on the shores of Ithaca, haggard and unrecognizable. The king has finally returned home, but much has changed in his kingdom since he left to fight in the Trojan war.

7.6

Deadpool & Wolverine

A listless Wade Wilson toils away in civilian life with his days as the morally flexible mercenary, Deadpool, behind him. But when his homeworld faces an existential threat, Wade must reluctantly suit-up again with an even more reluctant Wolverine.

6.0

Air Force One Down

On her first assignment aboard Air Force One, a rookie Secret Service agent faces the ultimate test when terrorists hijack the plane, intent on derailing a pivotal energy deal. With the President's life on the line and a global crisis at stake, her bravery and skills are pushed to the limit in a relentless battle that could change the course of history.

6.0

Skincare

Famed aesthetician Hope Goldman is about to take her career to the next level by launching her very own skin care line. However, she soon faces a new challenge when a rival opens a boutique directly across from her store. Suspecting that someone is trying to sabotage her, she embarks on a quest to unravel the mystery of who's trying to destroy her life.

7.7

2022

Everything Everywhere All at Once

An aging Chinese immigrant is swept up in an insane adventure, where she alone can save what's important to her by connecting with the lives she could have led in other universes.

5.5

2021

The Four of Us

After their partner swap experiment takes a turn, four friends arrive at a remote beach hut to face the fallout and purge themselves of deeper truths.

7.5

The Seed of the Sacred Fig

Investigating judge Iman grapples with paranoia amid political unrest in Tehran. When his gun vanishes, he suspects his wife and daughters, imposing draconian measures that strain family ties as societal rules crumble.

6.1

I Saw the TV Glow

Teenager Owen is just trying to make it through life in the suburbs when his classmate Maddy introduces him to a mysterious TV show — a vision of a supernatural world beneath their own. In the pale glow of the television, Owen’s view of reality begins to crack.

7.3

2017

Endless Love

Sparks fly when a humble housekeeper crosses paths with a wealthy surgeon, but a devastating truth puts their relationship to the test.

7.6

2023

Godzilla Minus One

In postwar Japan, Godzilla brings new devastation to an already scorched landscape. With no military intervention or government help in sight, the survivors must join together in the face of despair and fight back against an unrelenting horror.

6.7

Small Things Like These

In 1985, while working as a coal merchant to support his family, Bill Furlong discovers disturbing secrets kept by the local convent and uncovers truths of his own; forcing him to confront his past and the complicit silence of a small Irish town controlled by the Catholic Church.

7.3

2025

Thunderbolts*

After finding themselves ensnared in a death trap, seven disillusioned castoffs must embark on a dangerous mission that will force them to confront the darkest corners of their pasts.

7.7

2022

All Quiet on the Western Front

Paul Baumer and his friends Albert and Muller, egged on by romantic dreams of heroism, voluntarily enlist in the German army. Full of excitement and patriotic fervour, the boys enthusiastically march into a war they believe in. But once on the Western Front, they discover the soul-destroying horror of World War I.

6.3

2025

A Widow's Game

When a man is found dead, the investigation shatters his widow's perfect facade and exposes a hidden double life in this thriller based on real events.

8.1

2020

Soul

Joe Gardner is a middle school teacher with a love for jazz music. After a successful audition at the Half Note Club, he suddenly gets into an accident that separates his soul from his body and is transported to the You Seminar, a center in which souls develop and gain passions before being transported to a newborn child. Joe must enlist help from the other souls-in-training, like 22, a soul who has spent eons in the You Seminar, in order to get back to Earth.