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1-46 of 46
- 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.
- Who was Moliere? He is known everywhere as one of the world's greatest playwrights. But who was he? Born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin in 1622, the son of a prosperous tapestry maker. His mother died when he was a boy. Growing up in the teeming streets of 17th century Paris, Jean Baptiste received a good Jesuit education and was fascinated by the street fairs and traveling carnivals that flourished in spite of the religious repression and hypocrisy of those cruel times. As a young man he joined the theatrical Bejart family to establish the Illustre-Theatre, which soon went bankrupt. The troupe reformed, found patronage, and went on the road for thirteen years, performing all over France. Poquelin developed his stagecraft adapting Commedia dell Arte plots to please brutalized peasants and cynical townspeople. He also married Madeline Bejart, the widowed daughter of the troupe's founder. Later he entered into a love affair with Mme Bejart's daughter, to the dismay of all. The troupe eventually returned to Paris and, on October 24, 1658, greatly impressed the 20-year old King Louis XIV, later to be called the Sun King. Moliere's life became bound up with the magnificent court at Versailles, and with its intrigues. He wrote, staged and acted in the plays now famous all over the world. He fought with his enemies and his friends, enjoyed success followed by failure, organized court festivities and defended himself against increasingly fanatic religious authorities. Above all, his theater was taken from life as his life was theatrical.
- A magical version of Tchaikovsky's masterpiece by the Zurich Ballet and choreographer Heinz Spoerli.
- A small part of a large cemetery. End of fall. It has just rained. Black trees, a few leaves are still attached, other leaves litter the ground. A gravel driveway. A bench whose painting flakes. A man advances in the aisle, leaves the aisle, goes to a grave, reads what is written on the tombstone, stays there and looks at the stone, goes to another tomb, also reads this Who is written on the tombstone, remains for a moment to look at it, then joins the aisle and will sit on the bench.
- The Ballet de l'Opera National de Paris mounted this production of the late Pina Bausch's dance-opera Orpheus und Eurydike, which Bausch had adapted from composer Christoph Willibald-Gluck and Ranieri de' Calzabigi's 1762 opera Orfeo ed Euridice. As the title suggests, it takes its basic narrative from the myth of Orpheus, and his courageous but ill-fated attempt to rescue his lover Eurydice (also known as Eurydike) from the jaws of the underworld. This particular production finds Yann Bridard dancing as Orpheus and Marie-Agnès Gillot dancing as Eurydike , with mezzo-soprano Maria-Riccarda Wesseling accompanying Bridard and soprano Julia Kleiter accompanying Wesseling. Pina Bausch did the choreography and stage direction, while Rolf Borzik designed the sets, costumes and lighting. The Balthasar-Neumann Ensemble and Choir, under the direction of Thomas Hengelbrock, lend musical accompaniment.
- A dance music theatre piece that evokes the world of childhood and its careless pleasures. But beyond pure entertainment, this performance contemplates the meaning and the importance of play when we become adult.
- As the first collaboration ever between conductor William Christie and director Luc Bondy, this production of Hercules was the major event of the 2004 opera season. Originally Created in Aix-en-Provence in July 2004, the show then moved on to the Palais Garnier in Paris where it was recorded in December of the same year. The Hercules received the student prize at the Golden Prague 2005.
- A dramatic, energetic adaptation of Heinz Spoerli's ballet based on Grieg's Peer Gynt by the Zurich ballet. Marijn Rademaker is excellent as the title character, clearly telegraphing the emotional range required. Each of the characters and the dramatic scenes are supported by the orchestral passages and songs provided by Grieg; some spoken word passages extracted from the Ibsen play.
- The rare biblical opera 'David and Jonathas' is like 'Médée', one of the major works of the French Baroque composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier. The opera has been in the repertoire of Les Arts Florissants since 1988 and was first presented in a stage production by William Christie at the Aix-en-Provence Festival 2012. This DVD release is a special event for all Baroque music lovers. Written a year after the death of Lully, this lyric tragedy allows Charpentier to develop beyond the religious dimension, a story of male friendship and forbidden love between David and Jonathas. An excellent cast gathered around William Christie and Les Arts Florissants brings young singers to the title roles: Pascal Charbonneau, a tenor and a former student of the European Academy of Music, sings David. The role of Jonathas is given to a woman: soprano Ana Quintans. The staging by Andreas Homoki (Director of the Zurich Opera since summer 2012) focuses on the psychological aspect of this forbidden love story, giving a moving reading of the drama.
- Parsifal is a strange and enigmatic work. At the end of his life, did Wagner wish to celebrate asceticism, which he himself had never practised? Did he fall upon his knees before the Cross, as claimed by Nietzsche? And what does the secret society of knights based on pure blood signify, desperately waiting for the saviour to regenerate it? What is the true nature of the opposition between the worlds of Klingsor and the Grail? What can Parsifal tell us today? In his artistic will and testament, Wagner condenses his moral idea of the world and returns to the roots of love and religion - to the very heart of art according to him. With the participation of conductor Hartmut Haenchen who is passionated by the score, Italian stage director Romeo Castellucci proposes an original reading of this brilliant work and explores the essence of Wagnerian 'Kunstreligion' in a different light.
- Nina Stemme marks her theatrical role debut as Aida with an astounding performance in a new staging by Nicolas Joel at the Zurich Opera - sharing the stage with a star-packed cast including Salvatore Licitra, Luiciana d'intino and Juan Pons.
- Philippe Boesmans sign his fourth opera with Julie. Harking back to the model of the chamber opera, the composer focused on the chemistry of human relationships that lead heroine of the drama of Strindberg to end his life. Three voices, a chamber orchestra, a unique place, a night time make us witness the fate of this young woman touching. Composer in residence at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie for nearly 20 years, the Belgian Philippe Boesmans, born in 1936, is undoubtedly a major figure in the musical landscape of our time. Julie is an intimate work, a chamber opera in one act, based on the drama of the Swedish August Strindberg's Miss Julie, written in 1888. Boesmans music is very personal: his writing is dense and precise, rich and colorful, delicate and colorful and his writing for the voice proves that with opera, the composer was in his natural element.
- Giuseppe Verdi's opera Il Trovatore, based on the eponymous play by Spanish playwright Antonio García Gutiérrez, takes us to 15th c. northern Spain to witness the tragic destiny of those under the control of Azucena, who is seeking to avenge the death of his mother. The first percussion notes are solemn, setting the tone for Verdi's masterpiece, whose main themes include abandonment, passion, power, love for one's parents and vengeance. This production marked the debut of Russian stage director Dmitri Tcherniakov at La Monnaie and the first Verdi interpretation by Marc Minkowski.
- Four of Sweden's most innovative choreographers travel to Ingmar Bergman's home on Fårö to explore and get inspired. The result is a unique contemporary dance film.The renowned Swedish choreographers Alexander Ekman, Pär Isberg, Pontus Lidberg and Joakim Stephenson, with principal dancers Jenny Nilson, Nathalie Nordquist, Oscar Salomonsson and Nadja Sellrup from the Royal Swedish Ballet, interpret Ingmar Bergman through four unique dance performances reflecting on human relations and intense feelings. The dances are linked together with images of the epic natural beauty of Fårö and Bergman's poetic home Hammars, including the voice of the master himself - Ingmar Bergman - revealing his thoughts about movements and music.
- Starring Dimitris Tiliakos, Violeta Urmana, Ferruccio Furlanetto, and Stefano Secco.
- In the prologue Fortune, Virtue and Cupid argue about their respective powers. Love sets out to demonstrate his supremacy, in what follows. In the street outside Poppaea's house, Otho complains at her infidelity. He was her lover, but now she is sleeping within with Nero, the Emperor, while his two soldiers guard the house. The couple emerge, as dawn breaks, and sing of their love. With her nurse Arnalta Poppaea reveals her ambition to become Empress, while elsewhere Octavia, Empress, wife of Nero, and of the imperial family of Augustus, laments her husband's desertion. Seneca tries to comfort her, mocked by her page, and is warned by Pallas Athene of his coming death. Nevertheless he dares to advise his old pupil, Nero, that he should not cast aside Octavia. Nero insists that he will go his own way. Otho overhears Nero and Poppaea, he promising to make her Empress and she urging the discarding of Seneca, whose death Nero now orders. Otho is definitively rejected by Poppaea
- Opting for the French-language version of Gluck's Orpheus, David Alagna was faced with the task of achieving an appropriately subtle adaptation. In a plot transposed to the present day, Eurydice dies in a car accident on the day of her wedding, and Orpheus's quest for his beloved is a dream beginning and ending at the cemetery. No happy ending in this interpretation, but a new approach to characterisation: Amore, sung by a baritone, becomes a funeral parlour employee and Orpheus's guide. And Orpheus, of course, loses his loved one forever by turning to look back. The enormously talented Roberto Alagna throws himself body and soul into this production. His incredible vitality and flawless timbre and diction make him a great Orpheus.
- For the past 15 years, the destiny of Christian Zacharias has been linked to that of the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne (Lausanne Chamber Orchestra), of which he is currently Principal Conductor and Artistic Director from 2000 to 2013. This has resulted in invitations to the most prestigious venues and numerous recordings. Christian Zacharias's career has been crowned with numerous distinctions: he was named Artist of the Year at Cannes MIDEM in 2007 and received the rank of Officer in the Order of Arts and Letters in 2010. In these 2-DVD edition is a wonderful version of the 5 piano concertos by Beethoven with Lausanne Chamber Orchestra filmed in the Salle Métropole in Lausanne. The live HD recordings at Salle Métropole (Lausanne) took place successively in October 2012 and May 2013. Bonus: From B for Beethoven to Z for Zacharias (2013) ("From B for Beethoven to Z for Zacharias") (52 min.), directed by Luca De Luigi, a portrait of pianist-conductor Christian Zacharias: chatty and sparkling with intelligence, the charismatic maestro reveals himself as never before in this bonus documentary.
- Cardillac is a master jeweler who cannot live without his creations, killing his clients to recuperate them and assert his authorship, and conferring the status of art upon the act of murder.
- The Teatro alla Scala (Milano, Italy) backstage and the artists in rehearsal for the New Year ballets and celebrations.
- Rain embodies the culmination of a dance form drawing its own spatial polyphony from the mathematical principles of musical composition.