Don Carlos (1965)
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.
Custom Order (2017)
After a painful breakup, Aaron purchases a life-size doll to serve as a replacement for the companionship he has lost.
The Bleeding Nun (2019)
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 (2015)
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.
Meyerbeer: Les Huguenots (1990)
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.
Love's Last Resort (2017)
After ten years of dating, Chloe’s boyfriend Eric still hasn’t matured. Hoping to give him the push he needs, she dumps him; confident Eric will grow up and beg her to come back. However, six months later, Eric meets Chloe for dinner with big news: he’s getting married in a week. Needing a break to mend her broken heart, Chloe takes a vacation, but when she arrives, she learns that Eric and his fiancée are getting married at the same resort!
Mozart: Don Giovanni (Zurich Opera House) (2001)
Live 2001 production from the Zurich Opera House of the classic Mozart/Da Ponte opera, with Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducting and directed for television and video by Brian Large.
Puccini: Madama Butterfly (1989)
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.
Haggard (2003)
A young man begins to suspect that his ex-girlfriend, Glauren, has been having a secret affair with Hellboy, so he enlists his friends to help him discover the truth.
Death in Venice (1981)
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.
Werther (1985)
Jules Massanet's lyrical opera is transformed into a superb film production by Petr Weigl, shot on location in Prague, with music conducted by Libor Pesek. First produced by the Vienna Opera in February 1892, "Werther" rapidly confirmed Massanet's position on the French opera scene and achieved enormous popularity outside France, notably in Italy, America and England. The tragic story tells of Werther's intense passion for Charlotte, who has married his best friend, Albert, fulfilling a pledge to her now deceased mother. But Werther's letters of love bring Charlotte to his side when he promises to take his own life.
The Go-Go's (2021)
As the first all-female band to play their instruments, write their songs and have a No. 1 album, The Go-Go’s made history. Underpinned by candid testimonies, this film chronicles the meteoric rise to fame of a band born in the LA punk scene who became a pop phenomenon.
Violettina (2016)
A transfixing, rarely-seen 16mm miniature made as part of Rohrwacher's opera production of La traviata in 2016.
Rigoletto (1946)
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.
Normal Adolescent Behavior (2007)
High school student Wendy has an odd relationship with her five friends: They're openly sexual with each other, swapping partners every week. But this is all thrown into turmoil when she meets Sean, a new student in school who has a crush on her. Wendy wants to be with Sean, but doesn't want to disappoint her friends, whom she has known since grade school. When she does decide to leave them, her best friend, Billie, threatens revenge.
Don Quichotte (2010)
This May 2010 production of Massenet's 1910 opera "Don Quichotte" marked the opera's centenary and also Jose Van Dam's operatic farewell at the Theatre de la Monnaie, Brussels. It is beautiful in every way--vocally, scenically, sonically, and visually--and a worthy record of Van Dam's farewell. Van Dam is just shy of 70 in this production, but you would never guess it from his singing or stage movements--a consummate artist. His is a noble portrayal and deeply moving. The Act V death scene is a model of beautiful singing and acting.
Verdi La Traviata (1992)
This set has Edita Gruberova singing in top form, all her scooping cast aside, which one finds in abundance in her Lucia under Richard Bonynge. Here, however, she makes ravishing use of those bits of tone that only she can produce: those instances of coloratura and dramatic legato with little asides and small florishes of style that suggest her intelligent approach and her high degree of musical involvement in this role. She does this in her I Puritani and her Anna Bolena, less so in Roberto Deveraux and Maria Stuarda(both sets). Listen to Addio del passato and the Sempre Libra...ravishing, yes, but there are again those nuances learned from Callas that she makes her own. A very singualr perform,ance, and extremely moving with its detail and cry for pity throughout..from the start even. Neil Schicoff is excellent, not an unworthy Alfredo at all! His is a great lyric tenor voice that should have been in the top line.