Social & External
Johan Strauss Eine Nacht in Venedig (1883) together with Die Fledermaus and Die Zigeunerbaron, has long been among the three most popular of the more than a dozen operettas composed by the 19th c. Waltz King. This Rudolf Bibl conducted performance was recorded live during the Seefestspiele Moerbisch Austria Festival in 1999 and features Marc Clear, Gideon Singer, Evelyn Schörkhuber , Ingrid Habermann, and Anton Steingruber.
In November 2022, outstanding young French performers T. Fouchenneret, B. Borgolotto, and the Quatuor Arod string quartet performed at a concert in the Theresian Hall of the Břevnov Monastery, playing compositions by C. Franck, E. Chausson, and R. Schumann. The Prague audience enjoyed the beautiful sounds of French music... Pianist Théo Fouchenneret is the winner of the 2018 Geneva International Competition and, despite his youth, is already one of France's top pianists, regularly performing with a whole host of the best French performers. Boris Borgolotto is a star of the contemporary young French violin scene. He too has won a number of competitions and given many prestigious performances around the world. Equally successful is the French string quartet Quatuor Arod, which was formed in 2013 at the renowned Paris Conservatory.
In four corners of the globe, in each of the four seasons, four outstanding violinists guide us on an extraordinary journey through their four distinct homelands. From the springtime blossoms of Japan, into the blistering heat and thunderstorms of an Australian summer; from a joyful autumn in New York, to the unforgiving cold and human warmth of a Finnish winter. The resonant and much-loved music of Antonio Vivaldi's The Four Seasons and the timeless stories they tell, form the backbone to this bold and engaging celebration of friendship, homeland and the cycles of life.
The career of Maria Callas was just a bit too early and too brief to receive full and satisfying video documentation like that now being accorded to such singers as Renée Fleming and Luciano Pavarotti. This black-and-white televised recital (Callas's Paris debut) took place at the Paris Opera on December 19, 1958 when television was still in its infancy. We might wish that it had happened earlier, when her voice was in better condition, or later, when video recording technology was more advanced--so that, for example, we would not have to take the narrator's word that Callas is wearing a red dress. But this is probably the best available Callas video recording, and her fans will welcome it warmly. Visual elements were as important as the vocal dimensions in her art.
Sarah Connolly's 'outstanding' (The Guardian) portrayal of the wronged Roman noblewoman, written originally for Kathleen Ferrier, lies at the hear of David McVicar's powerfully stark production for English National Opera as 'an everyday sort of woman who could be living at any time or place'. Her nemesis is the arrogant Tarquinius of Christopher Maltman, 'who made the air tingle with danger' (Financial Times). Sung in English.
Jeanne's beautiful breasts spill out from her torn clothes, and her gouged internal organs lie beneath. The contrast between death and eroticism is captured in a profound image. The opera that unfolds in the underground ward comes to a powerful catastrophe with jazz-like dissonance. Are they the living or the dead, shedding blood and singing in high spirits? The director comments, "This film will be the beginning of a new contemporary opera film“.
A musical journey in the footsteps of conductor Michel Brun, an atypical character, an atheist, who nevertheless plays sacred music, and who devotes his life to Johann Sebastian Bach. With the musicians of the Ensemble Baroque de Toulouse.
Relying on a bounty of archival footage and interviews with prominent musicians and intimates, Philo Bregstein's film traces the life and career of the conductor and composer Otto Klemperer, one of the foremost musicians of his time.
This series comprised six lectures on music, which cumulatively took the title of a work by Charles Ives, The Unanswered Question. Bernstein drew analogies to other disciplines, such as poetry, aesthetics, and especially linguistics, hoping to make these lectures accessible to an audience with limited or no musical experience, while maintaining an intelligent level of discourse: Bernstein provides two distinct meanings of the term ambiguity. The first is "doubtful or uncertain" and the second, "capable of being understood in two or more possible senses"
Director Robert Carsen and his creative team flood the stage with summer blossoms, drifts of autumn leaves, winter snows and thunderous spring storms. The cast of 140 are attired in elegant costumes inspired by late 1940s Dior. This mythical tale of a young queen, Alphise, determined to abdicate rather than contemplate an enforced marriage to a descendant of Boreas, is nothing less than highly-charged.
Inspired by a fable by La Fontaine, [composer Jean-Philippe] Rameau produced perhaps his most brilliant music for his penultimate great work, blending reality and the surreal on several levels.
Set ten years after the events at the Paris Opera House, the Phantom has fled to New York, where he lives amongst the joyrides and freak shows of Coney Island. He has finally found a place for his music to soar, all that is missing is his love Christine Daaé. In a bid to win back her love, the Phantom lures Christine, her husband Raoul, and their young son Gustave from Manhattan, to the glittering and glorious world of Coney Island... they have no idea what lies in store for them...
Bellini's radiant retelling of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is a beacon in the bel canto tradition. San Francisco Opera's co-production features two of the greatest voices in bel canto together for the first time: mezzo Joyce DiDonato and soprano Nicole Cabell. Their compelling duet is one of the finest marriages between two voices in many, many years. The production, directed by Vincent Broussard and featuring costumes by Christian Lecroix, is captured in brilliant HD.
A famous opera singer, Giorgio Fini, loses his voice during an American tour. He goes to a female throat specialist, Pamela Taylor, whom he falls in love with.
Paris in the 1920s. Marguerite Dumont is a wealthy woman with a passion for music and the opera. For years, she has performed regularly for a circle of guests. But Marguerite sings tragically out of tune and no one has ever told her. Her husband and her close friends have always encouraged her in her illusions. Things become very complicated the day she gets it into her head to perform in front of a genuine public, at the Opera.
