The Singing City

Documentary about opera in Hollywood.

What happens when famous directors stage an opera? Eckhart Schmidt shows successful and failed attempts.

The creative processes of avant-garde composer Philip Glass and progressive director/designer Robert Wilson are examined in this film. It documents their collaboration on this tradition breaking opera.

This film is at once a self-portrait and an homage to Jean-Marie Straub, Farocki's role model and former teacher at the Film Academy.

Documentary about female opera stars.

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In “The Oratorio,” filmmaker Martin Scorsese helps tell the story of an 1826 performance that forever changed America’s cultural landscape with the introduction of Italian opera to New York City.

Documentary about the opera singer Sena Jurinac.

This is funny or rather crazy adaptation of classical opera Carmen inspired by famous czech theatre Ypsilon play of the same name shot at various bizarre locations such as airport, botanical garden and winter forest.

Three children living in a displacement camp in northern Uganda compete in their country's national music and dance festival.

A German TV documentary that chronicles the daily rehearsals, the filming and all the behind the scenes of Jean-Jacques Annaud's classic "The Name of the Rose". From actors perspectives to the ideas used by the director to produce an impeccable international epic adaptation of Umberto Eco's best selling novel, the film presents the obstacles behind the creation of a production of such large scale and also the making of the many difficult scenes, most of the ones presented here are the characters' murders inside the mysterious abbey.

Although he is unanimously credited with having democratised opera, making it accessible to the greatest number, focus is rarely put on the strategy he devised and implemented in order to carry out his actions, nor what his actions reveal of the man and artist, and of the resulting metamorphosis from opera singer to pop artist. Through this angle, this film sets out to pay tribute to the man who summed up his credo, obsession and life’s work, in the following way: “They led the public to believe that classical music belonged to a restricted elite. I was the way to prove to the world that was wrong.

The documentary draws a portrait of an opera director who is staging Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre. He is torn between the tragicomic routine of an opera house and his own perception of Wagner and the Ring cycle. The film witnesses the director’s drama in maintaining the fragile link between a well-constructed performance and his own vision that lies within the music and the narrative, and is seen as German expressionism-like nightmares.

A look at the entire process of creating and developing Patrice Chéreau’s third staging of "In the Solitude of Cotton Fields" by Bernard Marie Koltès with Pascal Greggory and Chéreau himself. From the first reading around the table through the first contact with the performance space, rehearsals and lighting to opening night, the entire creative process unfurls in front of our eyes. The film shows us the evolving and ongoing dialogue between Greggory and Chéreau, a dialogue full of crises and magical moments of harmony and insight via which the truth, intensity, complexity, mystery and depth of Koltès’ text gradually emerge to form an implicit bond between these two men. The film also shows Chéreau directing rehearsals for Mozart’s "Don Giovanni" in Salzburg, revealing both the unity of and profound differences between his opera and theater work.

A behind-the-scenes look at the of how the Paris Opera is run under the direction of Stephane Lissner.

The film follows the staging of the opera Olimpiade while at the same time exploring the dramatic life of its composer Josef Mysliveček, a friend and teacher of W. A. Mozart.

This film traces the life of Jan Kapr, a prominent Czech composer of the 20th century. A documentary opera with an ambitious libretto and playful and refined editing work, Kapr Code is an unexpected celebration of creativity that shakes up our ideas of biography and pays tribute to the importance of resisting homologation and censorship through art and creation.

This was Domingo's last set of performances as Otello in La Scala. In spite of his relatively advanced age, he is still in excellent form, both vocally and in terms of stage presence. Nucci is also his usual self, delivering a performance of very high standard. Barbara Frittoli is an excellent Desdemona, in good voice and gives a very moving performance. Muti conducts with great emotion and tight accuracy, conveying the full orchestral drama of the score.

Rusalka

Although Domingo was younger and Banackova looked more like the sweet and innocent young Madalena than the one played by Tomowa-Sintow in the ROH production, this production was not as good. It was not as tight and neat. The tempo set was far too slow for the time-period of the story. The stage setting was distracting. The lighting was too dark. Except Domingo, a natural actor who was always into his role and sings and acts with passion, none of the other performers came up with a convincing portrayal of the role he/she played.