The Tales of Hoffmann (1951)
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The classic Mariinsky (Kirov) production of the greatest of all ballets. Filmed in the imperial splendor of the Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg. Starring Ulyana Lopatkina, Danila Korsuntsev and the breathtaking Mariinsky corps de ballet. Conducted by the great Russian maestro Valery Gergiev.
The film suggests Nijinsky was driven into madness by both his consuming ambition and self-enforced heterosexuality, the latter prompted by his romantic involvement with Romola de Pulszky, a society girl who joins impresario Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes specifically to seduce Nijinsky. After a series of misunderstandings with Diaghilev, who is both his domineering mentor and possessive lover, Nijinsky succumbs to Romola's charms and marries her, after which his gradual decline from artistic moodiness to complete lunacy begins.
A disfigured musical genius, hidden away in the Paris Opera House, terrorizes the opera company for the unwitting benefit of a young protégée whom he trains and loves. 25th years of Phantom of the Opera marked with a grand performance at the Royal Albert Hall
A fictionalized account of the last days of opera singer Maria Callas (Ardant).
Based on Verdi's (Bizet's not Verdi's)classic opera and its all African American musical counterpart Carmen Jones, Carmen a Hiphopera is a modern retelling of the story of the tragic gypsy Carmen. The setting has been taken from the hots streets of Barcelona and is now in scorching urban Philadelphia. This time Carmen Brown is an aspiring actress who in her own words 'leaves the whole town speechless.' Her sultry looks and carefree confidence attract the attention of everyone from crooked cop Luietenant Miller to famous rapper Blaze. However Carmen has eyes on the one man she can't have- Seargeant Derrick Hill who is engaged. Yet nothing stops Carmen Brown getting what she wants- except perhaps a trip to LA and an ominous tarot cards prophecy.
Snooty opera singer meets a rough-and-tumble fisherman in the Louisiana bayous, but this fisherman can sing! Her agent lures him away to New Orleans to teach him to sing opera, but comes to regret this rash decision when the singers fall in love.
An opera star's manager tries to stop her romance with a penniless singer.
The popular 1980âs dance movie that depicts the life of an exotic dancer with a side job as a welder who true desire is to get into ballet school. Itâs her dream to be a professional dancer and now is her chance. The film has a great soundtrack with an Oscar winning song.
Playboy Andy Mason, on leave from the army, romances showgirl Edie Allen overnight to such effect that she's starry-eyed when he leaves next morning for active duty in the Pacific. Only trouble is, he gave her the assumed name of Casey. Andy's eventual return with a medal is celebrated by his rich father with a benefit show featuring Eadie's show troupe, at which she's sure to learn his true identity...and meet Vivian, his 'family-arrangement' fiancée. Mostly song and dance.
The inimitable Danny Kaye stars as famed storyteller Hans Christian Andersen in this charming fictionalized biopic that blends music, romance, comedy and fantasy to trace the life of Denmark's literary hero. A small-town shoemaker with a knack for spinning yarns, Hans encounters happiness and heartbreak on his road to becoming a full-fledged writer.
When the representative of the Paris International Dance Exposition arrives in New York to invite the Academy Ballet of America to compete for monetary prizes, the taxi driver mistakenly brings him to the Club Ballé, a nightclub on the brink of declaring bankruptcy. The owners, Terry Moore and Duke Dennis, jump at the chance to go, despite being aware of the mistake. They hire ballet teacher, Luis Leoni, and his only pupil, Kay Morrow, to join the group, hoping to teach their two dozen show girls ballet en route to Paris by ship. Also going along and rooming with Kay is Mona, Terry's ex-wife, who wants to keep an eye on her alimony checks. Naturally, Kay and Terry fall in love.
Performance of ballet by The Royal Ballet, recorded at Covent Garden, July 1984.
Mary Barrett is an aspiring Opera singer who is taken under the wings of a famous operatic maestro, Guilio Monterverdi. After spending endless working hours together and arguing, their relationship develops into love. But, jealousy and misunderstandings prevent Mary and Guilio from acknowledging their true feelings.
Everyone deserves a chance to follow their dreams, but some people only get one shot. Tyler Gage is a rebel from the wrong side of Baltimore¹s tracks and the only thing that stands between him and an unfulfilled life are his dreams of one day making it out of there. Nora is a privileged ballet dancer attending Baltimore¹s ultra-elite Maryland School of the Arts
Opera singer Prudence Budell (Kathryn Grayson), overhears truck driver Johnny Donnetti (Mario Lanza) singing opera, and persuades her opera company to give him a chance in her new opera. They fall in love, but on meeting his colleague Mary (Marjorie Reynolds) while visiting Johhny's work, Prudence becomes convinced Johnny is in love with her.
Rock Opera version of Phantom Of The Opera with elements of Faust. Record producer Swan steals both the music and the girl (Phoenix) from composer Leach. Disfigured Leach plans revenge on Swan and his rock palace, The Paradise, and becomes The Phantom. Leach signs contract with Swan to complete rock opera based on the life of Faust for Phoenix. Double crossed by Swan who hires heavy metal singer Beef, Leach exacts his vengeance.
The colorful holiday classic is finally brought to the big screen, designed by famed children's story author and artist Maurice Sendak, and written for the first time to be as close as possible to the original story. A lavish, exciting and heart-warming celebration of dance, of music, and of life. Based upon the Pacific Northwest Ballet's original production.
Fantasia is the adventurous 1940 experiment from Disney. The film sets Disney animated characters to classical music as Mickey Mouse uses his magic wand to set broomsticks dancing in one of the more famous elaborate scenes. The film was groundbreaking in its usage of animation and music and is still considered a masterpiece decades later.
The Committee, starring Paul Jones of Manfred Mann fame, is a unique document of Britain in the 1960s. After a very successful run in Londonâs West End in 1968, viewings of this controversial movie have been few and far between. Stunning black and white camera work by Ian Wilson brings to life this âchilling fableâ by Max Steuer, a lecturer (now Reader Emeritus) at the London School of Economics. Avoiding easy answers, The Committee uses a surreal murder to explore the tension and conflict between bureaucracy on one side, and individual freedom on the other. Many films, such as Total Recall, Fahrenheit 451 and Camusâ The Stranger, see the state as ignorant and repressive, and pass over the inevitable weaknesses lying deep in individuals. Drawing on the ideas of R.D. Laing, a psychologically hip state faces an all too human protagonist.
A soap opera writer gets hit on the head and wakes up as a character in his own show.
A white midwestern girl moves to Chicago, where her new boyfriend is a black teen from the South Side with a rough, semi-criminal past.
Alice, an unpretentious and individual 19-year-old, is betrothed to a dunce of an English nobleman. At her engagement party, she escapes the crowd to consider whether to go through with the marriage and falls down a hole in the garden after spotting an unusual rabbit. Arriving in a strange and surreal place called 'Underland,' she finds herself in a world that resembles the nightmares she had as a child, filled with talking animals, villainous queens and knights, and frumious bandersnatches. Alice realizes that she is there for a reason--to conquer the horrific Jabberwocky and restore the rightful queen to her throne.
Big Bang Love tells the story of two young prisoners from different backgrounds whose bond transcends their pasts. This stunning, imaginative film has been adapted from Masaki Ato's homoerotic graphic novel. Two beautiful young men become lovers in jail until one kills again. As they open their hearts to each other, life around them dissolves between the real world with a murder mystery and a surreal journey filled with images of a primitive past and an ambiguous future.
They sing, Rise, all living corpses, forget the prolonged time of chaos, drag the long shadow of curse and haunt all boring souls. A concourse where three streets meet, where everyone wants to come at least once in their lives. These ghosts work as concourse staff of a theater, where three streets meet during the day and at night, and throw a fantastic feast of dance and songs as ghosts. Midnight Ballad for Ghost Theater starts somewhat like Jim Sharmanâs Rocky Horror Picture Show. However, as it travels through the history, this cult-like movie reveals the changing theater culture and dark shadow the past casts over the present. At the same time, it ventures into an odd time and space that combines Jean Cocteau-style surrealism, nightmare of Dr. Caligari and images that are often found in documentaries. Our Alice, who journeys through this wonderland of Lewis Carroll, is a girl named Sodan.
A man wanders into a seemingly deserted town with his young son in search of work. But after a bit of bad luck, he joins the town's population of lost souls.
The Royal Ballet Company brings Squirrel Nutkin, Tom Thumb, Hunca Munca, Jemima Puddle-Duck, Jeremy Fisher, Pigling Bland, and Pigwig to the screen doing pirouettes and pas de deux in this filmed ballet production directed by Reginald Mills. The film more properly belongs, however, to choreographer Frederick Ashmore, composer John Lanchbery, and costume designer Rostislav Douboujinsky. This literal adaptation concerns the shy Beatrix Potter and how, when all of the toy animals in her room come to life, she emerges from her shell and begins to enjoy life. Sequences include a rowdy dance with Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca destroying a collection of plaster food, a midnight pas de deux between Pigling Bland and Pigwig, and a corps de ballet of dancing mice.
There is a war in the world between the men and the women. A young girl tries to escape this reality and comes to a hidden place where a strange unicorn lives with a family: Sister, Brother, many children and an old woman that never leaves her bed but stays in contact with the world through her radio...
Film based on the ballet 'Coppelia.' This version is completely silent, not containing the songs/narration, or animation of the later reworking, Mysterious House of Dr. C.
Set in a post apocalyptic world where vampires named for Greek gods, and witches rule. It is a classic vampire story with some real twists: The plot centers around a male vampire named Eros who falls in love with a human named Samuel. Eros wants to "save" Samuel and make him a vampire, but Eros evil vampire lover, Dionysus has other ideas. Matters are complicated by Eros' sister/lover, Persephone, an ambiguous Bookkeeper and three witches, who know secrets of the universe and The Laws Of Eternity.A deep tale of decadence,erotica and Major stylized horror themes,shot around surreal and post apocalyptic sets on one hand and lavish,dark Gothic atmospheres on the other.
The fanciful tale of an introverted little girl who grows up believing she has the power to make wishes come true. She must reconcile this belief with reality when, as a young woman, she journeys to Moscow and grapples with love, modernity and materialism.
A group of 12 teenagers from various backgrounds enroll at the American Ballet Academy in New York to make it as ballet dancers and each one deals with the problems and stress of training and getting ahead in the world of dance.
Set against the background of the 1984 Miner's Strike, Billy Elliot is an 11 year old boy who stumbles out of the boxing ring and onto the ballet floor. He faces many trials and triumphs as he strives to conquer his family's set ways, inner conflict, and standing on his toes!
A worldwide epidemic encourages a bio-tech company to launch an organ-financing program similar in nature to a standard car loan. The repossession clause is a killer, however.
The film shadows Justin Peck, wunderkind choreographer of the New York City Ballet, as he undertakes the Herculean task of creating the companyâs 422nd original piece. Following the creative process from its embryonic stages to its highly anticipated premiere, Ballet 422 is a powerful celebration of the skill and endurance of New Yorkâs most talented dancersâas well as those who remain hidden in the wings.
Two ballets - The Firebird and The Rite of Spring. Music by Igor Stravinsky.
Trip, a young roadie for Metallica, is sent on an urgent mission during the band's show. But what seems like a simple assignment turns into a surreal adventure.
A film adaptation of the Ludwig Minkus ballet, completely re-orchestrated and with additional music by John Lanchbery.
Film depicts the events on board a luxury liner filled with the friends of a deceased opera singer who have gathered to mourn her.
Jules, a young Parisian postman, secretly records a concert performance given by the opera singer Cynthia Hawkins, whom he idolises. The following day, Jules runs into a woman who is being pursued by armed thugs. Before she is killed, the woman slips an audio cassette into his mail bag...
'Tajna dvorca IB' is a balletic musical, dialogue-less, propaganda rendition of Cominterne's Resolution used by Stalin to regain his rule over non-Soviet communist countries, especially Tito's Yugoslavia. This film can be considered as one form of Tito's propaganda response to Stalin's demands. Set in a metaphorical state, it describes the alchemical creation of Resolution in a desolate castle where enslaved Communist leaders work under Stalin's command. When the Resolution, in shape of a young woman, is released to the public, workers and citizens despise her and she returns to its' creators, her fate showing them that Yugoslav people are against Stalin's rule. This film remains a curio even for the most knowledgeable connoisseurs of Yugoslav film.
Perhaps the most popular ballet video ever released, this version of Tchaikovsky's beloved work stars one of the most famous classical dance partnerships of all time, Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn. Nureyev choreographed this production for the Vienna State Opera Ballet. Two icons of 20th-century dance in magnificent form. Ballet authority John Lanchbery, former music director of the Sadler's Wells and Royal Ballet companies, as well as of American Ballet Theatre and Australian Ballet, conducts the Vienna Symphony Orchestra in Tchaikovsky's enchanting score.
Evan Evans, the director of a ballet troupe, is rehearsing his next show in Monaco, in preparation for a worldwide tour. When one member of his troupe leaves to get married, Evans imposes a regime of strict discipline on his remaining dancers. The latter get their revenge by presenting Evansâ nephew Philippe, the only male member of the group, with a baby and a note claiming he is the fatherâ¦
The talented Korean tenor, Bae, who penetrate the audience's hears through his delicate and powerful singing, is on the rise to stardom at the European opera scene. Sawada, a Japanese music producer, is searching for a new tenor for an upcoming performance. He watches a performance of Bae and invites him to Japan, which marks the beginning of friendship. But, the thyroid cancer strikes Bae. During an operation, the nerves of his vocal cords has be cut due to the widely spread cancer. Unfortunately, Ba ends up losing his voice at the peak of his career. Sawada cant's stand to watch Bae's miserable so he starts to look for a solution.
FIG TREES is a documentary opera about AIDS activists Tim McCaskell of Toronto and Zackie Achmat of Capetown as they fight for access to treatment drugs. Documentary interviews, speeches, press conferences and demonstrations are sampled, taken apart, and set to music, replayed this time as operatic scenes. A surreal fictional narrative is intercut with the stories of their struggles against government and the pharmaceutical industry. In this fictional world, Gertrude Stein decides to write a tragic opera about Tim and Zackie and their saint-like heroism. She kidnaps them, transports them to Niagara Falls, and forces them to sing a series of complicated avant-garde vocal compositions. However, when Zackie ends his treatment strike and starts taking his pills, Gertrude realizes that there will be no more tragedy, and thus, no more opera.
Hawkwind plays the final Peoples' Free Festival at Stonehenge during the Summer Solstice and this tiny snippet of film is an amazing yet important document of a time when there was still the free spirit of independence and nonconformity. Blasting its audience into deep space with their high-octane space rock and surreal theatrics of it lead-singer, it really is time to buckle your seat belts and take a trip into times' long gone past.
The film begins on a train journey with Gustav Mahler (Robert Powell) and his wife Alma (Georgina Hale) confronting their failing marriage. The story is then recounted in a series of flashbacks (some of which are surrealistic and nightmarish), taking one through Mahler's childhood, his brother's suicide, his experience with anti-semitism, his conversion from Judaism to Catholicism, his marital problems, and the death of his young daughter. The film also contains a surreal fantasy sequence involving the anti-Semitic Cosima Wagner (Antonia Ellis), widow of Richard Wagner, whose objections to his taking control of the Court Opera were supposedly removed by his conversion to Catholicism. In the process, the film explores Mahler's music and its relationship to his life.
In a grimy provincial industrial city, a talented but unattractive schoolteacher dreams of an operatic career.
It's Halloween and Tru Holliwood is having a party, but nothing is what it seems as murder, musical numbers, nightmares, and a Fairy Godmother become part of Tru's surreal celebration.
Loosely traces the life of tenor Enrico Caruso (1873-1921). He loves Musetta, in his home town of Naples, and then Dorothy, the daughter of one of the Metropolitan Opera's patrons. Caruso is unacceptable to both women's fathers: to one, because he sings; to Dorothy's, because he is a peasant. To New York patricians, Caruso is short, barrel chested, loud, emotional, unrefined. Their appreciation comes slowly. The film depicts Caruso's lament that "the man does not have the voice, the voice has the man": he cannot be places he wants to be, because he must be elsewhere singing, including the day his mother dies. Throughout, Mario Lanza and stars from the Met sing.
This film follows the remarkable and inspirational true story of Paul Potts, a shy, bullied shop assistant by day and an amateur opera singer by night.
Giselle is the quintessential Romantic ballet. Its title role, one of the most technically demanding and emotionally challenging in the classical repertory, is here danced by Alina Cojocaru, partnered by Johan Kobborg as Count Albrecht. This tale of the transcendental power of love over death is evocatively portrayed through Peter WrightÂs sensitive staging and John MacfarlaneÂs designs, which beautifully contrast the human and supernatural worlds  mastered from a High Definition recording and true surround sound. Conductor : Boris Gruzin Orchestra : The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Based on the 1973 rock opera album of the same name by The Who, this is the story of 60s teenager Jimmy. At work he slaves in a dead-end job. While after, he shops for tailored suits and rides his scooter as part of the London Mod scene.
A double-bill of operas filmed by Franco Zeffirelli. 'Cavalleria Rusticana' features performances by Elena Obraztsova, Plácido Domingo, and Renato Bruson, while 'Pagliacci' again features Plácido Domingo, along with Teresa Stratas and Juan Pons. Georges Prêtre conducts the Orchestra e Coro del Teatro alla Scala.
If ever there was an album worthy of inclusion in Eagle Visionâs Classic Albums series it is Queenâs breakout release A Night At The Opera. Released in 1975, this was not only the bandâs first platinum album, but also the one that catapulted them into the spotlight as one of the biggest rock acts in the world. Now for the first time, fans are offered an in-depth look at one of rock musicâs seminal records with the Classic Albums DVD Queen â The Making Of A Night At The Opera.
Pit violinist Claudin hopelessly loves rising operatic soprano Christine Dubois (as do baritone Anatole and police inspector Raoul) and secretly aids her career. But Claudin loses both his touch and his job, murders a rascally music publisher in a fit of madness, and has his face etched with acid. Soon, mysterious crimes plague the Paris Opera House, blamed on a legendary "phantom".
At the age of 11, Li was plucked from a poor Chinese village by Madame Mao's cultural delegates and taken to Beijing to study ballet. In 1979, during a cultural exchange to Texas, he fell in love with an American woman. Two years later, he managed to defect and went on to perform as a principal dancer for the Houston Ballet and as a principal artist with the Australian Ballet.
Deformed since birth, a bitter man known only as the Phantom lives in the sewers underneath the Paris Opera House. He falls in love with the obscure chorus singer Christine, and privately tutors her while terrorizing the rest of the opera house and demanding Christine be given lead roles. Things get worse when Christine meets back up with her childhood acquaintance Raoul and the two fall in love
When her daughter joins a ballet company, a former dancer is forced to confront her long-ago decision to give up the stage to have a family.
Gory remake of the Gaston Leroux classic story, only this time, the phantom is not disfigured, but a man who was raised by rats deep under the Paris Opera House.
In the not so distant future, Theodore, a lonely writer purchases a newly developed operating system designed to meet the user's every needs. To Theordore's surprise, a romantic relationship develops between him and his operating system. This unconventional love story blends science fiction and romance in a sweet tale that explores the nature of love and the ways that technology isolates and connects us all.
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