Giacomo Puccini
Description
This film tells the story of one of the most magic moments of music. The beginning of 1964 held a great surprise for the music world: Maria Callas returns to the opera stage as prima donna. Her Tosca at the Royal Opera House becomes a sensation. Not even the Beatles received more press coverage. All this, for an artist whose glorious career was said to be over, with the singer herself passing over to legend. It is no longer her performances, but her...
Description
This "live" version of Puccini's opera was recorded in Rome in the exact locations and at the precise times of day as Puccini had written into his score. The action opens in Rome's beautiful 16th-century church of Sant'Andrea della Valle at noon, moves to the Farnese Palace that evening, and finally to the battlements of the Castel Sant'Angelo at dawn the following day.
Description
This unique documentary looks back at the life of the legendary Luciano Pavarotti, with many of opera's greatest stars, including Plácido Domingo, José Carreras, Joan Sutherland, Montserrat Caballé́ and Juan Diego Flórez, paying personal tribute to the great man and his music. Pavarotti sings no less than seven of his most celebrated arias, defining an astonishing career that spanned four decades and took the world by storm.
17) La Bohème
Description
A true romantic tragedy, and unquestionably the most popular opera of all time. The chemistry between Rolando Villazon and Anna Netrebko as the protagonists, Rodolfo and Mimi, is electric and unrivaled in the theatre today.
18) Madame Butterfly
Description
An American naval officer falls in love with a Japanese geisha girl known as Butterfly and marries her, with no intention of ever taking her home to America.
Series
Criterion collection volume 775
Description
A young, independent-minded, upper-class Edwardian woman who is trying to sort out her burgeoning romantic feelings, divided between an enigmatic free spirit she meets on vacation in Florence and the priggish bookworm to whom she becomes engaged back in the more corseted Surrey.