Un ballo in maschera (A Masked Ball) is an 1859 opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The text, by Antonio Somma, was based on Eugène Scribe's libretto for Daniel Auber's 1833 five act opera, Gustave III, ou Le bal masqué. The plot concerns the assassination in 1792 of King Gustav III of Sweden who was shot, as the result of a political conspiracy, while attending a masked ball, dying of his wounds thirteen days later.
Carlos Álvarez takes the title role in the first of Verdi's Shakespearean operas, with Maria Guleghina as the manipulative wife whose desire to gain the Scottish throne drives her husband to murder and leaves both with blood on their hands.
The grand scale and magnificent acoustics of the Roman arena in Verona are ideally suited to the pageantry of Verdi's Egyptian opera, presented here in a staging that is true to the original 1913 production, framed by obelisks and sphinxes and filled with chorus and dancers.
The stupendous climax to Wagner’s four-part Ring cycle is brilliantly realized by the Otto Schenk/Günther Schneider-Siemssen production and byJames Levine’s monumental conducting.
Based on a revolutionary play supposedly written by the Eternal President of the Democratic People's Republic, Kim Il-sung, and rumored to have been co-directed by Kim Jong-il.
Originally commissioned to celebrate the completion of the Suez Canal and the opening of Cairos new opera house, Verdis Egyptian epic Aida is here seen in a spectacular new staging in the Teatro Regio Torino by the Oscar-winning American film director William Friedkin, creator of such famous movies as The Exorcist and The French Connection.
The great storyteller Hoffmann is losing himself to drink. His rival in love, Councillor Lindorf, claims that Hoffmann knows nothing of the heart, and so goads Hoffmann into telling the tales of his three great loves – each destroyed by a villain who bears an uncanny resemblance to Lindorf… First Hoffmann tells of his infatuation for the mechanical doll, Olympia – who is destroyed by the inventor Coppélius.
The production was the Vienna State Opera debut for the young Swiss conductor Philippe Jordan – the Argentinian tenor Marcelo Álvarez, took the title role.
Lucia’s brother Enrico is horrified to learn she has fallen in love with his sworn enemy Edgardo. He hastily arranges her marriage to his associate Arturo.
As he gradually turns mad, the dancer Nijinsky evokes the important episodes of his life. In costumes and sets of lush beauty, the divine puppet performs in a final show where the secondary characters are named: Diaghilev, Isadora Duncan, Stravinsky, Auguste Rodin, Léon Bakst.
This half-hour BBC documentary offers a revealing look at Svankmajer at work on "Death of Stalinism in Bohemia," and uses excerpts from his earlier films to trace the development of his unique sensibility.
The secretive realm of the world's deadliest ninja warriors is thrown into chaos as one by one, ninja clan leaders are brutally assassinated! What fiendish foe has the power to kill the most dangerous men in the world? To avenge their dead leader, three ninjas must face this hidden enemy.
Ref'at is a judge who is ruling on an important case that witnesses a lot of security interference. Rafiq Al-Henawy has him killed and stages it as a suicide before the ruling.
Val McKee and Earl Bassett are in a fight for their lives when they discover that their desolate town has been infested with gigantic, man-eating creatures that live below the ground.
