The Threepenny Opera proclaims itself "an opera for beggars," and it was in fact an attempt both to satirize traditional opera and operetta and to create a new kind of musical theater based on the theories of two young German artists, composer Kurt Weill and poet-playwright Bert Brecht. The show opens with a mock-Baroque overture, a nod to Threepenny's source, The Beggar's Opera, a brilliantly successful parody of Handel's operas written by John Gay in 1728. In a brief prologue following the overture, a shabby figure comes onstage with a barrel organ and launches into a song chronicling the crimes of the notorious bandit and womanizer Macheath, "Mack the Knife." The setting is a fair in Soho (London), just before Queen Victoria's coronation. In this production, Weill champion HK Gruber led the Ensemble Modern in a performance of Weill's complete original score, the first time it had been heard in Germany in many years. This production was broadcast on German television (3sat).
Kristine Opolais is the young woman whose conflicting desires for love and luxury lead to her tragic end, and Roberto Alagna plays the man who falls for her in Puccini’s early hit.
A commuter waits for a ride under the sweltering Manila heat. As his impatience grows, he sets off on his walk home, putting on a pair of earphones as he begins listening to some music.
An anthology of four abbreviated operas: "William Tell" by Rossini, "The Marriage of Figaro" by Mozart, "Don Pasquale" by Donizetti, and "Carmen" by Bizet.
A dead woman wanders through the shadowy space between memory and reality, tracing the lines of her identity through the land she once walked—an immigrant in death as in life.
St. Margarethen is a magnificent structure and a grand setting for Nabucco. This venue, along with the gorgeous costumes, spectacular lighting, lasers and pyrotechnics made for one grand, five star production! This is reason enough to see it and it must be an advantage to view it on DVD.
Patty Duke plays a divorced woman who goes to law school to defend herself in court after a chauvinistic judge awards her rotten husband their property.
Political satire about the billion-euro loan to the GDR in 1983, which was arranged by Franz-Josef Strauß and Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski to save a bankrupt bank.
Enraged at the slaughter of Murron, his new bride and childhood love, Scottish warrior William Wallace slays a platoon of the local English lord's soldiers.
The wind swirls up dust in a desert landscape. The picture is followed by images of clouds racing over the skyline of a city, of reflections on an expanse of water, of waves breaking over an embankment and of row upon row of burning candles.
The film depicts the relationship between a beautiful teacher and a male teacher, popular among female students, an excellent student who tells the teacher about his feelings using an answering machine, and a high school student who bets on whether she can have a relationship with a male teacher.
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