The story of Cio-Cio-San, called Butterfly, a young Nagasaki geisha who, abandoned by her American lover after giving birth to their son, ultimately kills herself, continues to impress audiences today. In this outstandingly authentic and elegant production from the Sferisterio Opera Festival, Puccini's highly emotional music is expertly delivered. The superior cast is headed by Raffaella Angeletti, "certainly one of the best Butterflies of our time" (ForumOpera.com), who has performed this role in many Italian theatres, as well as in Madrid and at the Vienna Staatsoper.
Visually this is a gripping production which captures the drama of this opera perfectly. It's downright exciting! and I found the singing, acting, and orchestral playing reasonably fine.
There are elements of Eurotrash in this outdoor Aix-en-Provence summer opera production. Nevertheless, the splendid singing and acting transform the story, normally treated as farce, into something considerably more serious.
This May 2010 production of Massenet's 1910 opera "Don Quichotte" marked the opera's centenary and also Jose Van Dam's operatic farewell at the Theatre de la Monnaie, Brussels.
The production was the Vienna State Opera debut for the young Swiss conductor Philippe Jordan – the Argentinian tenor Marcelo Álvarez, took the title role.
In the awe-inspiring Teatro Olimpico,Vicenza, Cecilia Bartoli, recognised as one of the best singers of our time, gives the most outstanding recital of work from a variety of composers such as Caccini, Schubert, Handel, Vivaldi, Bellini, Donizetti,Mozart, Rossini, Viardot and Bizet.
The 'Hidden Faith of Our Founding Fathers' is perhaps the first and only documentary to go where no film has ever gone before: into the hidden faith of America's founding fathers.
A true story of two men who should never have met – a quadriplegic aristocrat who was injured in a paragliding accident and a young man from the projects.
When the evil wizard Gargamel chases the tiny blue Smurfs out of their village, they tumble from their magical world and into ours -- in fact, smack dab in the middle of Central Park.
