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.
The production was the Vienna State Opera debut for the young Swiss conductor Philippe Jordan – the Argentinian tenor Marcelo Álvarez, took the title role.
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.
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 Lyric Opera of Chicago's 1985 production of Puccini's opera, set in the late nineteenth century in the city of Nagasaki, about a young Japanese woman who weds an American naval officer who later abandons her and the child she bore him.
Julia Bullock, Joyce DiDonato and Jakub Jozef Orlinski star in Katie Mitchell’s thrilling new production of Handel’s Theodora in an alternative modern-day reality, Theodora, a religious fundamentalist, plots for the resistance against the Roman occupation.
The film is a short story about a guy called Steve who has struggled with the Christian faith, having seen his parents, who are both Christians, break up because of his dad's unfaithfulness.
A high-energy throwback to the dirty joke movies of the 1970's, more than 70 classic dirty jokes have been brought to life in IS THIS A JOKE? These dirty jokes we all remember hearing and telling years ago have never been funnier as they come to life with a young and funny cast.
Aibileen Clark is a middle-aged African-American maid who has spent her life raising white children and has recently lost her only son; Minny Jackson is an African-American maid who has often offended her employers despite her family's struggles with money and her desperate need for jobs; and Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan is a young white woman who has recently moved back home after graduating college to find out her childhood maid has mysteriously disappeared.
Musician, composer, producer, music theorist, singer and visual artist; probably best known for his early work with Roxy Music, his production duties for U2 & Coldplay, and as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.
A young Russian woman, smuggled into America by human traffickers, and a notorious Egyptian transporter hired to drive her from the Mexican border to New York City, form an unlikely bond that transforms them and threatens to derail the traffickers' plans.