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- This documentary series uses drama and commentary to shed light on the lives and works of Joseph Conrad, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, T. S. Eliot, Henrik Ibsen, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, Luigi Pirandello, Marcel Proust and Virginia Woolf.
- Ken Russell's film about the composer Bruckner, spending time at a sanatorium because of his obsessional counting.
- The opera tells the story of the downfall of Don José, a naïve soldier who is seduced by the wiles of the fiery gypsy Carmen.
- A biopic about the eminent composer Sir Arnold Bax.
- The French philosopher, writer and Nobel Prize winner died in a car crash in 1960, at the age of forty-six. Despite the unremitting seriousness of his intellectual stance as an Existentialist and his concern for the human condition, Camus had a zest for life and was a notorious womaniser. Jack Bonds fully dramatised film, a dreamlike vision set in the moment between life and death itself, evokes the man and his ideas.
- Set in a British pub, eight men have their night out. Blokish fun is balanced on a knife-edge of tension, where weakness is exploited and violence covers up vulnerability. Originally created for the stage by DV8 Physical Theatre.
- A historical adaptation of John Gay's 18th Century ballad opera, exuberantly performed for BBC television. With its story of a condemned highwayman, it brings to life the greed, lust and corruption of low-life London.
- An opera by Benjamin Britten, on a libretto by E.M. Forster and Eric Crozier, adapted from the story by Herman Melville. Billy Budd is a young sailor aboard a British man-o'-war, persecuted by his master-at-arms, Claggart. Accused of mutiny, Budd accidently strikes Claggart dead, leaving Captain Vere with no choice but to hang him.
- Looks at our quest for someone to love and something, or someone, to believe in. The tyranny of couples and groups, the pain of not belonging and the fear of being alone are all laid bare in a series of powerful images.
- Frida Kahlo: declared a symbol of Mexican national heritage, made into a cult figure by the women's movement, praised by the likes of Picasso and Breton, this film uses images and music to reveal the soul of an icon. At the age of 18 she suffered an accident that would forever change her life, resulting in pain, numerous operations and childlessnesss. Insdie you will visit the Blue House in Coyoacan, the place of her birth and the last years of her life. Today, the house serves as a museum dedicated to the charismatic artist. Haunting self-portraits and a stirring world of images tell of her life and passions, her thoughts and feelings, her exhausting love for Diego Rivera and her deep connection to Mexico.
- Ken Russell's biopic on his own life and career.
- This opera is set in Persia (present day Iran) in 480 BC and is very loosely based upon Xerxes I of Persia. Apart from the reported infatuation of King Xerxes with a plane tree and his reported construction of a bridge, this tale is pure supposition. Xerxes is engaged to Amatris, but wishes to marry Romilda, the daughter of his successful general. Romilda wants to marry Arsamenes, the brother of the King, but Atalanta - Romilda's sister - wants Arsamenes to be her husband.
- Human, All Too Human is a three-part 1999 documentary television series co-produced by the BBC and RM Arts.[1] It follows the lives of three prominent European philosophers: Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre.[1] The theme revolves heavily around the school of philosophical thought known as Existentialism, although the term had not been coined at the time of Nietzsche's writing and Heidegger declaimed the label. The documentary is named after the 1878 book written by Nietzsche, titled Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits (in German: Menschliches, Allzumenschliches: Ein Buch für freie Geister).[2]
- Titus Vespasian, Emperor of Rome, has succeeded to the throne that his father, Vespasian, usurped from the Emperor Vitellius. Vitellia, daughter of Vitellius, urges her boyfriend Sextus to join the conspiracy against Titus and his consort Berenice. Sextus, however, is loyal to Titus. The other players include Annius, Sextus's friend; Servilia, Sextus's sister; and Publius, captain of the guard. When Sextus sees the Capitol in flames, he runs to save Titus, but thinks himself too late when he comes upon a dying man wearing the royal purple. Sextus prepares to kill himself, but Annius tells him it is the conspirator Lentulus who is disguised in the robes. Sextus exchanges cloaks with Annius, since his own bears the badge of the conspirators. Unfortunately, this means that Annius is arrested for treason. He is willing to take the fall for Sextus, but the dying Lentulus tells the truth, Annius is freed, and Sextus is arrested. Sextus, too, maintains silence to protect Vitellia. Vitellia confesses everything to Titus to save Sextus from execution. Titus shows clemency and pardons everyone, and observes that since Vitellia and Sextus are so much in love, they should marry.
- This documentary details Roger Daltrey's background and years with the Who, and provides interviews and scenes from the BBC production of John Gay's Beggar's Opera.
- A collection of 220 ten-minute programs, each one focusing on a painting, appraising its character and content. Host Edwin Mullins examines works in some of the world's finest art collections, galleries and museums, per 20 thematic groups.
- Modern adaptation of the classic operatic drama, with a few twists. Micaela, José's Mother, and Mörd (Death) are played by the same dancer. The action is reduced to a single act in 13 scenes. The love scenes are played to a minimum and the working women's fight is adjourned to the last scene [and cut from some DVD editions] that concentrates all the pathos announced throughout by the eerie music.
- Follows Shirley Verrett's professional and private life during the course of a year. Performance extracts show her in dramatic opera roles, performing blues numbers and spirituals interspersed with interviews.
- The Earl of Essex, Robert Devereux, is hot-blooded and jealous of anyone who might win the Queen's favour. He provokes a fight with the tournament victor, Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, but then the Queen and her entourage arrive. She orders the two men to make up, but later she discusses the rivalry of Mountjoy and Essex with her chief adviser, Sir Robert Cecil. She admires Essex, but Cecil warns her of the political dangers of showing affection for him. He also reports that a new Armada may be on the way. Essex comes in and requests permission to go to Ireland to suppress the Tyrone rebellion. He accuses Cecil and Sir Walter Raleigh of intriguing against him. The Queen resists and sends him away. Essex complains to his wife Frances about the way Elizabeth thwarts his desire to go to Ireland. Lady Essex gives a ball at which she dresses extravagantly and looks finer than her queen, but when the ladies return from changing their dresses after a dance, Lady Essex says that her dress was stolen, and it is clear that the larger woman, Queen Elizabeth, is wearing it. Essex is furious about his wife's humiliation, but the Queen says he will be appointed Lord Deputy in Ireland. In the final act, however, Essex has failed to put down the Irish rebellion. Though Elizabeth likes him, she cannot approve his failure or his paranoia and political battles at court. The Queen orders him imprisoned, and some citizens sympathize with Essex though others declare him a traitor and call for his death. Queen Elizabeth must now ponder her relationship with Essex in order to come to the best decision.
- In 1915 the Russian artist Malevich declared a Black Square on a White Background an icon of his times and thus founded a new form of art, liberated from objects - Suprematism. Supported by the Bolsheviks at first, his 'formalistic' art was soon considered counterrevolutionary. 50 years later, in 1989, the first comprehensive Malevich retrospective outside Russia was held in Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum. It is here that Barrie Gavin outlines the artist's creative phases and his life story. In doing so, he discovers the most diverse 'isms' of the 20th century and one of the most significant pioneers of abstract art.
- The widow, Anna Glawari, faces a dilemma. Pontevedro, her native country, will be left bankrupt if she weds a foreigner. An Embassy plot to marry her off to the debonair Count Danilo Danilovitch is complicated by the secret affair which has developed between the French attaché, Camille de Rosillon, and the Ambassador's wife, Valencienne. This light-hearted tale of political and amorous intrigue unfolds amidst the gaiety of high society in turn-of-the-century Paris.
- Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka's magical masterpiece in its entirety, inspired by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin's poem of a Russian tale. An evil sorcerer Chernomor casts a spell over wedding celebrations for Ruslan and Lyudmila at the court of Svetozar, the Prince of Kiev. Lyudmila vanishes and her father promises her hand and half his kingdom to the knight who rescues her. Ruslan on this quest of rescue encounters the knights Ratmir and Farlaf, the wise wizard Finn, the slave of Ratmir, Gorislava and sorceress Naina before confronting Chernomor in his magic garden. After all the challenges for Ruslan, true love prevails.
- Her position at the side of her husband, Emperor Claudius, is not enough to satisfy the ambition of Agrippina, Empress of Rome. She schemes to elevate her son by her first marriage, Nero, to the throne. Then she will need only Nero to accomplish and acquire everything she dreams of.
- Eugène Marais is Afrikaner intellectual, naturalist, poet, author, rebel and morphine addict who publicly attacked the repressive Transvaal Government. On a remote farm, trying to overcome his drug habit, Marais observes the animal world to understand the essence of dependency.
- Macbeth, the Thane of Glamis, receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders his king and takes the throne for himself.
- Swedish production with multi-national cast, shot entirely on location in the Greek islands and on the Greek mainland.
- When Sir John Falstaff decides that he wants to have a little fun he writes two letters to a pair of Window wives: Mistress Ford and Mistress Page. When they put their heads together and compare missives, they plan a practical joke or two to teach the knight a lesson. But Mistress Ford's husband is a very jealous man and is pumping Falstaff for information of the affair. Meanwhile the Pages' daughter Anne is besieged by suitors.
- On 8th January 1735 at the Covent Garden in London, Georg Friederich Handel presented his new opera Ariodante on a libretto by Antonio Salvi adapted by Paolo Rolli and inspired by Ariosto. The opera did not immediately win public favour and thus failed to furnish a definitive solution for the fate of Handel's company, but with time it was to be understood and appreciated and has remained on playbills among the more successful and interesting titles. Handel's particular attention to the expressive aspect was most probably the reason for the opera's limited commercial success: the characters fit only partially into the customary types of opera of the day. The tendency to formulate autonomous patterns in the expressive genre is also underlined by an illustrious contemporary, John Mainwaring, in his Memoirs of the life of George Frederick Handel. Extraordinary is also the strength of the instrumental composition, which again in Ariodante is intended now as support to the voices now as independent, coinciding with steps in the sinfonia and with delightful dance motives. In this production of the Spoleto Festival, at his 50th anniversary, Alan Curtis conducts the Complesso Barocco and an extraordinarily agile Ann Hallenberg in the title role. Scenes and costumes by John Pascoe. Together with Giulio Cesare and Rodelinda, Ariodante is considered one of Handel's operatic masterpieces. It was composed for London's Covent Garden theatre, where it was first performed on January 8th, 1735. Alan Curtis and his Complesso Barocco rank among the best specialists in baroque music, and regularly record for Virgin, Deutsche Grammophone and now also for Dynamic. Thanks to the interesting and personal touch of the director Alan Pascoe, this production comes across as a very credible show. Pascoe and Curtis, incidentally, already gained remarkable success with Vivaldi's Ercole sul Termodonte, published by Dynamic in 2007
- Filmed a year before the author's death in 1989, these special studio recordings of Eh Joe, Footfalls, and Rockaby are brief, concentrated, and pared down to the absolute essentials, even to the exclusion of colour are the definitive productions, made in close collaboration with the Nobel Laureate himself and featuring his favourite and most-trusted actress, Billie Whitelaw. Together these plays explore the themes of consciousness and self-image in Beckett's inimitable style.
- Hungarian director Laszlo Kovacs (László Szabó) goes to Hollywood, where his compatriot Agi (Ágnes Bánfalvy) tries to get him started on a film document about the late movie director Orson Welles. She sends him the issue #82 of American Film magazine, November 1983, with several pages marked on controversial statements of Wells and other personalities. He gets curious, meets the young woman Agi, and she suggests a number of people to interview, who had known the late film director. Like his model, he is engulfed in the world of movies, alcohol, sex, film stardom and unfinished or inconclusive movies. A docudrama told in the style of Wells himself, with interviews presented and re-enacted so that ambivalence prevails over what is true and what is fake.
- In the 50s, Coco Chanel launched the suit that became her trademark. Using rare archival footage, this program explores the course of her career as well as the fascinating story of her personal life. Karl Lagerfeld is now heading the firm.
- Italian Renaissance sculptor Donatello made a name for himself by creating realistic pieces of art that perfectly captured the human form. With the help of experts, explore the lifestyle and work of this completely dedicated and talented artist. Viewers will travel to the cities where Donatello's works currently reside, such as Florence, Sienna, Venice, Padua, and London, to examine these amazing sculptures up close.