Unitel

Giacomo Puccini's immortal opera, in a high budget feature-film version directed by Academy Award nominee Robert Dornhelm, stars opera's 'Golden Couple', Rolando Villazon and Anna Netrebko as the protagonists, Rodolfo and Mimi. The chemistry between them is electric, unrivalled in the theatre today. Russian soprano Anna Netrebko is not only beautiful but has a marvelous voice and technique; Mexican tenor Rolando Villazon, has a wonderful voice and an incredible charisma. The director not only wanted to remain steadfastly faithful to Puccini's design but also document two of the leading singers of the modern age rather than embarking on a 'trendy' contemporary re-creation.

Performances from Pamela Coburn, Brigitte Fassbaender, Janet Perry, Eberhard Wachter, the Choir und Ballet der Bayerischen Staatsoper, and the Bayerisches Staatsorchester. Rosalinde, wife of Eisenstein, is having an affair with Alfred. Eisenstein is due to begin a prison sentence the next morning, and the prison governor, Frank, is expected to collect him at any moment. However, Eisenstein allows himself to be talked into attending a fancy dress ball by Dr Falke, and when Frank arrives to find Alfred with Rosalinde, he assumes him to be Eisenstein and carts him off to prison.

Beethoven's opera Fidelio, conducted by Karl Böhm, featuring Gwyneth Jones as Leonore and James King as Florestan

How do we live together in an age of conflict? How do you heal a divided and angry people? In their 2017 production of Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito, Peter Sellars and Teodor Currentzis examine these questions through the story of a warrior-emperor who brings peace to his divided land and pardons his own would-be assassins. Written under a time crunch (legend has it that it was written in only 18 days, although it is likely an exaggeration) during the last year of Mozart’s life, the opera is based on a libretto written more than half a century earlier by Pietro Metastasio. It was commissioned for the coronation of Leopold II as King of Bohemia, and received its first public performance at the Estates Theatre in Prague on September 6, 1791.

Sergei S. Prokofiev's monumental setting of Leo N. Tolstoy's epic novel, War and Peace. The composer and his wife Mira compressed the plot, set during Napoleon's Russian campaign, into a powerful sequence of scenes in which the love story between Natasha Rostova and Andrei Bolkonsky and the description of the Russian army's fight against the French invasion alternate in rich contrast, and at the same time are closely interwoven. All is related by the music in its fullness of splendid themes and touchingly quiet moments. Prokofiev's musical-dramatic masterpiece combines social drama and historical chronicle in its 13 scenes to form an exuberant panorama. In this production by Dmitri Tcherniakov, the opera is performed in in Munich for the first time ever.

Kálmán Imre's beloved operetta comes to the screen in this comedy of music, marriage and class set in Budapest and Vienna before the outbreak of the First World War, recorded at the Budapest Opera in 1963.

Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), WWV 86B, is the second of the four music dramas that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, (English: The Ring of the Nibelung). It was performed, as a single opera, at the National Theatre Munich on 26 June 1870, and received its first performance as part of the Ring cycle at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 14 August 1876.

This 1978 studio production of the prologue to Wagner's masterpiece is the only segment of the famous Salzburg Festival/Metropolitan Opera productions, first seen in the 1960s, that made it to film. Based on one of those original productions, Georges Wakhevitch produced stage settings and transformations that supported Karajan's concept with every possible means. Herbert Von Karajan's staging is in the epic style of another age, emphasizing the dignity of the gods rather than their all too human failings. With the singers - foremost among them Peter Schreier - Karajan had an ensemble that fully conformed to his intentions.

In the early 1960s two artistic giants, conductor Herbert von Karajan and director Franco Zeffirelli, joined forces to create this milestone production of Puccini’s masterpiece at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala. Filmed in that legendary opera house in 1965, with Zeffireli himself directing for the cameras, this “Bohème” has been acclaimed universally for its unique theatrical impact and visual splendour. Starring the young Mirella Freni in her carreer-making performance. – For the first time the full dimension of opera on film.

The Queen of the Night enlists a handsome prince named Tamino to rescue her beautiful kidnapped daughter, Princess Pamina. Aided by the lovelorn bird hunter Papageno and a magical flute that holds the power to change the hearts of men, young Tamino embarks on a quest for true love, leading to the evil Sarastro's temple where Pamina is held captive.

A countess, paying a rare visit to her estate, clashes with the man she has hired to manage it.

This vivid film of Wagner's romatic opera succeeds in conveying what has famously been called "the wind that blows out at you whenever you open the score", including Daland's boat anchoring against the Sandwike cliffs, the red-sailed phantom ship, and the ghost crew rising from the dead. "Scenes that recall classic horror films... Brilliantly successful" (Nürnberger Nachrichten), "Captures the works' essence" (Süddeutsche Zeitung). With a superb cast; conducted by Wagner authority Wolfgang Sawallisch.

The crazed brother of a condemned killer sent to the gas chamber swears vengeance on those he holds responsible for his brother's execution.

Opera is an inherently theatrical medium that does not lend itself readily to the realism of film treatment. The shining exception is Puccini's Tosca, an action-packed melodrama that unfolds in three taut and gripping acts like the meatiest of Hollywood films noir. And unlike most operas, these three acts are set in three very specific Roman locales. Thus this 1976 film takes place in the church of Sant'Andrea della Valle (Act 1), the Palazzo Farnese (Act 2), and the Castel Sant'Angelo (Act 3).

Known as a creator of astonishing images, stage director and visual artist Robert Wilson delivers a magnificent production of Mozart’s adaption of Handel’s Messias. Mozart was commissioned by Gottfried van Swieten to modernise the score fifty years after Handel’s popular composition (1742), mainly by arranging the wind parts and partially re-composing them. With Marc Minkowski a conductor has been engaged who understands perfectly how to combine baroque style with the tonal possibilities of an orchestra of the classical period like the Musiciens du Louvre. The excellent soloist quartet with Elena Tsallagova, Wiebke Lehmkuhl, Richard Croft and José Coca Loza merges perfectly into Wilson’s enormous flood of images.

Strauss's opera adapted to the screen by Gotz Friedrich.

Sebastian, Chief Archer in the Roman Army, converts to Christianity. A favorite of Emperor Augustus, Sebastian's devotion to Christ eventually drives him to reject the Emperor's love, causing the Emperor to angrily order Sebastian to be shot with arrows by his fellow archers. The film retells this mystery play with a definite 'art-house' approach: an almost poetical use of language, singing, dancing, some homoerotic themes, and some special effects.

Violetta, a courtesan much wooed by Parisian society, organizes a grand party that is attended, amongst others, by the young Alfredo Germont. He confesses his feelings to Violetta, who is already suffering from consumption. She vacillates between genuine affection and a realistic assessment of her situation as a "fallen woman", which precludes any lasting relationship with a man. The Willy Decker production of La Traviata, recorded live at the Salzburger Festspiele in August, 2005. Anna Netrebko stars as Violetta Valéry, with Rolando Villazón as Alfredo Germont and Thomas Hampson as Giorgio Germont. Carlo Rizzi conducts the Wiener Philharmoniker.

Magic opera, Singspiel, a comedy with spectacular stage effects, Masonic ritual with Egyptian mysteries, heroic-comic opera? Die Zauberflöte is heard more often and has been more frequently performed, discussed, queried and interrogated than almost any other work in the history of opera. It is rare for the mysteriousness and multiformity of a work to be adjured with such mantric intensity. It is equally rare for a work to enjoy such undisputed success despite all these debates – and for over two hundred years at that.