La Bohème

Giuseppe Verdi - La Forza del Destino

December 2024 •English

Riccardo Chailly inaugurates the 2024-2025 Opera Season with a new production of La forza del destino, conducting his ninth Verdi title at La Scala. Leo Muscato will direct yet another cast of extraordinary prestige. A complex opera in terms of dramaturgy, first performed in St. Petersburg in 1862 and debuting in its final form at La Scala in 1869 with the creation of the famous overture, La forza del destino offers some of the most memorable Verdi melodies. It has been absent from the programme since the Verdi centennial in 2001, when it was brought to La Scala by the artists of the Mariinsky Theatre of St. Petersburg; the La Scala Orchestra and Choir have not performed it since 1999.

The Merry Widow

January 2005 •German

Zurich Opera House production of Franz Léhar's operetta, with Dagmar Schellenberger, Rodney Gilfry, and Ute Gfrerer in lead roles. Baron Zeta is desperate that the fabulously wealthy widow Hanna Glavari marry a Pontevedrian man so that her fortune remains in the country. He attempts to match her and his handsome attaché, Danilo. It turns out that Danilo and Hanna had had a love affair in years past. Nevertheless, Danilo now refuses to love her because he doesn't want to appear like he is only interested in her money...

La Bohème

March 1979 •English

Performance of La Bohème in Teatro alla Scala, 1979.

Tosca

April 1976 •Italian

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).

The Past

May 2013 •French

After four years apart, Ahmad returns to his wife Marie in Paris in order to progress their divorce. During his brief stay, he cannot help noticing the strained relationship between Marie and her daughter Lucie. As he attempts to improve matters between mother and daughter Ahmad unwittingly lifts the lid on a long buried secret...

Françoise Dolto, for the love of children

September 2008 •French

After the Second World War, Claude, son of communist resistance fighters, whose mother died in Auschwitz, and Ben, child of a prostitute and a Jew, face the demons that haunt them with the help of Françoise Dolto.

Hedd Wyn

August 1992 •Welsh

'Hedd Wyn' is a 1992 Welsh anti-war biopic. Ellis Humphrey Evans, a farmer's son and poet living at Trawsfynydd in the Meirionydd countryside of upland Wales, competes for the most coveted prize of all in Welsh Poetry - that of the chair of the National Eisteddfod, which in August 1917 was due to be held in Birkenhead (one of the rare occasions when it was held in England). After submitting his entry, under his bardic name "Hedd Wyn" ("Blessed Peace") Evans later departs from Meirionydd by train to join the Royal Welsh Fusiliers in Liverpool, despite his initial misgivings about the war. Ellis is sent to fight in the trenches of Flanders. 'Hedd Wyn' was the first Welsh-language film to be nominated for an Oscar.

A Nest of Gentry

August 1969 •Russian

A screen adaptation of the novel of the same name by Russian writer Ivan Turgenev. The film portrays the life of Russian landed gentry in the 1840s. After a long travel in Europe, nobleman Lavretsky returns back home. Everything in his estate is so familiar and dear to his heart. On his first visit to his neighbors, the Kalitins, he meets Lisa. He forgets his wife, left in Paris, forgets all his past. He desires only one thing – to always be with Lisa who is so unlike the women he used to know.

Bluebeard's Castle

December 1963 •German

Based on the Béla Bartók opera, Duke Bluebeard reluctantly and gradually uncovers the secrets of his psyche to his fourth wife, Judit, opening the seven doors of his castle to ultimately reveal his still living previous wives, among whom Judit must take her place.

The Gay Desperado

October 1936 •English

Opera singer Chivo is currently playing a singing cowboy, and Mexican bandito Braganza kidnaps him (along with Jane, an heiress) so he can learn to become more like the American movie gangsters he admires.

Porgy and Bess

October 1993 •English

The story of a disabled beggar in Charleston,S.C. who falls in love with a prostitute, this is the first filmed version of Gershwin's opera which uses Gershwin's own orchestrations and practically all of the music, with only one major cut.

Hry o Marii

December 1991 •Czech

The Madwoman of Chaillot

October 1969 •English

An eccentric Parisian woman's optimistic perception of life begins to sound more rational than the traditional beliefs of others. The story is set in a 20th-century society endangered by power and greed and imagines the rebellion of the "little people" against corrupt and soulless authority.

All Girl Revue

June 1940 •English

Women are put in charge of the city government for a day, and the mayor must go to the train station to greet an opera singer.

If I Were Free

December 1933 •English

A recently divorced interior decorator falls in love with a married barrister.

Giulio Cesare in Egitto

September 2022 •Italian

Triumphantly premiered in 1724 at the King's Theatre in London, George Frideric Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto masterfully combines human emotions: Triumph with sorrow, despair with happiness and love with profound melancholy in the face of the transience of all earthly life. Star director Keith Warner creates a production that imaginatively blends silent film and baroque opera, delightfully echoing Mankiewicz's legendary Cleopatra with Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison and Richard Burton. An excellent cast of singers is led by two of the world's leading countertenors: Bejun Mehta and Christophe Dumaux. Louise Alder shines as the seductive Cleopatra. Patricia Bardon, Simon Bailey and Jake Arditti are further highlights in this extraordinary group of singers, while Ivor Bolton provides the appropriate soundtrack on the podium of the Concentus Musicus Wien.

Santa Fe

January 1987 •German

After arriving in 1940 New York, Freddy struggles to find work. His world of refugee acquaintances includes the depressed daughter of a poet/delicatessen owner, an aging surgeon who cannot find work, and a lovable charlatan photographer.

Aria Diva

December 2007 •Polish

Basia has already settled down in her life. She is a housewife and has a loving family. It seems as though she does not miss anything to be happy. Until a moment when an opera diva moves into an apartment upstairs. Basia is enchanted and seduced with her voice. A peculiar relationship is born between them. It develops into a feeling which is not particularly comfortable for either of the two women.

Halka

December 1937 •Polish

Halka lives with her godmother in a modest cottage in a small highland village. One day, young Janusz arrives in the village to take possession of his ancestral estate. Halka falls madly in love with Janusz, who promises her eternal love and marriage. Soon, Janusz's mother arrives at the estate to inform him that they are ruined. The only salvation is to marry the daughter of a wealthy steward. Janusz leaves with his mother, promising Halka that he will return. Halka, who is pregnant, eagerly awaits the return of her beloved. The whole village turns its back on her, and she is supported only by Jontek, whose feelings she once rejected. Unable to wait for Janusz's return, she decides to go to the city, accompanied by her faithful Jontek. There she learns of Janusz's engagement to the steward's daughter, Zofia. Heartbroken, she returns to the village. There, she suffers another blow...

Kill Your Darlings

October 2013 •English

A murder in 1944 draws together the great poets of the beat generation: Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs.