Grace Bumbry is Carmen

Discover Grace Bumbry’s inspiring rise to global opera fame. Spotlighting her historic performances, the film explores the racial barriers she overcame to triumph in her 1966 performance as "Carmen."

Song of the Hands

This film takes you through the inspiring journey of Venezuela's Coro de Manos Blancas (White Hands Choir) while exploring their daily struggles and lives. Established in 1995 as part of Venezuela's El Sistema program, the White Hands Choir provides artistic opportunities for children, youth, and adults with disabilities, utilizing music for social development and inclusion.

Adolphe Appia Visionary of Invisible

The life and work of stage designer ADOLPHE APPIA, originator of the most profound agitations in contemporary theatre. Through the dynamic alternation of animated drawings and choreographies specially conceived for the film, we discover the steps of his artistic evolution.

Carmencita

The first woman to appear in front of an Edison motion picture camera and possibly the first woman to appear in a motion picture within the United States. In the film, Carmencita is recorded going through a routine she had been performing at Koster & Bial's in New York since February 1890.

Nureyev Unzipped

Narrated by Terence Stamp, this TV program documents the life and career of famed ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev, through interviews with friends and colleagues and archive footage.

For Art's Sake: The Story of Ballets Russes

In the centenary year since the founding of the Ballets Russe, this documentary looks back at Sergei Diaghilev and the company he created, what they did and the influence they had, even a 100 years later.

Rhythm is it!

RHYTHM IS IT! records the first big educational project of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle. The orchestra ventured out of the ivory tower of high culture into boroughs of low life for the sake of 250 youngsters. They had been strangers to classical music, but after arduous but thrilling preparation they danced to Stravinsky's 'Le Sacre du Printemps' ('The Rite of Spring'). Recorded with a breathtaking fidelity of sound, this film from Thomas Grube and Enrique Sánchez Lansch documents the stages of the Sacre project and offers deep insights into the rehearsals of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

Pavarotti, Birth of a Pop Star

Although he is unanimously credited with having democratised opera, making it accessible to the greatest number, focus is rarely put on the strategy he devised and implemented in order to carry out his actions, nor what his actions reveal of the man and artist, and of the resulting metamorphosis from opera singer to pop artist. Through this angle, this film sets out to pay tribute to the man who summed up his credo, obsession and life’s work, in the following way: “They led the public to believe that classical music belonged to a restricted elite. I was the way to prove to the world that was wrong.

The Sound of Identity

In the spotlight of global media coverage, the first transgender woman ever to perform as Don Giovanni in a professional opera, makes her historic debut in one of the reddest states in the U.S.

Rusalka

Dvořák's "Rusalka" in a production by David Pountney at the English National Opera in 1986. Mark Elder conducts the orchestra, accompanied by the English National Opera Chorus in English.

Sing Faster: The Stagehands' Ring Cycle

With its four operas, seventeen-hour running time and months of rehearsal, Wagner's "Ring Cycle" is a daunting undertaking for any opera company. Jon Else goes backstage to show this rare event entirely from the point of view of union stagehands at the San Francisco Opera.

The Cuban Method

A documentary on the legacy of ballet in Cuba that aired on PBS in Rochester, NY. Filmed on location in Havana, Cuba July – August, 2016. Featuring Laura Alonso, the history of the National Ballet of Cuba, and interviews with staff and dancers attending CUBALLET at or studying at The Center Prodanza of Cuba.

Béjart

Maurice Béjart answers an interview about choreographic creation; it shows ballets and improvisations. The film was screened for the 1970 Directors' Fortnight, at the Cannes Festival.

Einstein on the Beach: The Changing Image of Opera

The creative processes of avant-garde composer Philip Glass and progressive director/designer Robert Wilson are examined in this film. It documents their collaboration on this tradition breaking opera.

Paulette

A short documentary following Paulette Harwood, a 90-year-old former Radio City Music Hall Corps de Ballet soloist, as she teaches the final classes in a school she's run for sixty years.

Anna Netrebko und Rolando Villazón singen "La Traviata"

Confession of the Vanished

The film follows the staging of the opera Olimpiade while at the same time exploring the dramatic life of its composer Josef Mysliveček, a friend and teacher of W. A. Mozart.

Dance for All

Looking for Don Giovanni

In Baden-Baden, Nayo Titzin follows the producers of the opera Don Giovanni, created for the Innsbruck Festival of 2006. He is looking for a musical truth... What if Mozart's masterwork Don Giovanni had been interpreted in a wrong way for more than two centuries? Conductor René Jacobs, famous for his performance of Così fan tutte and laureate of a Grammy Award for his innovative recording of The Marriage of Figaro, comes back with new ideas on the comprehension of one of the greatest operas of all times. In this relevant documentary, Nayo Titzin clarifies and highlights all the brightness of those melodies and recitatives. Rewarded with many praises in the international press, this production shows the dramaturgical perfection of the "opera of the operas," the absolute of the genre, as Wagner once said. Once more, the Bulgarian director offers a fun and subtle report, and makes sure that everyone will understand this myth.

Patrice Chéreau, Pascal Greggory, une autre solitude

A look at the entire process of creating and developing Patrice Chéreau’s third staging of "In the Solitude of Cotton Fields" by Bernard Marie Koltès with Pascal Greggory and Chéreau himself. From the first reading around the table through the first contact with the performance space, rehearsals and lighting to opening night, the entire creative process unfurls in front of our eyes. The film shows us the evolving and ongoing dialogue between Greggory and Chéreau, a dialogue full of crises and magical moments of harmony and insight via which the truth, intensity, complexity, mystery and depth of Koltès’ text gradually emerge to form an implicit bond between these two men. The film also shows Chéreau directing rehearsals for Mozart’s "Don Giovanni" in Salzburg, revealing both the unity of and profound differences between his opera and theater work.