Music and Arts
Orchestra of Exiles
HD, 52 and 90 min version, in production, completion fall 2011
Writer/Director: Josh Aronson
Producers Germany: Wieland Schulz-Keil & Sven Woldt
Producers Israel: Chilik Michaeli & Avraham Pirchi
Co-Producers: Tami Leon, Julia Schifter
A German Israel Co-Production
Media Park, Berlin &
United Channel Movies, Tel Aviv
Orchestra of Exiles is the story of an eccentric moral powerhouse of a man, a Polish Jew named Bronislaw Huberman who, in his time, was one of the most famous violinists in the world. After a 4-year odyssey, which culminated in 1936, he succeeded in creating a top-flight symphony orchestra in the desert outback of Palestine with the great Arturo Toscanini as its first conductor.
Huberman’s Jewish musicians were among the best players of Europe; they were escaping a world torn apart by anti-Semitism and Nazi aggression. Huberman’s selfless efforts ultimately saved almost 1000 Jews from the Holocaust and changed the landscape of cultural history.
Nyman in Progress
80 min, Documentary
Director/ Screenplay: Silvia Beck
Director of Photography: Michael Boomers
Editing: Bernd Euscher
Music: Michael Nyman
Producers: Oliver Becker, Torsten Bönnhoff, Erwin Stürzer
With Michael Nyman, Steve Reich, Volker Schlöndorff
Michael Nyman in progress is a film about a very special moment in the famous composers artistic life.
Until now, Michael Nyman’s fine reputation has rested on music. Composing with innovative minimalism for films as memorable as The Draughtsman’s Contract, The Ogre, Man on Wire, and most famously for Campion´s The Piano, he has reached an international audience. But now, Michael Nyman is about to become a filmmaker himself.
At first it was documenting, "collecting moments", Michael Nyman was "just curious about the visual world out there" but right now this turns into an art process.
Featuring unprecedented access to the composer and his working life, this film shows one of the great composers of our time in all his diversity and endless energy.
From London to Berlin, in Mexico, Poland, the Netherlands and Portugal this film is also a journey through the musical world today. It shows Michael Nyman, the musician, in his concerts with the Michael Nyman Band and live collaborations with other internationally known musicians or orchestras.
But throughout his journeys, this film discovers Nymans increasing passion for filming and photography. Witnessing the development of Nyman´s visual works from the very moment of inspiration right through to his editing of the footage and the combination of the visuals with his music, this film gives a unique insight into Michael Nyman´s very personal views, his thoughts and emotions; his world.
Thy Kiss of a Divine Nature
The contemporary Perotin
The Hillard Ensemble
Directed by Uli Aumüller
2005, Documentary, 380‘ A0025
Whether or not a composer called Perotinus Magnus really existed cannot be clearly resolved. However, this name is a synonym for one of the most drastic developments of the occidental music history. As far as is known the works of “Perotinus” are the first four-part compositions and therefore the first notations to accommodate the improvised Gregorian chant into a severer system.This outstanding film of Uli Aumüller revolves around the inscrutability of the French master. On the one hand you see an elaborate setting of pictures reflecting the opulent music presented by the Hilliard Ensemble. On the other hand you see four Perotin experts in a passionate arguing, trying to point out their approach to the medieval times and their attempt to reveal the mystery of one of the most important figures in music history.
Andreas Scholl - Countertenor
Directed by Uli Aumüller/ Hanne Kaisik
2002, Documentary, 87’ A0046
The film accompanies the internationally renowned countertenor Andreas Scholl to recitals in Dresden, Schwetzingen and his home town, Kiedrich. In interviews Andreas Scholl sheds light on his personal and artistic development. Directly after the recital, Scholl and his co-performers discus the works and their interpretation of them. “What is the point of a recital, an opera, what is the purpose of music, presented to an audience by performers, communicators? Of course, the purpose of music and art in general, is to enlighten and inspire the human spirit. It is about stimulating – and shaping – both our hearts and our minds.” These and other questions Andreas Scholl wants to find out in this portrait.
Fazil Say - Alla Turca
Directed by Gösta Courkamp
2005, Documentary, 73‘ A0047
Fazil Say’s international reputation continues to grown apace, and he has successfully made the step from child prodigy to highly successful international star. As the French newspaper „Le Figaro“ put it: „He is more than just a brilliant pianist - he is set to become one of the greatest artists of the 21st century“. With his combination of extraordinary strength and absolute technical perfection, Fazil Say is a unique character of a kind seldom found in the world of classical music. His incredible gifts and utter commitment to the music are irresistible - and he successfully unites East and West with his personality and musicality. The film shows Fazil Say making music with Turkish pop icon Sertab Erener and interpreting Bach and Beethoven in Istanbul. It also presents excerpts from his compositions “Black Earth” and “Nazim” - the latter filmed during a performance in the amphitheatre at Aspendos.
Giacomo Puccini: Madama Butterfly
Fiorenza Cedolins, Francesca Franci, Mina Blum, Marcello Giordani, Juan Pons, Carlo Bosi
Orchestra e Coro dell’Arena di Verona
Stage direction by Franco Zeffirelli
Opera, 1994, 142’ A0201
This live recording captures an evening in July 2004 when thousands of spectators gathered to witness the “Japanese tragedy in three acts”. The tragic story of a young girl from Nagasaki, where the opera is set, and an American lieutenant who has raised high hopes in her, only to leave her with a child and return years later as a married man. She ends her broken-hearted existence in suicide and he finally faces the pain he has caused to his “Madam Butterfly” and thus to himself. In this, his perhaps most emotional opera, Giacomo Puccini has caused two worlds, two incompatible traditions – those of Japan and the USA – to collide in a drama about desperate people. The multinational perspective may partly explain why Madama Butterfly remains so modern to this day. It brings up associations with the Vietnam War, which produced hundreds of true-life “Madam Butterflies”, and had its musical reincarnation only a few years ago in the form of the musical Miss Saigon – a sort of “light Puccini”.
Richard Strauss: Capricio
From the Opéra National de Paris 2004
Renée Fleming, Anne Sofie von Otter, Rainer Trost, Gerald Finley, Dietrich Henschel
Orchestre de l‘Opéra National de Paris
Stage direction Robert Carsen
Opera, 2004, 148‘ A0252
When the curtain fell at the Paris Opera premiere of Capriccio on 16 June 2004, the audiences rose to long and frenetic ovations. They unanimously applauded each singer in a cast of stars, but Renée Fleming was undoubtedly the leading light of this remarkable production. Every one of the performers in this production is outstanding and can be regarded as the best possible singer for the role. Opera fans from all over Europe came to Paris to see the production, a highlight of the international opera season in 2004. This Capriccio also served as a role debut for American star soprano Renée Fleming who took on the role of the countess. The critics celebrated her performance as “ideal” in all aspects: musically, dramatically and above all vocally and she was cheered frenetically by the audience at the Palais Garnier of the Opéra National de Paris.
Giacomo Puccini: Il Trittico
From the Teatro Comunale di Modena, 2007
Alberto Mastromarino, Rubens Pelizzari, Amarilli Nizza, Annamaria Chiuri, Alessandro Spina
Orchestra della Fondazione Arturo Toscanini , Coro Lirico Amadeus Teatro Comunale di Modena
Stage direction Cristina Pezzoli
Opera, 2007, 108‘ A0256
Il trittico (The Triptych) – Puccini’s collection of three one-act operas. With two leading Italian singers in the main roles – soprano Amarilli Nizza sings Giorgetta, Suor Angelica and Lauretta and baritone Alberto Mastromarino sings Michele and Gianni Schicchi – this new staging by Cristina Pezzoli sees all three operas performed together as the composer intended. Unfortunately, nowadays the operas, which superficially seem unrelated, are often separated with only one or two pieces of the trio performed in an evening or even paired with another one-act opera by a different composer – an arrangement that Puccini despised. The Triptych of Il tabarro, Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi received its world premiere at the Metropolitan Opera on December 14, 1918. Puccini’s creation of three oneact operas during World War I was a logical consequence of a life’s opera-making that was dedicated not so much to finding the right libretto to set, but rather to finding the right feeling in a dramatic subject to call forth music.
Gaetano Donizetti: Don Pasquale
From the Ravenna Festival 2006
Claudio Desderi, Mario Cassi, Francisco Gatell,
Laura Giordano, Gabriele Spina
Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini,
Coro del Teatro Municipale di Piacenza
Stage direction by Andrea De Rosa
Opera, 2006,124‘ A0080
“…Riccardo Muti conducts Don Pasquale in Ravenna - a great celebration for everyone.” This press quote from the Italian music magazine Il giornale della musica hit the mark exactly. Watching this realistic, young and vital production, directed by the 21 year old Andrea De Rosa and listening to a high potential and unspent young cast, you feel how powerful, charming and timeless this score by Donizetti is. This production was recorded during the Ravenna Festival in the gorgeous and patriarchal Teatro Dante Alighieri, in December 2006. Maestro Riccardo Muti shows one more time, what it means to perform an Italian opera with a young and professional Italian cast – an outstanding and breathtaking performance and really, „a great celebration for everyone”.
Gaetano Donizetti: Don Pasquale
From the Teatro Alla Scala, Milano 1994
Ferruccio Furlanetto, Lucio Gallo, Gregory Kunde,
Nuccia Focile, Claudio Giombi
Stage direction by Stefano Vizioli
Opera, 1994, 130‘ A0158
A sophisticated staging of Donizetti’s wittiest opera, Don Pasquale. This 1994 production was performed at the world-famous Scala in Milan, and conducted by Riccardo Muti, who was the company’s artistic director at the time. It was directed by Stefano Vizioli, who was praised for stripping the piece of any clichés acquired over a century-and-a-half of performing tradition, and making the characters truly live and breathe. The approach emphasised the unaffected brightness and gaiety of the opera, especially as the director was brilliantly supported by a pre-eminent international cast of singer-actors and expressive set and costume designs. The plot of the genuinely humorous piece turns on a trick played by Ernesto and Norina, a pair of lovers, upon Ernesto’s uncle and guardian, Don Pasquale. It is Donizetti’s 64th opera (of the 66 he composed) and it returns to the stock commedia dell‘arte characters. Pasquale is easily recognised as the blustery Pantaleone, his nephew Ernesto as the lovesick Pierrot, Dottore Malatesta as the scheming Scapino, and the young widow Norina is a wily Columbina. The false Notary echoes a long line of false officials used as operatic devices.
Pietro Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana
Ildiko Komlosi, Barbara di Castri, Sung Kyu Park,
Marco di Felice, Cinzia De Mola
Orchestra e Coro del Teatro di San Carlo
Stage direction by Maurizio Scaparro
Opera, 2007, 78‘ A0259
Following the sensational success of his one-act opera Cavalleria rusticana at Rome’s Teatro Costanzi on 17 May 1890, Mascagni left no stone unturned in his attempt to ensure that his star remained in the ascendant. But neither his Cavalleria-remake, Silvano (1895), nor his Romantic reworking of the Lady Godiva legend, Isabeau, has survived the passing years. This Cavalleria rusticana has left the traditional opera house far behind it and been staged in an open-air theatre once associated with the Emperor Nero. The site in question is the legendary Roman baths in the port of Baia not far from Naples, arguably the most famous resort in classical antiquity and at the same time a byword in luxury and vice. Although some of the baths have vanished in the course of the last two millennia, the remains form a unique backdrop with their high walls and galleries poised between heaven and earth. A World Heritage Site, this was the setting for a production of Cavalleria rusticana by the visiting San Carlo company from Naples in the summer of 2007.
Vincenzo Bellini: Norma
Vincenzo La Scola, Andrea Papi, Fiorenza Cedolins,
Sonia Ganassi, Begona Alberdi, Jon Plazaola
Symphony Orchestra and Chorus of the Grand Theatre Del Liceu
Stage direction by Francisco Negrin
Opera, 2007, 169‘ A0274
A powerful story of love, betrayal and honour, “Norma” is a classic of the belcanto tradition, combining lavish vocal splendour with a story of great passion and nobility. Over the centuries, opera composers and librettists have created scores of spectacular roles for sopranos. And of all the great soprano roles in operatic history, there‘s one that may cover more dramatic territory, and demand more of those who perform it, than any other. The title character in Bellini‘s “Norma” is a role with emotions ranging from haughty and demanding, to desperately passionate, to vengeful and defiant. And the singer must convey all of this while confronting some of the most vocally challenging music ever composed. Italian soprano Fiorenza Cedolins is one of the most thrilling Normas of the younger operatic generation of singers. Along with a distinguished supporting cast (Sonia Ganassi as Adalgisa and Vincenzo La Scola as Pollione) this finest psychologically staged production by Francisco Negrin, conducted by Giuliano Carella, makes the belcanto tradition vivid and exciting for all generations.
Güher & Süher Pekinel
Works for Two Pianos by Brahms, Mozart, Lutosławski, Milhaud and Poulenc
Conducted by Sir Colin Davis and Muhai Tang
CADOGAN HALL, LONDON, 2007 (26:08)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Concerto No. 10
in E fl at major for two pianos, K. 365
English Chamber Orchestra | Conducted by Sir Colin Davis
TONHALLE ZURICH, NEW YEAR’S CONCERT, 2007 (23:36)
Francis Poulenc: Concerto in D minor for two pianos
Darius Milhaud: Scaramouche Op. 165 b
(Brazileira – Mouvement de Samba)
Zurich Chamber Orchestra | Conducted by Muhai Tang
LUCERNE PIANO FESTIVAL, OPENING CONCERT, 2006 (37:17)
Johannes Brahms: Sonata in F minor
for two pianos, Op. 34 b
Witold Lutosławski: Paganini Variations
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RICHARD WAGNER: THE RING OF NIBELUNG
From the Deutsches Nationaltheater, Weimar 2008
Rheingold
Mario Hoff, Alexander Günther, Jean-Noel Briend, Erin Caves,
Tomas Möwes, Frieder Aurich
Orchestra and Chorus of the Staatskapelle Weimar
Stage direction by Michael Schulz
166‘ A0103
Outside Germany, the name Weimar tends to evoke mixed feelings and pictures of German history of the last hundred years. Within Germany, Weimar means a town in the state of Thuringia arguably saturated with the “Deutsche Kultur” of the “Weimarer Klassik”, the legendary Bauhaus, and finally the life and work of Franz Liszt and his son in law Richard Wagner. In Weimar Richard Wagner began composing the first part of his RING-cycle, “Das Rheingold”. In 2008 the Nationaltheater Weimar started a new production of this unique tetralogy. The conductor is Carl St.Clair, a former student of Leonard Bernstein. With Michael Schulz’ fine and highly intelligent staging this new “Ring” production becomes an outstanding document of contemporary opera theatre.
Die Walküre
Erin Caves, Hidekazu Tsumaya, Renatus Mészár,
Kirsten Blanck, Catherine Foster, Christine Hansmann
Orchestra and Chorus of the Staatskapelle Weimar
Stage direction by Michael Schulz
237‘ A0101
Richard Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung reflects the composer’s autobiography as much as the political turmoil of his times. As work progressed, another figure grew to be as important as the hero Siegfried, the god Wotan, the mouthpiece for Wagner’s ideas. “He’s exactly like us: he is the sum of today’s intellectual consciousness, whereas Siegfried is what we hope the human being of the future will be, but who cannot be fashioned by us, and who must make himself by means of our destruction!” Our own doom as the basis of a happier future? Wagner dressed this Herculean task musically in the spreading, shimmering web of his leitmotif working (there are approximately 20 distinct motives in Die Walküre). Dramaturgically, the conversational style of Das Rheingold gives way to the tone of bourgeois tragedy: incestuous passion, more than one form of deep-seated marital antagonism, and a lot of talk, a lot of self-justification in the form of recapitulation. This, the First Day of the tetralogy (Das Rheingold being a “preliminary evening”), was without doubt the “most moving, the most tragic” of all Wagner’s works in the view of his wife Cosima, expressed in her diary on 31 August 1873. The text of Die Walküre was finished on 1 July 1852, and the score was completed in late March 1856. With the financial help of his ever-generous friend (and future father-in-law) Franz Liszt, Wagner went to rest from his labours on the shores of Lake Geneva.
Siegfried
Orchestra and Chorus of the Staatskapelle Weimar
Stage direction by Michael Schulz
251‘ A0102
Second ‘day’ – and third part – of Richard Wagner’s ‘Ring’, the musical saga that its author spent more than a quarter of a century composing. It follows the rise of a young hero, Siegfried, the illegitimate son of the twins whose story we were told in Die Walküre. On the one hand, there is learning about life, glorying in nature and in the emotions, as opposed to those of calculation and greed on the other. This episode shows how Wagner was intent on changing society, on showing that a different kind of man can exist, that the mercenary petit bourgeois world can be replaced by greater humanity and freedom.
Götterdämmerung
Norbert Schmittberg, Mario Hoff, Tomas Möwes, Renatus Mészár,
Catherine Foster, Marietta Zumbült
Orchestra and Chorus of the Staatskapelle Weimar
Stage direction by Michael Schulz
277‘ A0104
The thematic ideas from throughout the whole tetralogy recur in Götterdämmerung, intensified and woven into a musical web from which there can be no escape. Everything appears to fit together fatally with everything else. There is nothing more to be done. The net of catastrophe is knotted too fatefully for that, both musically and dramatically. When Wagner sat down to write a prose outline of what turned out as the last part of the Ring, he called it Siegfried’s Death. That was in the year of revolutions, 1848. The new title, usually translated as Twilight of the Gods, came later (Bernard Shaw called it Night Falls on the Gods but that never caught on). All the threads of the drama run now towards the hero’s fall. The death of Siegfried precipitates the final dissolution of the gods’ world, set in train by Wotan when he impiously tore a branch from the World Ash-Tree, and to which the god was already resigned long ago, before he knew of Siegfried’s conception. The natural order has been diverted from its proper course, and the last hope of righting it rests with Siegfried – the human being of the future. He knows no constraints, no fear of violence moderates his thirst for action, he is naïve and spontaneous.
Walter Felsenstein TV edition
founder and general director of the Komische Oper, was one of the twentieth century‘s greatest creative theatre directors, who played a hugely important role in the revival of opera a theatrical art form.
öegtbökgb
This unique TV collection brings together 6 opera films recently restored in a rare documentation that offers an insight into the theatrical work of a man whose legendary productions fascinated international audiences for decades.
Leoš Janácek - Das schlaue Fuechslein (1965)
104 Min + 18 Min Extras
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Don Giovanni (1966)
165 Min+ 40 Min Rehearsal Film
Giuseppe Verdi - Othello (1969)
121 Min + 20 Min Extras
Jacques Offenbach - Hoffmanns Erzaehlungen (1970)
131 Min + 32 Min Bonus Film
Jacques Offenbach - Ritter Blaubart (1973)
139 Min + 30 Min Extras
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Die Hochzeit des Figaro (1975/76)
166 Min + 50 Min Bonus Footage
Download Flyer(PDF, 1,7 MB)