The first part of this Academy Award-winning short consists of a behind-the-scenes look at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra as it prepares to perform Ravel's "Bolero." Individual musicians offer their thoughts as workers set up chairs and music stands; there are also comments by conductor...
Azucena’s eternal vengeance comes back to set the stage ablaze in the timeless drama of Verdi’s Il trovatore, staged specially for the 2022 Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Autumn Festival and conducted by the great Zubin Mehta!
A tribute to Jacqueline du Pré to mark the thirtieth anniversary of her death thirty years ago, on 19 October 1987. The film contains archive footage shot during Jacqueline du Pré’s lifetime which captures some glorious and professionally filmed live performances. It also remembers both her...
Soloists Mitsuko Uchida on the piano, Zinovi Kaplan on the violin and Dudu Carmel on the oboe interpret the music of Bach ("Concerto for Violin and Oboe"), Beethoven ("Piano Concerto No. 4"), Stravinsky ("Pulcinella") and Schubert ("Rosamunde Overture"). They play under the able baton of maestro...
Leonore disguises herself as a man, "Fidelio," to infiltrate a prison and rescue her husband, Florestan, unjustly imprisoned by the tyrant Pizarro. Gaining the trust of the jailer, Rocco, and his daughter, Marzelline—who unknowingly falls for Fidelio—Leonore’s courage is tested when Pizarro...
Some concerts are important simply as occasions: The “Joint Concert Tel Aviv” was a celebration of reconciliation, a performance shared by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra that would have been inconceivable a few years earlier. Zubin Mehta takes a massive...
Zubin Mehta is one of the great conductors of our time. Born in Bombay in 1936, Mehta has lived in Florence for many years. There, as musical director of the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, he has found his own stage. The film looks back on the conductor's life and is also a vivid reflection...
Metha performs his 4th New Year's Concert with the Vienna Philharmonic. Included are works by Johann Strauss II, Josef Strass, Joseph Hellmesberger, Johann Strauss I, and Eduard Strauss.
Recorded live at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in 1977, this film showcases the Los Angeles Philharmonic performing Mozart's Bassoon Concerto in B-flat Major, featuring David Breidenthal on bassoon, with Zubin Mehta conducting. Highlighting the great strides the Philharmonic made under Mehta's...
Singspiel in three acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The German libretto is by Gottlieb Stephanie, based on Christoph Friedrich Bretzner's Belmont und Constanze, oder Die Entführung aus dem Serail. The plot concerns the attempt of the hero Belmonte, assisted by his servant Pedrillo, to rescue his...