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Most opera houses ring in the New Year with Johann Strauss Jr.'s most popular operetta--the festiveness of which is appropriate for the occasion--and this December 31, 1983, Covent Garden performance follows suit. An exceptional cast--led by Hermann Prey and Kiri Te Kanawa as the couple whose marriage survives the comic indiscretions of three long acts--obviously has as much fun as the audience. Plácido Domingo leads the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House through its paces with panache. Prince Orlofsky's Act II party is always a splendid opportunity to pull out all the stops with surprise "guests," and this performance makes the most of its chance: entering the proceedings to sing one of his tailor-made chansons, "She," is French crooner Charles Aznavour, who is followed by dancers Merle Park and Wayne Eagling, their delightful pas de deux flashily choreographed by Sir Frederick Ashton.

Donizetti's opera as film.

“Cantons Aztecas” are provocative and mystical poems written by an Aztec prince more than 900 years ago. Set to music composed and conducted by Lalo Schifrin, it features Placido Domingo as principal soloist, a 100-piece orchestra, a 120-piece choir and four soloist. Recorded live at the Pyramid of the Moon of Teotihuacan and sung in the original languages of the Aztecs nahuatl, Cantos Aztecas is a thrilling experience. Personnel includes: Placido Domingo (vocals); Lalo Schifrin (conductor); Marsha Felix, Conchita Julian, Nikita Storojev (vocals); Mexico Philharmonic Orchestra & Chorus.

In a pseudo-futuristic 1994, a square couple enter the corrupt world of the music industry, and subsequently a maze of drugs, sex, and temptation.

As renowned for its harmonious overture as for its romantic storybook characters, this three-act masterwork features some of the composer’s most groundbreaking and unforgettable music, as well as a theme the young Wagner would revisit again and again later in his career—the redemptive and transcendent power of a woman’s love. The enchanting plot harks back to medieval history: Wolfram is a lovesick troubadour who desires the virtuous Elisabeth. She, however, has eyes for another: the rebellious knight Tannhäuser, who in turn cannot get over an overwhelming sensual experience in the realm of the goddess Venus, and is banished for singing her praises at court. Only saintly Elisabeth’s death can atone for his misdeeds.

A german christmas video tape, accompanied by music and christmas poems.

Nancy Shade is persuasive as the awkward adolescent Marie, whose naiveté leads relentlessly to her downfall. Michael Ebbecke is sympathetic as Stolzius, her jilted lover and avenger, while William Cochran is properly brutish as Desportes, the officer who initiates her spiral of decline. Bernhard Kontarsky gets a dedicated response from his Stuttgart Opera forces, who perform with belief in this often excessive but always engrossing work. Recorded at the Staatsoper Stuttgart, 1989.

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.

Take a perfect cast, a great conductor and a groundbreaking staging in-out makes a 'Tristan' for eternity. The 1983 performance in Bayreuth was a great moment for the world of opera. The ensemble performance of René Kollo, Johanna Meier and Matti Salminen with, then as now the Wagner admirer, Daniel Barenboim conducting the Bayreuth orchestra inspired singers and instrumentalists to peak performance. Jean-Pierre Ponnelle created a dream-beautiful stage.

A production of Strauss' opera 'Der Rosenkavalier' performed at the Saltzburg Festival in 1984. Includes the Vienna State Opera Choir, the Philharmonic Orchestra with singers Wilma Lipp, Anna Tomowa-Sintow and Agnes Baltsa. Conducted by Herbert Von Karaja

Young Tina has a big dream, she wants to become a successful pop singer. That's why she tries her luck in the music show 'Formel Eins'. There she meets all kinds of stars like Falco, Meat Loaf, Die Toten Hosen and Pia Zadora and of course the presenter Ingolf Lück. The result is a colorful mix-up and the question arises as to whether Tina can make her dream come true.

Documentary film for german TV about rock music in Soviet Union. Featuring: "Мистер Твистер", "Ва-Банкъ", "Чудо-Юдо", "Женская Болезнь", "Ночной Проспект", "Аквариум", "Ноль", "Аукцыон", "Телевизор", "АВИА", "Звуки Му". In 1989 an album with recorded soundtrack was released.

A troubled marksman, desperate to secure love and status, turns to forbidden magic in a rural community ruled by superstition and ritual. This stark television adaptation strips Weber’s Romantic opera of spectacle, recasting it as a bleak folk-horror parable about fear, failure, and the cost of choosing certainty over conscience.

A clean-cut synth artist in Germany hopes to turn his career around with the help of a washed-up, erratic, publicity-crazed American manager.

Günther, Michael, Barny and Franz, real Munich boys, want to make their own music: Rock 'n' Roll Bavarian-style. Will they go under or make it to the top?

Pina Bausch created and performed Café Müller for her dance company Tanztheater Wuppertal. The dance was inspired by and based on her childhood memories of watching her father work at his café in Germany during and immediately following World War II. In this silent style featurette, Bausch shows a restaurant after closing, in which the ghosts of the departed customers stumble blindly into walls and onto chairs but fail to find one another.

A filmed version of Tchaikovsky's opera. Onegin visits a friend, his fiancee and her sister Tatiana, who believes Onegin is her fated love. She writes a note telling him so, but he rejects her. Years later he returns, finding her married, but now he's smitten with her.

A fictionalized account about the lurid lives of a group of eccentric cabaret artists who have come from America to Berlin looking for social acceptance and a place to give full reign to their creative nature.

A documentary about the now abandoned and very influential punk club S.O.36. A punk music club on Oranienstrasse near Heinrichplatz in the area of Kreuzberg in Berlin, Germany.

A biopic about Austrian composer Johann Strauß.

Persona Non Grata in his homeland, protest singer Klaus Drittemann must leave East Berlin, his wife and child and emigrate to West Berlin, where the representatives of an American record company are eagerly waiting for him. They plan to exploit his defection from communism both ideologically and financially. But Klaus, as ill-at-ease in the West as he was in the East, is reluctant to be used as an expendable commodity. Leaving his contract unsigned (or signed in his manner), he leaves for Cambridge to meet his father, a concert player, who - just like him - left East Berlin thirty years ago as Klaus was a little boy. He is accompanied by a young French journalist, Emma, who knows where his father has been living since he disappeared for more than a decade. The young lady is cooperative but might hide things from him...

A young man, the soldier and bachelor type, is looking for Anima - the eternal unattainable female who alternately appears as a virgin, harlot, mother, saint but also as a witch. In his illusions and visions made up of images which are multi-layered and ambiguous, Anima changes from a romantic ideal to a technically two dimensional duplicate which can be reproduced and is half woman, half sewing machine.

Gustl Bayrhammer takes audiences big and small on a musical journey to “Wonderland”. There he meets various characters from comic books, fairy tales and legends.

This low-budget drama details the unlikely friendship between a smart-aleck seventeen-year-old punk and a thirty-year-old rock 'n roll musician in search of songwriting inspiration. Angel heads out to the streets of Berlin in his drag-racer to revitalize his flagging creativity. He is desperately trying for a new song that refuses to surface. He meets scrappy Johnny on the streets and saves him from everyone he tends to alienate: cops, motorcycle gangs, and passers-by. Johnny has his guitar with him and is the first to break Angel's deadlock. A tune he plucks out is just the beginning that Angel was looking for. The rest of the song lies out there somewhere and the two head into Berlin's night spots to find it.

Svankmajer's music video for Hugh Cornwell's "Another Kind of Love."

Music film with documentary segments about the life and legend of Hans Albers.

"Spring Symphony" is the story of Robert Schumann and Clara Wieck. Both were music entities. Robert Schumann turns out to have been a second tier composer, if that, never rising to the heights of a Beethoven or Mozart. In contrast, Clara Wieck was a master technician in the playing of the piano, a composer (probably not at Schumann's level), and was a child prodigy.

Live recordings by Kowalski - Der Arbeiter, Ultradeterminanten, Stahlmaschinen and Eine Peinsame Zeit. The band Kowalski, produced an unusual, industrial and aggressive sound in the early 80's, which once was described by themselves as "the rape of electronics". Produced by the legendary Conny Plank (1940-1987). Their first and last album, "Schlagende Wetter" (Virgin Records) is unique.

Live performance from the Metropolitan Opera, 31 December 1986.

Documentary about a music festival in Hamburg in 1983, where artists campaigned against rearmament. Largely restrained and atmospherically staged, the film sees itself as a portrayal of a "different" life, defined by a multi-layered culture. It also encourages viewers to consider the possibility of different uses for image content.

In May 1986, Karel Gott made a guest appearance at the Palast der Republik in Berlin. With the Ladislav Staidl orchestra and guests such as Darinka, the singer from Prague thrilled his East Berlin audience. Of course, hits such as "Babicka" and "Wenn ich Dich nicht hätte" were not to be missed in his program. On the occasion of Karel Gott's death, rbb television is once again showing the legendary concert from the Palace of the Republic.

This luminous, visionary opera tells the story of how Mahatma Gandhi developed the philosophy of satyagraha, nonviolent active resistance, as a political revolutionary tool to fight oppression, connecting his lifework to three historical figures who advanced his philosophy: the celebrated Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, the great Indian poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore and the heroic American civil rights leader Martin Luther King. The libretto is comprised of passages from “The Bhagavad-Gita,” India’s greatest philosophical epic, and perfectly complements Glass’ ravishing score, mysteriously transporting the audience with a serene power and an all-encompassing sense of peace.

A dance group forms at Gleisdreieck station, Berlin. More and more people join in until the next train leaves the station.

Documentary about the first 20 years of the Rolling Stones with interviews and a lot of rare archive footages all over the world, pictures, TV and live songs 1962-1982 ("Satisfaction", "Jumpin' Jack Flash", "Time Is On My Side" and many more). Hosted by punk star Nina Hagen. Interviews of Mick Jagger, his brother Chris, his father Joe, Keith Richards, Bill Wyman, Ron Wood, Ian Stewart, Bianca Jagger, Paul McCartney, Marianne Faithfull, Rod Stewart, Wendy O'Williams (from the Plasmatics), Diana Ross and Bill Graham (manager).

Blue-collar worker Vince stumbles into a dance school, where he quickly becomes entranced by the music. Miss McKenzie, the school's manager and former owner, is about to throw him out on his ear when Moon, the school's rebellious new jazz instructor, vouches for him. Although the school's new owner has insisted on bringing in Moon as a teacher, Miss McKenzie absolutely hates him and the influence of his mordern music, and will stop at nothing to see him (and Vince) thrown out for good.

The 12 year old Ina struggle to become a great pianist. Success depends on the music competition "Ein Herz für Mozart". Ina is sent by her mother's command to piano lessons. The piano teacher Holger produces in his free time experimental music from sound collages, but can not prevail with his works in the professional music business. Ina takes a liking to the sound collages of Holger and flees from her domineering mother to him.

A portrait of the German electronic band "Der Plan". Büld follows the band on their tour through Japan.

Musical film-noir parody about Max Müller, an underemployed private detective who is asked by his beautiful but secretive client, Ingrid Bergmann to look for her disappeared fiancé. Together with his assistant Larry he combs the underworld and little by little it becomes clear that his mysterious client is not what she seems to be.

Idomeneus, King of Crete, one of the great heroes during the total destruction of the famous city of Troy was sailing back to his realm when a terrible storm broke loose near the city of Sidon. The storm was of such violence that in his fear Idomeneus made a solemn promise to Neptune, God of the Seas, to sacrifice the first person -no matter who it be- that he would meet on the shore if he and his people would only get there safely.

Four teenagers in the German Ruhr region try to succeed as a rock band in 1966. A girl tries to join them as a singer but is rejected by them.

A visual documentary of Einstürzende Neubauten, the German underground band, by Japanese cult director Sogo Ishii, made during their 1985 tour of Japan. The band makes an elaborate and remarkably choreographed appearance in the ruins of an old ironworks which was scheduled for demolition; footage of same was incorporated into the movie and a brief appearance on stage.

A study of the alienated people who frequent the Ballhaus Barmbek dance hall, including an obese El groupie, an old man reciting poetry, two young women and a regular dance employee.

In the 1970s, music critics and military personnel meet in a recording studio at NATO's European Command to discuss a final music program for Central Europe.

This film is the theatrical follow-up to a very popular German TV-series (also called "Anna"), about a young girl who wants to make it as a prima ballerina.

This unusual and intriguing interpretation of the ballet Cinderella with choreography and staging by the renowned choreographer, Maguy Marin, is set in a doll’s house with costumes to suit. This avant-garde, breakthrough version of the tale of Cinderella, described as a brilliant theatrical triumph, has toured the world since its premiere in 1985 and is acclaimed for its amazing manipulation of mood, its intriguing narrative and innovative staging. The production is regarded by some critics as a stepping stone from classical ballet to something radically new.

Documentary about Italian musician and lawyer Paolo Conte.

Wagner’s Romantic opera demands singing actors who can truly inhabit their parts, and that’s just what we have here. Is it possible for a Knight of the Holy Grail to look more enticing than Peter Hofmann? No wonder Elsa (Eva Marton) falls in love at first sight. Marton’s heroine is innocent, but she is also a passionate, real-life young woman—which is good, because Leonie Rysanek is positively demented as Ortrud, the sorceress who accuses Elsa and Lohengrin of using magic. With James Levine’s superb conducting, the orchestra and chorus are similarly magical.

Benjamin Britten’s opera of the Henry James novel. An inexperienced governess is sent to a country house to care for two children, whom she is gradually convinced have been corrupted by the ghosts of a previous manservant and governess…

Live performance of Mozart's immortal Requiem in D minor from the Herkulessaal in Munich, 1984. Soprano Edith Mathis, alto Trudeliese Schmidt, tenor Peter Schreier, and bass Gwynne Howell, with the The Bavarian Radio Symphony and Orchestra, are conducted by Sir Colin Davis.