Good Documentaries:
Jonathan Miller's Opera Works - multipart series broadcast frequently on
Ovation-TV and, I suspect, Artsworld in the UK
Howard Goodall's Big Bangs, episode 2: The Invention of Opera - also
frequently broadcast on Ovation-TV
LWT South Bank Show: Countertenors - an excellent 1.5-hour documentary
featuring Andreas Scholl, Michael Chance, James Bowman, pop singer Jimmy
Somerville, and the history and development of the countertenor voice (a
relatively new vocal phenomenon) - another that shows up periodically on
Ovation-TV, or can be purchased on video.
The House (about Royal Opera House, Covent Garden)
Sing Faster: The Stagehands' Ring Cycle
The Art of Singing: Golden Voices of the Century
In the Shadow of the Stars (about the SF Opera chorus)
Carmen: The Dream and Destiny (about the 1971 Hamburg production,
directing debut of Regina Resnik, featuring a very plump young Domingo and
Huguette Tourangeau - worth seeing almost as much for Torangeau's very
"mod" pants suits and "big hair" as for the very interesting process of
putting this production together)
Parsifal: The Search for the Grail (1997 Tony Palmer documentary narrated
by and featuring Domingo - manages to distill the best music from the
opera for those who don't relish sleeping through 4 hours of the boring
parts of this 5 1/2 hour operatic marathon)
Poussieres d'Amour
A Night with Handel
Jessye Norman Sings Carmen
La Traviata: Life and Sacrifice
Lotte Lehmann Master Classes (1961)
Il Bacio di Tosca
Destination Mozart
The Golden Ring - The Making of Solti's Ring
Pavarotti and the Italian Tenor
Aida's Brothers and Sisters: Black Voices in Opera
There are also lots and lots of good documentaries about individual
singers. Ovation-TV broadcasts some; many you can buy on video. I suggest
you go the following websites and check out what's in their catalogues,
and purchase either direct from them, or see what www.amazon.com might carry
from their selections. Some of the individual singer documentaries I've
most enjoyed have been:
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau: Autumn Journey
Maria Callas: La Divina
Placido Domingo: A Musical Life (the best of the Domingo documentaries)
Cecilia Bartoli: The Portrait
Joan Sutherland: The Age of Bel Canto
Anna Russell: Clown Princess of Comedy
Kiri Te Kanawa (1991)
Stratasphere (about Teresa Stratas)
All are available on video, as far as I know. Some of them also turn up
on Ovation from time to time.
http://secure2.ihwy.com/belcanto/pages/corecart.html
http://www.unitel.classicalmusic.com/
http://www.operaworld.com/
http://www.warnerclassics.com/nvcarts/video_home/home.html
http://www.kultur.com/ - or - http://www.kulturvideo.com/
http://www.musicalheritage.com/
Then, there's the documentary you can watch online:
Rosa Ponselle: http://12.108.13.25/herlife.htm
Good Fictional Movies (including "Biopics"):
Le Maitre de Musique, with Jose van Dam (released as "The Music Teacher"
in the U.S.)
Meeting Venus
Lucia (1998)
The Man Who Cried - features John Turturro as an egotistical operatic
tenor
Hear my Song (1991)
Diva (1981)
Spoonface Steinberg (very strange little British film about an autistic
girl with cancer who becomes obsessed with opera, and particularly with
operatic deaths)
Farinelli (biopic of Carlo Broschi, the castrato)
Interrupted Melody (biopic of Marjorie Lawrence, the Australian dramatic
soprano, dubbed by the great Eileen Farrell)
Tonight We Sing (biopic of he impresario Sol Yurok; features, among
others, Ezio Pinza - portraying Feodor Chaliapin - in the coronation scene
from BORIS GODUNOV)
Carnegie Hall - not strictly about singers, but features a number of them,
including Lily Pons and Jan Peerce.
A Night at the Opera - Marx Brothers classic featuring the travails of two
aspiring young opera singers - played by Allan Jones and Kitty Carlisle -
who get their big break singing in a very strange production of IL
TROVATORE.
Rose Marie - Nelson and Jeanette's first partnership, in which Jeanette is
a great opera diva. Features scenes from ROMEO ET JULIETTE (Jeanette and
Allan Jones) and the final scene from TOSCA (!). Nelson plays a singing
Mountie, and a very young Jimmy Stewart also appears, as Jeanette's
fugitive brother.
Maytime - Jeanette is the Trilby-like diva, John Barrymore her
Svengali-like, sexually jealous teacher, and Nelson an aspiring young
voice student. The darkest of the Nelson/Jeanette movies.
Balalaika - Nelson with soprano Ilona Massey playing the aspiring young
diva whose career is aided by opera-singing cossack prince.
The Chocolate Soldier - Luxury casting of Rise Stevens in the role she
also sang on stage, with Nelson in his best-ever comic turn - dual role as
Stevens' jealous husband and an exotic Russian baritone. Features
wonderful singing by them both (including both singing "O Du mein holder
Abendstern" from Wagner's TANNHAEUSER!)
My Song for You - Starring fabulous Polish tenor Jan Kiepura. On video
thanks to the wonderful Bel Canto Society (first link in the list of
documentary sources, above).
Metropolitan - starring Metropolitan Opera superstar Lawrence Tibbett
And coming soon:
Zefirelli has finished filming CALLAS FOREVER, with French actress Fanny
Ardant in the title role, and also starring Jeremy Irons and Joan Plowright.
Don't
know who will be dubbing the singing.
And a few silly ones:
The Great Caruso - with tenorino Mario Lanza portraying the great dramatic
tenor.
Going My Way - subplot featuring the operatic aspirations of a young mezzo
soprano played by Rise Stevens
I Dream too Much - and - That Girl from Paris - two rather second-rate
movies featuring coloratura soprano Lily Pons playing, you guessed it, an
opera diva
Willie the Operatic Whale - a sequel to Fantasia, featuring Nelson Eddy's
voice assuming the part of the aspiring opera-singing whale
What's Opera, Doc? - the classic Looney Tunes feature, with Bugs as
Brunnhilde and Elmer Fudd as Siegfried. Preceded by the equally
delightful, less famous Rabbit of Seville
The Phantom of the Opera - the silent original with Lon Chaney remains the
best, though the later talkie with Claude Rains features Nelson Eddy as
the romantic hero/primo uomo
The Climax - A Boris Karloff chiller in which a doctor murders his diva
mistress in a Viennese opera house; with exotic Turhan Bey as her
suspected lover
Karen Mercedes
http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html
______________________________________
I will sing with the spirit, and I
will sing with the understanding also.
1 Corinthians 14:15
|
