The broadcaster puts together his perfect Christmas playlist, and talks to some of the stars behind the festive classics, who choose their own favourite tinsel-covered tracks.
In a cold French city where suicide is a common urge, there is a colorful shop, managed for many years by the Tuvache family, where it is very easy to obtain the necessary tools to satisfy the sinister desires of so many depressed citizens.
Magic opera, Singspiel, a comedy with spectacular stage effects, Masonic ritual with Egyptian mysteries, heroic-comic opera? Die Zauberflöte is heard more often and has been more frequently performed, discussed, queried and interrogated than almost any other work in the history of opera. It is rare for the mysteriousness and multiformity of a work to be adjured with such mantric intensity. It is equally rare for a work to enjoy such undisputed success despite all these debates – and for over two hundred years at that.
This is an excellent version of one of the greatest of all comic operas, featuring superb singing and orchestral playing. And it's not just the two headliners; listen, for example, to the entrance of the stepsisters at the beginning of Act One. Nevertheless, some viewers may find the staging problematic, with singers in clown-like costumes and sets featuring human-sized rodents. Those seeking a more conventional production might want to consider the Houston Grand Opera DVD, also on Decca, with Cecilia Bartoli and Raul Jimenez. Both sets are wonderful, but, for me, Joyce Didonato and Juan Diego Florez are slightly to be preferred. Highly recommended.
On April 8th 1994, Kurt Cobain - the lead singer of post-punk band Nirvana - was found dead in his Seattle home of an apparent shotgun wound to the head and three times the lethal dose of heroin in his system. Today, the cause of his death is still debated. This film charts the tragic downward spiral and increasing isolation of this hero of a generation, which even his marriage to Courtney Love and the birth of his daughter Frances Bean could not stop.
Gowri, a woman in search of her lover Suresh, joins a group of struggling roadside singers. Friendship grows between them as they achieve success, but things change when Suresh returns.
František Černý and Karel Holas take a trip through the colorful history of a band that keeps breathing, rehearsing, searching, and discovering. The documentary was made in 2018, when Čechomor celebrated its 30th anniversary. In the band's home recording studio on Barrandov Hill above Prague, the filmmakers did not find any fame-weary "distinguished artists" resting on the laurels of past successes, but instead met energetic and enthusiastic young men, František Černý and Karel Holas, who are currently working on something new...
Swedish singer, songwriter, producer and filmmaker, Jonna Lee, brings the evolution of her ten-year creative career to a new peak with the release of her maiden ionnalee offering, EVERYONE AFRAID TO BE FORGOTTEN.
Ruth and her beautiful sister Eileen come to New York's Greenwich Village looking for "fame, fortune and a 'For Rent' sign on Barrow Street". They find an apartment, but fame and fortune are a lot more elusive. Ruth gets the attention of playboy publisher Bob Baker when she submits a story about her gorgeous sister Eileen. She tries to keep his attention by convincing him that she and the gorgeous, man-getting Eileen are one and the same person.
Incubus' Alive At Red Rocks features the band's first long-form live concert. Recorded at the legendary Colorado Red Rocks Amphitheatre on July 26, 2004, Alive at Red Rocks captures the band at its inspirational, gutsy best.
From Diego Luna and Alejandro Fernandez, to Carla Morrison and Chavela Vargas, Duncan Bridgeman weaves a cinematic tapestry composed of original songs and insights from the most iconic artists and performers of contemporary Mexico. With striking visuals, the movie captures the rich diversity of Mexican geography, art, music, and culture. It is a rare look at the country's real identity, and an unparalleled celebration of what it truly means to be "Hecho en Mexico."
It is the story of a comedian Lem Anderson who dreams of playing in Shakespeare scenes but he is applied only role in Harlem Vaudeville. One day he is the witness of a crime and the mobster strongly advised him to leave the town...
Finding the Funk is a road trip in search of the past, present and future of Funk music. Starting with Funk's roots in Jazz and the James Brown bands of the '60s we travel to the Bay Area to celebrate Sly & the Family Stone, then to Dayton the birthplace of so many of Funk's originators, then onto Detroit where from the ashes of Motown, P-Funk's Mothership arose, and then to LA where a new crop of musicians are creating their own Funk history. On our journey into Funk, we talk to legends Sly Stone, Bootsy Collins, George Clinton, Nona Hendryx, Maceo Parker, Bernie Worrell, and Steve Arrington and their descendants Mike D, D'Angelo, Sheila E, Shock G and Sade's Stuart Matthewman. Narrated by Ahmir 'Questlove' Thompson of the Roots.
Bessie Cobb, cake decorator in the kitchen of one of Miami's swankier hotels, is the central figure in an elaborate scheme by Chick Patterson, bell captain, who believes he can not only enrich Bessie, but himself, his fiancée, and the kitchen's three screwball chefs, Chef Popodopolis, Chef Petrovich and Chef Barzumium. He plans to enter Bessie in the singing contest sponsored by band-leader Danny Marlowe for a large recording company looking for new talent.. Chick has a recording made of Bessie's voice and substitutes it for that of "Sugar" Caston, who is being sponsored by a big-time gangster and is set up to win. But members of a rival gang, out to get "Sugar", mistake Besiie for her.
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