Porgy and Bess

Oct 6, 1993

3h 4m

★ 7.0

Overview

The story of a disabled beggar in Charleston,S.C. who falls in love with a prostitute, this is the first filmed version of Gershwin's opera which uses Gershwin's own orchestrations and practically all of the music, with only one major cut.

Genres

Music

Drama

Production Companies

BBC

Porgy and Bess Trailers

No Trailers found.

Cast

Porgy

Willard White

Bess

Cynthia Haymon

Crown

Gregg Baker

Serena

Cynthia Clarey

Maria

Marietta Simpson

Sportin' Life

Damon Evans

Clara / Annie (singing voice)

Paula Ingram

Jake

Gordon Hawkins

Robbins

D. Alonzo Washington

Peter

Mervin Wallace

Mingo

Barrington Coleman

Frazier

William B. Johnson

This set has Edita Gruberova singing in top form, all her scooping cast aside, which one finds in abundance in her Lucia under Richard Bonynge. Here, however, she makes ravishing use of those bits of tone that only she can produce: those instances of coloratura and dramatic legato with little asides and small florishes of style that suggest her intelligent approach and her high degree of musical involvement in this role. She does this in her I Puritani and her Anna Bolena, less so in Roberto Deveraux and Maria Stuarda(both sets). Listen to Addio del passato and the Sempre Libra...ravishing, yes, but there are again those nuances learned from Callas that she makes her own. A very singualr perform,ance, and extremely moving with its detail and cry for pity throughout..from the start even. Neil Schicoff is excellent, not an unworthy Alfredo at all! His is a great lyric tenor voice that should have been in the top line.

7.8

Freaks

Jan 1, 1932

A circus' beautiful trapeze artist agrees to marry the leader of side-show performers, but his deformed friends discover she is only marrying him for his inheritance.

7.0

Aida - Arena di Verona

Nov 5, 2013

The grand scale and magnificent acoustics of the Roman arena in Verona are ideally suited to the pageantry of Verdi's Egyptian opera, presented here in a staging that is true to the original 1913 production, framed by obelisks and sphinxes and filled with chorus and dancers. Chinese soprano Hui He has won international acclaim for her portrayal of the eponymous slave girl whose forbidden love for the war hero Radamés (Marco Berti, the experienced Verdi tenor) brings death to them both.

6.5

Gianni Schicchi

Oct 13, 2015

Woody Allen's production of the Puccini comic opera at LA Opera in 2015

8.0

Amadeus

Sep 19, 1984

Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the hedonistic and remarkably talented young Salzburger composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

7.7

Rain Man

Dec 12, 1988

When car dealer Charlie Babbitt learns that his estranged father has died, he returns home to Cincinnati, where he discovers that he has a savant older brother named Raymond and that his father's $3 million fortune is being left to the mental institution in which Raymond lives. Motivated by his father's money, Charlie checks Raymond out of the facility in order to return with him to Los Angeles. The brothers' cross-country trip ends up changing both their lives.

0.0

Brown Sounds

Mar 26, 2021

This short begins with a pair thriving in a lush paradise representing the Garden of Eden. The pair are suddenly uprooted and driven to the unknown: the original sin of slavery. In the end, they dig their roots into the soil and stretch their limbs to the sun, finding new identities, new truths and new power.

0.0

Orango

Aug 20, 2014

"Orango" - prologue to an unfinished opera by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, performed by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Mariinsky Theatre Academy. In the 1920s, Soviet biologist Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov carried out a series of experiments to create a human/nonhuman ape hybrid. Three female chimpanzees were inseminated with human sperm. No pregnancy occurred.. In 1929 he organized a set of experiments involving nonhuman ape sperm and human volunteers, but was delayed by the death of his last orangutan.

0.0

Verdi: Nabucco

May 23, 2000

Giuseppe Verdi's opera performed in 1998.

5.5

Interrupted Melody

May 5, 1955

Interrupted Melody is the inspirational filmed biography of world-renowned Australian soprano Marjorie Lawrence. She’s a foremost Wagnerian, equal to the vocal and physical demands of the composer’s oeuvre. And she’s a beacon of triumph to anyone who fights back when personal tragedy strikes.

7.5

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance

Mar 29, 2002

A deaf man and his girlfriend resort to desperate measures in order to fund a kidney transplant for his sister. Things go horribly wrong, and the situation spirals rapidly into a cycle of violence and revenge.

0.0

The Fiery Angel

Jan 1, 2021

Sergey Prokofiev's operatic tragedy The Fiery Angel was never performed in the composers lifetime the musics brittle energy, drama and eloquent lyrical tenderness would re-emerge in his Third Symphony. The narrative focuses relentlessly on Renata, who is haunted by an angel who turns out to be the devil. Director Emma Dante describes the opera as an explosive mix of fantastical realism and endless confusion of nightmares, madness, sexual impulses and cultural clashes, and this Teatro dellOpera di Roma production was acclaimed as a presentation of Prokofievs masterpiece which sparkles in all its grotesque glory (operawire.com)

6.2

The Strangers in 7A

Nov 14, 1972

A building superintendent and his wife are held hostage in their apartment by a sadistic would-be bank robber and his spaced-out accomplices.

6.6

Farinelli

Dec 1, 1994

The life and career of Italian opera singer Farinelli, considered one of the greatest castrato singers of all time.

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0.0

Bedřich Smetana: Libuše

Nov 18, 1983

No overview available.

5.4

PVT Chat

Feb 5, 2021

Jack is an internet gambler living in NYC. After the death of his roommate, he becomes fixated on Scarlet - a cam girl from San Francisco. His obsession reaches a boiling point when fantasy materializes in reality and Jack sees Scarlet on a rainy NYC Chinatown street.

0.0

The Primrose Ring

May 7, 1917

Margaret MacLean, who has been saved from life in a wheelchair by the miracle of medicine, vows to devote her life to caring for crippled children. She becomes a nurse in the children's ward of Dr. MacLean's hospital, but after the beloved doctor's death, his son Bob returns home from abroad and decrees that he is closing the ward and that Margaret's little charges must leave the hospital. Furious, Margaret quits her job and storms out, with Bob in pursuit. As he rushes across the street, Bob is struck by a car and must be hospitalized. During his convalescence, he realizes that he is in love with Margaret and decides to have a home built for her and her patients. Unable to locate Margaret, Bob hires detectives, who find her and bring her to the home. There Margaret finds that all her dreams have come true as she sees her little charges happily living in their new home and gladly accepts Bob's proposal of marriage

5.3

Aria

May 27, 1987

Ten short pieces directed by ten different directors, including Ken Russell, Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Altman, Bruce Beresford, and Nicolas Roeg. Each short uses an aria as soundtrack/sound, and is an interpretation of the particular aria.

No Image Available

0.0

Kouzelný strom

Feb 26, 1976

No overview available.

8.5

Royal Opera House: Swan Lake

Jun 12, 2018

The Royal Ballet performs Tchaikovsky's classic ballet, choreographed by Liam Scarlett and starring Marianela Nunez as Odette/Odile and Vadim Muntagirov as Prince Siegfried.