Leonard Bernstein Conducts Beethoven String Quartet No. 16 & Haydn Missa in Tempore Belli

Never-before-heard personal recordings and archival footage tell the story of Louis Armstrong's life from his perspective. From musical phenom to civil rights activist to world-renowned artist, this illuminating film shows sides of Armstrong few have seen.

A towering and fearless love story chronicling the lifelong relationship between Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein. A love letter to life and art, Maestro at its core is an emotionally epic portrayal of family and love.

Featuring never-before-seen footage of the band and the legions of young fans who helped fuel their ascendance, follow McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Starr as they land in New York City in February 1964 and solidify their status as the biggest band in the world.

This special is the second "Night of 100 Stars" to benefit The Actors Fund of America. Edited from a seven-hour live entertainment marathon that was taped February 17, 1985, at New York's Radio City Music Hall, this sequel to the 1982 "Night of 100 Stars" special features 288 celebrities.

A documentary about the life and career of the conductor Carlos Kleiber. Featuring interviews with Placido Domingo, Brigitte Fassbaender, Manfred Honeck, Michael Gielen, and others. On the 11th July 2004 Carlos Kleiber got into his car and drove from Munich, via the Alps, to his holiday home in the remote Slovenian village of Konjsica. There he wrote a final letter to a friend in which he bid farewell to the world. A short time later the conductor, increasingly plagued by illness and suffering, was found dead.

TANNHÄUSER UND DER SÄNGERKRIEG AUF WARTBURG is a grand opera by Richard Wagner in three acts. After experiencing boundless sensuality and freedom with the fun-loving Venus (soprano), the singer Tannhäuser (Tenor) finds it impossible to conform to the cultured setting of his betrothed Elizabeth (soprano), who loves him. During a singing contest, Tannhäuser describes the affair with Venus as the ultimate love experience and because of that, he is cast out from the established society. Thanks to Elizabeth's intervention, he is allowed to undertake a pilgrimage to the Pope to ask for the Holy Father's pardon. If the Pope accepts to forgive him, he would be allowed to take back his place in society. Tannhäuser accepts. But fate will not allow him to meet with his beloved Elizabeth again in this life. This is a recording of the legendary staging by Götz Friedrich for the 1978 Bayreuth Festival conducted by Sir Colin Davis.

The incomparable Luciano Pavarotti at his most eloquent brings Donizetti’s Nemorino to live as only he can, combining vocal fireworks, personal charisma, and charm. The enchanting production by Nathaniel Merrill, with designs by Robert O’Hearn, is the perfect setting for Nemorino’s quest to win the heart of beautiful Adina, sung by the sparkling Judith Blegen. Brent Ellis as Belcore and Sesto Bruscantini as Dr. Dulcamara round out the all-star cast. Nicola Rescigno conducts.

This film was prepared as a introduction to a series of opera broadcasts on German television. It depicts the behind-the-scenes manoeuvrings in preparation for the annual opera festival in Bayreuth.

Leonard Bernstein made these recordings during his wonderfully productive collaboration with the Wiener Philharmoniker in the mid-1970s when he was at the peak of his career. Humphrey Burton's direction is, as always, very fine, giving the viewer/listener both the larger picture and highlighting individual soloists, players or groups of musicians and, of course, the maestro. The video and audio tracks show their age, but are quite acceptable even for today's standards. Bernstein's Seventh is everything one could desire: dark and spooky, highly sensual, but also structurally strong and assertive where needed. Bernstein's reading does not gloss over breakdowns in tonality and the foreshadowing of later musical developments.

The Metropolitan Opera's performance of "Hansel and Gretel" features music by Engelbert Humperdinck and is conducted by Thomas Fulton. The Met's storybook production cheerfully evokes a magic world of woodland sprites and candy dreams and yet brings as well the entire apparatus of Wagnerian music and drama to bear on a German fairy tale. This production is sung in English, and features the Metropolitan Opera, Chorus, and Ballet.

Live from the Metropolitan Opera, 14 February 1980. This version takes place in Boston rather than Sweden.

Engelbert Humperdinck's beloved musical fairy tale HÄNSEL UND GRETEL is brought to life by Sir Georg Solti and an illustrious cast - all part of a shimmering production that continues to enchant audiences of all ages.

Jules Massanet's lyrical opera is transformed into a superb film production by Petr Weigl, shot on location in Prague, with music conducted by Libor Pesek. First produced by the Vienna Opera in February 1892, "Werther" rapidly confirmed Massanet's position on the French opera scene and achieved enormous popularity outside France, notably in Italy, America and England. The tragic story tells of Werther's intense passion for Charlotte, who has married his best friend, Albert, fulfilling a pledge to her now deceased mother. But Werther's letters of love bring Charlotte to his side when he promises to take his own life.

The Metropolitan Opera performance of L'Elisir d'Amore is conducted by Nicola Rescigno and features Luciano Pavarotti in the title role. Donizetti's graceful melodies have long endeared his L'Elisir d'Amore to operatic audiences and performers alike. Judith Blegen, Louise Wohlafka, Luciano Pavarotti, Nicola Rescigno, Sesto Bruscantini.

This 1978 studio production of the prologue to Wagner's masterpiece is the only segment of the famous Salzburg Festival/Metropolitan Opera productions, first seen in the 1960s, that made it to film. Based on one of those original productions, Georges Wakhevitch produced stage settings and transformations that supported Karajan's concept with every possible means. Herbert Von Karajan's staging is in the epic style of another age, emphasizing the dignity of the gods rather than their all too human failings. With the singers - foremost among them Peter Schreier - Karajan had an ensemble that fully conformed to his intentions.

Live performance from the Metropolitan Opera, 31 December 1986.

Recorded at the Vienna State Opera house in 1989, this staging of Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s Elektra is one of the glories of live opera on film, deserving of eternal availability. The DVD picture has great clarity, despite the darkness of Hans Schavernoch’s set design. Other than the cliché of a huge statue head, toppled on its side, the set manages to be suitably representative of a decaying palace as well as an imposing, theatrical space, dominated by the mammoth body of the statue from which the head apparently dropped, draped with the ropes that seem to have enabled the decapitation. Sooner or later most of the characters cling to and twist around those ropes, an apt stage metaphor for the remorseless repercussions from the murder of Agammenon by his unfaithful wife Klytämnestra and her paramour, Aegisthus. Reinhard Heinrich’s costumes capture a distant era while sustaining a creepily modern look — part Goth, part homeless, part Spa-wear.

Alban Berg's disturbing opera masterfully translated into film.

World-renowned conductor Herbert Von Karajan directs the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in this performance of Bach's Violin Concerto No. 2 for a New Year's Eve concert filmed in Berlin in 1984. Together with noted violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and gifted vocalists Judith Blegen, Helga Muller Molinari, Francisco Araiza and Robert Holl, Karajan and his orchestra present a remarkable performance of Bach's masterwork.

A tsar and a carpenter switch places amid great laughs and endearing love.

Performances from Pamela Coburn, Brigitte Fassbaender, Janet Perry, Eberhard Wachter, the Choir und Ballet der Bayerischen Staatsoper, and the Bayerisches Staatsorchester. Rosalinde, wife of Eisenstein, is having an affair with Alfred. Eisenstein is due to begin a prison sentence the next morning, and the prison governor, Frank, is expected to collect him at any moment. However, Eisenstein allows himself to be talked into attending a fancy dress ball by Dr Falke, and when Frank arrives to find Alfred with Rosalinde, he assumes him to be Eisenstein and carts him off to prison.

Wolfgang Wagner's Bayreuth production of his grandfather's 'farewell to the world'has 'an unusual beauty and logic of its own ... with a double stress - on nature undefiled and on a form of religious symbolism ... There is an air of magic and mystery about the staging ... The performance was excellent ... Horst Stein conducted a beautifully proportioned Parsifal'. New York Times

This opera revolves around the demonic collective possession suffered by the Ursuline nuns in the convent of Loudun in 1634. The story concentrates on the handsome but doomed Urbain Grandier who fights against fanaticism and evil.

Peter Konwitschny's new production on the première stage in Munich gives it a new, optimistic interpretation. At the opening of the Munich Opera Festival 1998, Tristan und Isolde was staged in what is now the ninth new production at the Bavarian State Opera since its world première. Director Peter Konwitschny worked together with stage and costume designer Johannes Leiacker a team already well known in Munich for its much-respected Parsifal. Zubin Mehta conducted, shortly before being called to be General Music Director at the Bavarian State Opera. The title parts were interpreted by the American tenor Jon Frederic West, widely known for his Wagner-roles and Waltraud Meier, one of the greatest Isoldes of our time.

Two youngsters from rival New York City gangs fall in love, but tensions between their respective friends build toward tragedy.

In Manhattan’s Upper West Side, rival gangs of Polish-Americans and newly arrived Puerto Ricans clash for control of the neighborhood, even as two young members from opposite sides fall dangerously in love.

A prizefighter-turned-longshoreman with a conscience goes up against labor leaders to expose corruption, extortion, and murder among the union ranks.

Three sailors wreak havoc as they search for love during a whirlwind 24-hour leave in New York City.

Haydn’s Creation, the culmination of his life’s work, in a legendary 1986 performance conducted by Leonard Bernstein in the exquisite Baroque splendor of the Benedictine Abbey of Ottobeuren, Bavaria, now available on DVD for the first time. This spectacular performance also includes Bernstein’s spoken introduction to the performance —always an invaluable addition to any concert. This work, considered by many to be Haydn’s masterpiece, depicts the creation of the world as inspired by the texts of Genesis, the Book of Psalms and Milton’s Paradise Lost. Though deeply religious in conception, the oratorio gives a physical sense of the immensity of nature and the world’s creation. “The Creation gives us time to remember—and rejoice in— the purity and grace and fortitude of Nature, to restore our souls, to recover our moral strength, and to rediscover our power to praise”—Leonard Bernstein

Waltraud Meier is “La Wagnerissima”, the queen of Wagner’s repertoire. In her very personal account “I follow a voice within me”, we enter her world and learn about her motivations, aspirations, and her joyful way of pursuing them. In addition to personal insights, this truly ingenious portrait presents Waltraud Meier on stage and in rehearsal in her most celebrated Wagner roles and as an interpreter of Mahler’s Lieder. It becomes clear how she coined today’s musical world when other great musicians such as Daniel Barenboim or Plácido Domingo speak about her and her work. This beautiful portrait of one of the greatest interpreters of our time is rounded off with a powerful recording of Mahler’s “Lied von der Erde”.

Adaptation of "Der Prinz von Homburg"; recorded at the Bavarian State Opera.