Richard Wagner Filmography

New York Philharmonic: The Pyongyang Concert

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Lorin Maazel

Synopsis: February 26, 2008 marked a historic date for music and global culture per seRead More

New Year's Concert in St Petersburg

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Bashmet, Yefim Bronfman, Valery Gergiev

Synopsis: In the classical performance release New Year's Concert in St Petersburg - shot on New Year's Day 2007 at St. Petersburg's Mariinsky Theatre Concert Hall - Russian maestro Valery Gergiev leads the Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre in interpretations of symphonic works by Wagner, Strauss, Verdi Read More

Proust, Or How the Heart Skips a Beat

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Eleonora Abbagnato, Hervé Moreau, Stéphane Bullion, Manuel Legris, Mathieu Ganio

Synopsis: The Opera National de Paris mounted this production of choreographer Roland Petit's ballet Proust: Or How the Heart Skips a Beat, adapted from Marcel Proust's A La Recherche du temps perdu. The production stars Eleonora Abbagnato, Hervé Moreau, Stéphane Bullion and Manuel Legris and features music Read More

Ride of the Mergansers

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Steve Furman

Synopsis: Filmmaker Steve Furman captures an event in nature rarely seen by human eyes in this short film detailing the annual ritual of the reclusive Hooded Merganser. This reclusive breed of duck is found exclusively in North America; the female Hooded Merganser lays her eggs in a nest high in the Read More

David Hockney: The Colors of Music

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: David Hockney, Max Charruyer, John Cox, Ken Silvers, Gwyneth Jones

Synopsis: One of the best-respected artists of his generation, David Hockney is well known for his paintings, prints, and portraits, but he's also developed a reputation as a set designer for some of the world's leading opera companies. A passionate enthusiast of classical vocal music, Hockney's interest in Read More

Classic Archive: Eugen Jochum

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Tannhäuser (Zürich Opera)

Crew: From Opera by

Synopsis: This production of Richard Wagner's Tannhauser stars Peter Seiffert in the title role. Franz Welser-Most leads the Zurich Orchestra through the performance that co-stars Alfred Muff, Roman Trekel, and Jonas Kaufman. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide Read More

Das Rheingold

Crew: From Opera by

Synopsis: This performance of Wagner's opera Das Rheingold was recorded live at the Staatsoper Stuttgart in September and December of 2002. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide Read More

Parsifal

Crew: From Opera by

Synopsis: Richard Wagner's operatic retelling of the story of the search for the Holy Grail receives a lavish production in this video, which records performances held in Bayreuth, St. Petersburg, and Ravello, Italy. Internationally renowned tenor Placido Domingo leads the distinguished cast; Tony Palmer Read More

Tannhäuser

Crew: From Opera by

Götterdämmerung

Crew: From Opera by

Fugueuses

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Marie Trintignant, Irène Jacob, Nicole Garcia, Stefano Dionisi

Synopsis: Sullen teenage orphan Johnny Miles (Josh Albee) is wrongfully accused of stealing from his foster parents. Running away from home, Johnny forms a bond with another youthful "runaway"--this one a leopard who has escaped from a nearby wild-animal compound. Both fugitives are sheltered by a harsh but Read More

Tannhäuser

Crew: From Opera by

Actors: René Kollo

Synopsis: Composer Richard Wagner's romantic three-act opera is performed at the National Theater Staatsoper in this 1994 production captured over the course of a three-day closed-session and directed by David Alden and featuring René Kollo and Jan-Hendrik Rootering. Music is provided by the Chorus of Read More

Lohengrin

Crew: Featured Music

Parsifal

Crew: From Opera by

Parsifal

Crew: From Opera by

Synopsis: One of Richard Wagner's typically epic-scale operas, this tale of a naïve man who makes his way into the world and joins the search for the Holy Grail is given an impressive production in this home-video release. Parsifal documents the Metropolitan Opera's 1992 staging of the opera, featuring Siegfried Jerusalem Read More

Jesus Vender Tilbage

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Marco di Stefano, Jed Curtis, Jean-Michel Dagory, Benny Hansen

Synopsis: Shortly after his 1970 success with the film Stille Dage i Clichy (Quiet Days in Clichy), director Jens-Jorgen Thorsen started trying to get Jesus Vender Tilbage (The Return) made. For the next twenty years, he kept at it when the money was available but had to cope not only with shortages of Read More

Meeting Venus

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Glenn Close, Niels Arestrup, Erland Josephson, Macha Meril

Synopsis: Meeting Venus is based on a play cowritten by the film's director, Istvan Szabo. Glenn Close plays a celebrated Swedish opera star Karin Anderson who is slated to appear in an internationally-telecast production of Tannhauser. Ms. Anderson balks at the notion of working with obscure Hungarian Read More

Lohengrin

Crew: Featured Music

Synopsis: Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin is interpreted by the Chorus and Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera, under the direction of Claudio Abbado. Cheryl Studer plays Elsa of Brabant, who is accused of murder by Frederick of Telramund (Hartmut Welker). Lohengrin (Placido Domingo) saves her and asks her Read More

Tannhaeuser

Crew: From Opera by

Synopsis: This performance is hailed by some critics as the best Tannhaeuser and is Goetz Friedrich's version with a collection of opera stars. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Solti: Orchestra!

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Dudley Moore, Sir Georg Solti

Das Rheingold

Crew: From Opera by

Actors: John Tomlinson, Bodo Brinkmann, Kurt Schreibmayer, Graham Clarke, Gunter von Kannen

Synopsis: Richard Wagner's opera "Das Rheingold" -- the first part in the epochal "Der Ring des Nibelungen" cycle -- is given a stellar production in this staging recorded in Germany as part of the Festspielhaus Bayreuth in 1991. Concerning the magical "Ring of Gold" and those both noble and Read More

Das Rheingold

Crew: From Opera by

Synopsis: Experience the magic of one of Richard Wagner's most revered works as The Metropolitan Opera's lavish production of Das Rheingold is captured live on-stage for release on home video. Featuring a cast of opera superstars including James Morris, Alan Held, and Mark Barker, this unforgettable Read More

Siegfried

Crew: From Opera by

Synopsis: This DVD highlights the third installment of Wagners's opera Der Ring Des Nebelungen, accompanied by conductor James Levine and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. The cast stars James Morris as Siegfried Jerusalem, and also features Hildegard Behrens, Birgitta Svenden, and Matti Salminen.  Read More

Skyddsangeln

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Philip Zandén, Etienne Glaser, Malin Ek, Björn Kjellman, Gunilla Roor

Synopsis: It is the turn of the century in Russia, and the revolution (at this time not yet a communist one) has sentenced government minister Joel Birkman (Etienne Glaser) to be assassinated for his role in quelling a student rebellion. To that end, they have arranged for one of their number, Jacob (Philip Zanden Read More

Der Fliegende Holländer

Crew: From Opera by

Actors: Franz Grundheber, Hildegard Behrens, Matti Salminen

Synopsis: A music performance video from the Savolinna Festival, with the festival orchestra and chorus, conductor Leif Segerstam and soloists Hildegard Behrens, Matti Salminen and Franz Grundheber. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Aria

Crew: From Opera by

Actors: Theresa Russell, Nicola Swain, Jack Kyle, Buck Henry, Marianne McLoughlin, Julie Hagerty, Tilda Swinton, Marion Peterson

Synopsis: An international collection of well-known directors contributed to this compilation film, each fashioning a short film inspired by an aria from a famous opera. The approaches vary broadly, from the playful abstraction of Jean-Luc Godard's segment, which illustrates Armide with exercising Read More

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

Crew: From Opera by

Synopsis: This classic tale is of a musically gifted cobbler who competes in a songwriting contest, and is brought to life by the Australian Opera in Sydney. Takes place in Rennaisance Nürnberg. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Epidemic

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Lars von Trier, Niels Vørsel, Udo Kier

Synopsis: Director Lars von Trier stars in a double role in this experimental horror fantasy. He pretentiously portrays a director who spends a year and a half preparing to make a horror film with help from a government grant. In the second part, he plays a young physician who unknowingly has a plague virus Read More

Maximum Overdrive

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Emilio Estevez, Pat Hingle, Laura Harrington, Yeardley Smith, John Short

Synopsis: Writer-director Stephen King falls short in his debut at the helm with Maximum Overdrive, an absurd tale about a radiation storm that somehow animates machines across the world, causing them to turn on their makers. The film focuses on a group of survivors held captive at the Dixie Boy Diner by a Read More

Die Nacht

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Edith Clever

Synopsis: Die Nacht would make a long night indeed for most filmgoers, there is no story to speak of, just six hours of a monologue related to European history by Edith Clever, enhanced by excellent music by Richard Wagner, Johann Sebastian Bach, and other composers, quotes from philosophers like Nietzsche Read More

Tannhauser

Crew: From Opera by

Wo Die Grünen Ameisen Träumen

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Bruce Spence, Wandjuk Marika, Roy Marika, Ray Barrett, Norman Kaye

Synopsis: In a slightly padded but well-acted and relevant drama, an Australian mining company and a group of aboriginals go to court to settle a dispute over sacred land that the company wants to mine. When the Ayers Mining Company sets out to begin construction of its mine with bulldozers and Read More

Détective

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Claude Brasseur, Nathalie Baye, Johnny Hallyday, Laurent Terzieff, Stephane Ferrara, Jean-Pierre Léaud

Synopsis: After several years of making films to please only himself, French director Jean-Luc Godard once more invites the audience to the party with The Detective. Not that there's anything so blase as a linear plot or appealing characters, but at least some of Godard's isolated vignettes are accessible Read More

Wagner

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Richard Burton, Vanessa Redgrave, Laszlo Galffi, John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson

Synopsis: Originally a nine-hour British miniseries, this film on the last four decades in the life of Richard Wagner may have taken its long-winded cue from the lengthy operas of the famous 19th-century German composer and musical theorist -- the Ring des Nibelungen is 14-15 hours in itself, divided into Read More

Parsifal

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Armin Jordan, Wolfgang Schöne, Martin Sperr, Hans Tschammer, Robert Lloyd

Synopsis: This is a four-hour film performance of Wagner's opera "Parsifal" - about the legend of the Holy Grail (the chalice from which Christ drank at the Last Supper) and the Sacred Spear used by Longinus to pierce the side of Christ. In the opera both of these revered objects were brought down from Read More

Tannhäuser

Crew: From Opera by

Synopsis: One of Richard Wagner's most enduring works, this bold operatic tale of a medieval knight's struggle for freedom against the gods was given a striking production by the Metropolitan Opera, and this video captures the performance for the ages. Eva Marton, Richard Cassilly, Tatiana Troyanos and Read More

Das Rheingold

Crew: From Opera by

Synopsis: Thomas Stewart and Brigitte Fassbaender co-star in this filmed 1978 stage production of Richard Wagner's opera Das Rheingold, mounted by the Salzburg Festival and the Metropolitan Opera. The Berliner Philharmoniker, under the baton of Herbert von Karajan, provides symphonic accompaniment. ~ Nathan Read More

Jede Menge Kohle

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Hermann Lause, Tana Schanzara

Synopsis: This is the second comedy made by director Adolf Winkelmann about societal dropouts in the Ruhr industrial valley. Katlewski (Delle Quandt) has an acerbic way of pinpointing the buttoned-down minds of fellow workers who conform without question to their class-imposed parameters. Katlewski has had Read More

Das Rheingold

Crew: From Opera by

Actors: Hermann Becht, Martin Egel, Fritz Hübner

Synopsis: The first segment of the "Ring" cycle, Das Rheingold is concerned with a precious treasure -- the rhinegold -- which, if made into a ring, would enable the wearer dominion over the world. Power comes with a price, however; whoever would steal the gold would have to renounce love. Alberich the Read More

Tannhauser

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Hans Sotin, Spas Wenkoff, Bernd Weikl, Robert Schunk, Franz Mazura

Synopsis: Götz Friedrich staged this baroque, surrealistic and highly stylized production of Richard Wagner's opera Tannhäuser at the Bayreuther Festspiele in 1978. It stars Hans Sotin as Landgraf, Spas Wenkoff as Tannhäuser, and Bernd Wenkl as Wolfram von Eschenbach. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide Read More

Hitler - ein Film aus Deutschland

Crew: Featured Music

Synopsis: This seven-hour long epic completes the "German Trilogy" of Hans-Jurgen Syberberg, which began with his meditation on the life of Ludwig II of Bavaria and continued with a biography of popular writer Karl May. In this film, he explores the factors in the German psyche which sought for and then Read More

Siegfried

Crew: From Opera by

Synopsis: The third opera in Richard Wagner's epic Ring cycle, Siegfried follows the adventures of the son of demigods Siegmund and Sieglinde as he conquers his enemies and rescues the beauteous Brunnhilde with the help of his magic sword. This video preserves the controversial 1976 Bayreuth Centenary Read More

Hallo, Baby

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Marie-Louise de Geer Bergenstrahle, Toivo Pawlo, Hakan Serner, Keve Hjelm

Synopsis: Told in a series of tableaux (in which live actors hold still as if appearing in still photos or paintings), this is the story of a woman who cannot figure out what to do with herself. After a disturbing childhood, she becomes something of a tramp and an exhibitionist before marrying a stage Read More

Tristan und Isolde

Crew: Featured Music

Synopsis: This video presents extended highlights from a 1976 production of Wagner's operatic tale of two young people whose love has been cursed by fate. Staged for broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, this production stars Jon Vickers as Tristan and Roberta Knie as Isolde; the supporting Read More

Lisztomania

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Roger Daltrey, Sara Kestelman, Paul Nicholas, Fiona Lewis, Veronica Quilligan

Synopsis: This audacious, vulgar, freewheeling fantasia on the life of pianist Franz Liszt ranks among director Ken Russell's most outrageous efforts. Roger Daltrey, lead singer for The Who, is awkward yet likeable as the flamboyant piano performer with a bevy of fetching mistresses and groupies, while Paul Nicholas Read More

Bejleren

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Frans Andersson

Synopsis: Set in the barren marshes of Jutland sometime in the late-18th century, Danish poet and novelist Steen Steensen Blicher's Bejleren is the saga of a proud country squire (Karl Stegger) who refuses to grant a young suitor (Troels Møller) permission to marry his daughter (Inge Margrethe Svendsen) Read More

Ludwig

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Helmut Berger, Romy Schneider, Trevor Howard, Silvana Mangano, Gert Fröbe

Synopsis: Luchino Visconti (Count don Luchino Visconti di Modrone) was a film director, true, but he was also a nobleman and a grand patron of traditional European culture: opera, art, music, crafts and literature. These interests enliven many of his films, but few have been so inspired as the four-hour Read More

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

Crew: From Opera by

Actors: Georgio Tozzi, Richard Cassilly

Synopsis: This color production of Richard Wagner's Die Meistersinger Von Nuernberg is over four hours long and features the Hamburg State Opera Chorus and the Hamburg State Philharmonic Orchestra. Leopold Lugwig is the conductor. The color process is not credited for this major musical feature. ~ Dan Read More

Duett For Kannibaler

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Adriana Asti, Gösta Ekman, Jr., Lars Ekborg, Agneta Ekmanner

Synopsis: A university professor (Gosta Ekman) and his wife (Adriana Asti) hire a young man (Lars Ekborg) to help the professor arrange his papers for publication. The young man comes to live with the couple and leaves his mistress (Agneta Ekmanner) to take the position. The young man discovers very quickly Read More

Counterpoint

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Charlton Heston, Maximilian Schell, Kathryn Hays, Leslie Nielsen, Anton Diffring

Synopsis: The beauty of classical music confronts the ugliness and treachery of war in this unusual drama. Lionel Evans (Charlton Heston) is the director of a well-respected symphony orchestra touring European concert halls in 1944. In the midst of one concert, the city where they are playing is attacked by Read More

Once More, with Feeling

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Yul Brynner, Kay Kendall, Geoffrey Toone, Maxwell Shaw, Gregory Ratoff, Mervyn Johns

Synopsis: Yul Brynner and Kay Kendall star as Victor and Dolly Fabian in this successful cinematic version of the stage comedy by Harry Kurnitz. Victor is a larger-than-life symphony conductor who loves music but has all the social skills of a wounded rhinoceros. After his wife Dolly gets fed up with Read More

Verboten!

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: James Best, Susan Cummings, Thomas Pittman, Paul Dubov, Harold Daye

Synopsis: Director Samuel Fuller skillfully intercuts footage of the German death camps with scenes from this thought-provoking drama about a forbidden, post-war love affair. David (James Best) is a G.I. stationed in Germany with the American Military Government. He falls in love with Helga (Susan Read More

Magic Fire

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Yvonne De Carlo, Rita Gam, Carlos Thompson, Valentina Cortese, Alan Badel

Synopsis: Filmed in Germany (where it was released in 1954), Republic's Magic Fire is the life story of controversial 19th century composer Richard Wagner. Alan Badel comes off more as villain than hero as Wagner, which though historically accurate makes it hard for the audience to pull for the central Read More

Abismos de Pasion

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Irasema Dilian, Jorge Mistral, Lilia Prado, Ernesto Alonso

Synopsis: Director Luis Buñuel constructs this 1954 motion picture on the foundation of Emily Bronte's Gothic novel set in England. However, Buñuel substitutes a Mexican setting for the English one and Spanish names for the novel's central characters. He also alters the plot to heighten tension and maximize Read More

People Will Talk

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Cary Grant, Jeanne Crain, Finlay Currie, Hume Cronyn, Walter Slezak

Synopsis: People Will Talk was less a movie than a conduit for the genteel liberalism of screenwriter/director Joseph M. Mankiewicz. Cary Grant plays Dr. Praetorius, an unorthodox medical professor at a sedate midwestern college who seems more interested in the human soul than in the cold facts of the human Read More

Pandora and the Flying Dutchman

Crew: From Opera by

Actors: James Mason, Ava Gardner, Nigel Patrick, Sheila Sim, Harold Warrender, Marius Goring

Synopsis: Many cineastes consider Pandora and the Flying Dutchman as the masterpiece of filmmaker Albert Lewin, while others write the film off as a pretentious bore. Ava Gardner stars as Pandora Reynolds, a predatory creature who destroys the lives of all men who've been unfortunate enough to fall in love Read More

Unfaithfully Yours

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Rex Harrison, Linda Darnell, Barbara Lawrence, Kurt Kreuger, Rudy Vallee, Lionel Stander

Synopsis: Preston Sturges' Unfaithfully Yours is a typically witty and wild screwball comedy starring Rex Harrison as a symphony conductor named Alfred de Carter who is convinced his wife (Linda Darnell) is having an affair. During one of his concerts, Alfred begins planning three different ways of solving Read More

I've Always Loved You

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Philip Dorn, Catherine McLeod, William Carter, Maria Ouspenskaya, Felix Bressart

Synopsis: As its fortunes grew in the mid-1940s, Republic Pictures occasionally strayed from its usual manifest of westerns and serials, hoping to produce something of "class." Filmed on a lavish budget in glorious Technicolor, Republic's I've Always Loved You stars Philip Dorn as a tyrannical symphony Read More

The Scarlet Empress

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Marlene Dietrich, John Lodge, Sam Jaffe, Louise Dresser, Maria Sieber

Synopsis: Of the two 1934 film versions of the life of Russia's Catherine the Great, Josef von Sternberg's The Scarlet Empress was the most opulent and exotic. Marlene Dietrich plays the German-born Catherine, who is required to marry Russia's mad Grand Duke Peter (Sam Jaffe, decked out in a Harpo Marx Read More

Dracula

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Bela Lugosi, Helen Chandler, David Manners, Dwight Frye, Edward Van Sloan

Synopsis: "I am....Drac-u-la. I bid you velcome." Thus does Bela Lugosi declare his presence in the 1931 screen version of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Director Tod Browning invests most of his mood and atmosphere in the first two reels, which were based on the original Stoker novel; the rest of the film is a Read More

L'Âge d'Or

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Gaston Modot, Lya Lys, Max Ernst, Pierre Prevert, Lionel Salem, Jose Artigas

Synopsis: L'Âge d'Or begins as a documentary about the habits of scorpions, utilizing library footage and silent-style intertitles. Amid the rocks of an inlet, archbishops are seen chanting by a beggar-soldier (Max Ernst), who then makes a long journey back to his hideout. He informs his fellow Read More

Der Meister von Nurenberg

Crew: From Opera by

Actors: Rudolf Rittner, Max Guelstorff, Gustav Froehlich, Julius Falkenstein