In March of 2004, the Royal Opera Covent Garden in London cancelled its contract with Deborah Voigt. The official reason given by the casting director: too fat. The opera world was outraged. Since when can't opera singers be overweight? Since Callas…

Lutoslawski’s delicate lament serves as prelude to Berlioz’s Requiem, a superlative work requiring an impressive cast of two orchestras and choirs, here under the direction of Pablo Heras-Casado. An event not to be forgotten! The concert was recorded…

At the age of 43, Anton Bruckner has not developed his full musical genius. Although everything inside him is striving towards music he finds one excuse after another to turn away from his vocation. Having completed every imaginable course of study…

This unique archival discovery shows Bruno Walter rehearsing Brahms's Symphony No. 2 with the Festival Orchestra Vancouver, Canada in 1958. It also includes the only existing film interview ever made with him.

“Jazz is more than just a style of music”, says Amro Salah. “It’s about freedom.” Salah, a jazz pianist, is an enthusiastic promoter of the genre. Every year he organises the Cairo Jazz Festival, but doesn’t view himself as a festival director: He is…

A film about Georges Bizet and his ill-starred masterpiece. This film has two themes: first the substance and narrative of Bizet's perennially popular opera and second the story of its disastrous première, which had such a dramatic effect on Bizet…

A dance story about Tchaikovsky, illuminating the long-hidden moments of his life. Through his compositions, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky influenced and shaped classical ballet like few other composers. The myth of his music remains unbroken to this day…

The remarkable life and career of opera singer Soňa Červená: After escaping from the Iron Curtain, she made a career in Western Germany both as an internationally successful opera singer and actress on TV and on the theatre stage. It was not before…

After Judaïsm and Oriental Christianity, the two first parts of our series “Chants of Heaven” this film allows us to discover the great musical diversity of Islam. From the extreme styles of Senegal to those of Egypt or India, via the more…

The newly-restored fifteenth-century Amanduskirche, Bad Urach, provides the setting for this concert. Charpentier's Te Deum in D major and Fauré's Requiem Op.48 are performed by the Südfunk Choir and the RTL Orchestra, conducted by Leopold Hager…