Åke Falck

A comprehensive portrait of one of the 20th century's most brilliant and charismatic conductors working with three great orchestras: The Berlin Philharmonic, the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam and the Vienna Philharmonic, performing works by Beethoven, Mozart and Bruckner. Kubelik didn't arrive on the podium trailing clouds of glory like von Karajan or Leonard Bernstein. He seemed to just appear there, shyly and without fanfare. His 'bed hair' curling outward, making his head look like the letter w. His appearance and demeanor suggested that a timid, tentative performance was likely. Then he'd rip into a taut and crisp Eroica or an effervescent, crystalline Prague Symphony.

When a vagrant family arrives to the village Vindinge one hot summer in the 1920's, the parish is spiced up with sex and alcohol. Based on a novel by Swedish Academy member Artur Lundkvist.

When a vagrant family arrives to the village Vindinge one hot summer in the 1920's, the parish is spiced up with sex and alcohol. Based on a novel by Swedish Academy member Artur Lundkvist.

Opera's most popular double bill, fondly known as Cav and Pag, can be a tawdry mess or, as in this performance of Pagliacci, a searing experience. Its power derives from an all-star cast headed by tenor Jon Vickers in the double role of betrayed husband, Canio, and tragic clown, Pagliacci. He’s a singer who blurred the division between reality and stage illusion in every role he assumed, thus taking an opera about that thin line between real life and stage artifice to heightened levels of intensity. Vickers is a force of nature, his big, brawny voice suffused with emotion. Here, his phrasing, textual precision, and timbral colorations expand the scope of the opera, making a moving tragedy out of Leoncavallo’s verismo melodrama.

The journalist Gunnar meets the cancer-patient Seija and love arises. Seija has only a short time left to live. The doctors advice her not to become pregnant, because radiotherapy could harm the fetus. She interrupts the radiotherapy and give later birth a healthy child. Meanwhile, it turns out that pregnancy has cured her cancer.

A wealthy butcher, fond of liquor and women is about to marry a much younger woman. The woman's father has locked himself in the attic and refuses to come to the wedding.

Eva discovers a contest of an altarpiece. Her husband Adam makes a simple sketch. Adam wins the competition. The success makes Adam famous.

A member of a highly successful crime drama series is found murdered in a television studio. The screenwriter of the TV-series is found as prime suspect but claims his innocence and tries to clear his name. But who is the murderer and what is his motive?

Italian singer Mario Vanni visits the Royal Opera in Stockholm and fall in love with ballet dancer Linda Corina.

Dagmar Brink, a young female pianist, dies by suicide in her Stockholm apartment. She leaves all her belongings to her next-door neighbors, an author and his wife. Perplexed and curious, they investigate the girl's reasons for taking her life. As they visit Dagmar's friends, acquaintances and former boyfriends, her story unfolds. She stands out as loner, a woman no one could really grasp, always in want of something that nobody she met could make out.

A family in crisis during the holiday of Easter