David Belasco

A guileless Japanese girl gives up everything to marry a lieutenant in the US Navy. But when he suddenly leaves the country, she is determined to wait patiently until he sails back into harbour. Live from Valencia's iconic Palau de les Arts, the audience favourite Madama Butterfly returns with soprano Marina Rebeka and tenor Piero Pretti in the leading roles. Director Emilio López’s staging culminates in the bleak landscape of Nagasaki destroyed by the atomic bomb to evoke Puccini's early outcry against the soul-crushing spirit of colonialism.

Ever since it opened the 2006–07 season, Anthony Minghella’s striking production of Madama Butterfly has been a Met classic. Drawing inspiration from traditional Japanese theater, Minghella’s staging retells this heartbreaking tale with brilliant stagecraft, bold colors, and bunraku puppetry. In this Live in HD performance from the fall of 2019, Chinese soprano Hui He stars as Cio-Cio-San, the young geisha who puts her trust in a visiting American naval officer, only to later be abandoned by him. In a feat of operatic heroics, tenor Bruce Sledge appears as the callous Pinkterton, stepping into the role on short notice to replace an ailing colleague. Pier Giorgio Morandi conducts one of opera’s most tragic masterpieces, leading a cast that also includes mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong as Cio-Cio-San’s loyal companion, Suzuki, and Tony Award–winning baritone Paulo Szot as the U.S. consul Sharpless.

Soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek sings Puccini’s gun-slinging heroine in this romantic epic of the Wild West, with the heralded return of tenor Jonas Kaufmann in the role of the outlaw she loves. Tenor Yusif Eyvazov also sings some performances. Baritone Željko Lučić is the vigilante sheriff Jack Rance, and Marco Armiliato conducts.

Giancarlo Del Monaco’s atmospheric production brings to colorful life a 19th-century mining camp during the California Gold Rush. At the center of the action is the good-hearted bar owner Minnie, sung by Barbara Daniels, who takes a motherly interest in the miners. Plácido Domingo is Dick Johnson, also known as the bandit Ramerrez, who falls in love with Minnie. Sherrill Milnes sings Jack Rance, the sheriff who is not only determined to capture Ramerrez but also wants Minnie for himself. Bloodshed, a crooked poker game, a snowstorm, and a near lynching ensue before Minnie and her bandit-turned-lover can ride off to start a new life. Leonard Slatkin conducts one of Puccini’s most colorful scores.

Live from La Scala Sunday 03 February 1991

The Lyric Opera of Chicago's 1985 production of Puccini's opera, set in the late nineteenth century in the city of Nagasaki, about a young Japanese woman who weds an American naval officer who later abandons her and the child she bore him.

La Fanciulla del West, Puccini's penultimate opera is based on a play by David Belasco set at the height of the notorious California gold rush. The composer took three years to complete the work, which, for him, marked a new stylish departure. With more modern harmonic combinations and local melodies, Puccini pieced together a far larger canvas than anything he had tackled before. In this recording, Piero Faggioni's highly detailed staging is matched by Ken Adam's superbly atmospheric sets. Carol Neblett sings the role of Minnie "The Girl of the Gold West," Placido Domingo is as ignitable as ever in the role of Dick Johnson, alias the bandit, Ramirez, and Silvano Carroli sings the sinister sheriff, Jack Rance. Conducted by Nello Santi.

Mirella Freni, Placido Domingo, Christa Ludwig, and Robert Kerns star in this Jean-Pierre Ponnelle-directed version of the Puccini opera, with Herbert von Karajan conducting the Vienna Philharmonic. Madama Butterfly is a staple of the standard operatic repertoire for companies around the world, ranking 7th in the Operabase list of the most-performed operas worldwide.

Japanese-Italian adaptation of Puccini's opera.

It is California in 1852 that only recently being surrendered by Mexico to the United States and admitted into the union. Most of the land-owners of California were the descendants of the Dons who had colonized it a hundred years before and whose title deeds bore the signature and seal of a long-dead Spanish king. But, by a loop-hole in the law, the title-deeds of the Dons could not be recognized, and this opened the door of organized gangs of land-grabbers, such as the one led by Joe Kincaid, to operate with a prime excuse for legitimate plunder and robbery. In most cases the law was unable to cope with the situation. Then Rosita Castro, the daughter of Don Pasqual Castro, masked and disguised as a man, organized a band of vigilantes to fight against the tyranny of the outlaws, aided by an undercover federal agent, Jim Kearney.

The ghost of a recently deceased family patriarch tries to help his surviving relatives, in part by preventing a marriage that he knows will go wrong.

Pinkerton marries Cho-Cho San in Japan, whilst on shore leave. When he leaves, she keeps his Japanese home as he left it. He returns three years later, having married again in America, and tells Cho-Cho that their affair is over. She has had a child in his absence, who is sent to her family, before she kills herself.

Young Asians in San Francisco find their love thwarted by clan warfare.

When he's forced to kill his best friend, a Chinese hit man adopts the man's daughter.

A young Frenchwoman is determined to get into and stay in show business, no matter what. Then she's determined to win a recently divorced man's heart... again, no matter what.

A hard-bitten saloon girl falls for a dashing outlaw, and tries to keep the local sheriff from catching him and sending him to prison.

Jeannette Vaubernier, an impulsive shopgirl en route to deliver a hat, dreams of luxury and position as she saunters through the woods, and attracted by a pool of water, she disrobes and plunges in. Cosse de Brissac, a handsome private in the King's Guards, comes to her rescue and they become sweethearts. Meanwhile, Jean Du Barry, a shrewd roué, takes note of her at the millinery shop and tricks her into staying at La Gourda's, where she soon becomes a favorite among the men.

At the outbreak of the War Between the States, Maryland Calvert is loved by Maj. Alan Kendrick, son of a Virginia general, and Capt. Fulton Thorpe. Nancy, whom Thorpe has loved unwisely, follows him to Washington and commits suicide when she learns he will not marry her; as a result, Alan is forced to request his resignation. When Fort Sumter is fired upon, Alan, who admires Lincoln's principles, joins the Union Army though his father is among the Secessionist leaders; as a result, he is estranged from Maryland. Thorpe, who has joined the Confederacy as a spy, is responsible for Alan's arrest, but Maryland victoriously comes to his aid by ringing the alarm bell.

"Old Peter Grimm makes his ward Katie promise to marry his nephew Frederik [ sic ] and then dies. Frederik proves to be a scapegrace and Peter's spirit returns to right matters and finally succeeds in doing so by communicating with Jimmie who is in a delirium." ( Moving Picture World, 20 Nov 1926, p164.) Peter thus thwarts selfishness and greed and rewards virtue.

Will Prescott (Richard Dix) is a bank cashier whose assistant, Ned Seabury (Neil Hamilton), has made a killing in the stock market. With his newfound riches, Seabury proceeds to woo Prescott's wife, Agnes (Claire Adams), by buying her luxurious items that her husband can not afford. Seabury makes no secret of his aim, and Prescott desperately steals some of the bank's bonds, hoping to make enough money to keep Agnes by his side.

Struggling stockbroker Jimmie Shannon learns that, if he gets married by 7 p.m. on his 27th birthday -- which is today -- he'll inherit $7 million from an eccentric relative.

The Butterworth family attorney Gaspar Le Sage, and a suitor for the hand of Eleanor Butterworth, persuades a beautiful adventuress, Annabelle Wu, to help him steal the official plans for the coastal defense of California from Eleanor's brother, Lieutenant Butterworth.

Originally a Broadway play by Willard Macks, Lenore Ulric played the lead on Broadway and reprises her role for this film. At the Wutchi Wum trading post In the peaceful Loon River Valley, deep in the Canadian Northwest comes a story of love, vengeance and sacrifice. Having lived at the trading post following the death of her father, Rose will soon fall in love. But when her new love is in trouble, Rose will discover that she is capable of much more than she thought in order to keep him safe.

Stephen Lee doesn't want his nephew Wally Sanders to marry chorus girl Violet Dayne, because he believes all chorus girls to be ruthless gold diggers, always chasing after the men's money. Violet's friend Jerry La Mar decides to 'gold dig' Stephen, to show him what a nice and unselfish girl Violet is, but then she realizes that she's really in love with Stephen Lee....

Itinerant magician Balzamo arrives in the town where Dr. Emerson and his pretty young wife live. Smitten with Mrs. Emerson, Balzamo places her under a hypnotic spell and takes her away with him. Many years later, as she lies near death, she warns her daughter Dorothy to flee from the evil Balzamo.

The daughter of a Daimyo, one forced to commit harakiri to secure her a future to choose her own destiny, falls in love with and marries a European officer. The officer returns to Europe but promises to come back for her and his new child, but when he comes back to Japan, he brings his European wife.

In this film, her next-to-last picture for Fox, it was Theda Bara's turn to tackle a double role. Bara's characters are twin sisters La Belle Russe, the wicked one, and Fleurette, the nice one. They're Parisian dancers, and Fleurette marries Philip Sackton (Warburton Gamble). However, Sackton is a member of Britain's snooty aristocracy, and his family disinherits him.

When a young girl is placed under hypnotism, it's discovered that she has a split personality.

May Blossom loves Richard Ashcroft, a Southern officer, and accepts his proposal of marriage immediately after receiving one from her father's choice, a suitor named Steve Harland, who loves her madly. She sorrowfully tells him she prefers Richard, nearly breaking Steve's heart. That night, without a chance to bid May good-bye, Richard is arrested

May Blossom loves Richard Ashcroft, a Southern officer, and accepts his proposal of marriage immediately after receiving one from her father's choice, a suitor named Steve Harland, who loves her madly. She sorrowfully tells him she prefers Richard, nearly breaking Steve's heart. That night, without a chance to bid May good-bye, Richard is arrested

A saloon hostess loves Ramerrez, a notorious highwayman. Sheriff Jack Rance, who loves the girl too, instigates a card game that will determine the fate of all three of them. If she wins, the girl's lover will go free; but if she loses…

Esra Kincaid takes land by force and, having taken the Espinoza land, his sights are set on the Castro rancho. Government agent Kearney holds him off till the cavalry shows up and he can declare his love for Juanita, called “the Rose of the Rancho.”

Robert Stevens robs the bank where he is employed, and through the efforts of Calvin Stedman, the prosecuting attorney, he is sentenced to six years' imprisonment. While in jail his wife dies and his little daughter, Agnes, is placed in a convent.

After Gasper La Sage and his cohort, Blink Blunk, are released from prison, they make plans for another robbery. The scheme, which requires La Sage to pose as a gentleman, fails. Blunk is arrested, but La Sage goes free. Some time later, La Sage goes to England where he blackmails Lt. Hugh Butterworth, an officer who misappropriated money intended for the widow of a fellow officer, and who owes La Sage money for gambling debts. As payment, La Sage wants Hugh to arrange for him to marry Eleanor, Hugh's sister. Hugh tells his friend Lord Chumley about La Sage, however, and Chumley is able to learn about La Sage's past when he overhears Blunk, now out of jail, threaten his former friend. After La Sage intensifies his suit for Eleanor, Chumley is finally able to discredit him by tearing open his shirt and revealing the mark of the prison. With La Sage out of the way, Chumley and Eleanor announce their engagement as do Hugh and his faithful sweetheart, Jessie.

A 1914 film drama

A partially lost film, with only one surviving reel. A movie released in 1914 directed by Edwin S. Porter.

A partially lost film, with only one surviving reel. A movie released in 1914 directed by Edwin S. Porter.