Gaspar
Bruschino Padre
Il signor Bruschino is the last of the five one-act operas - farsa giocosa - in which the young Rossini first demonstrated his operatic genius. The stage is small and the beautifully elegant and this shining production by Michael Hampe, recorded in May 1989, provides one and a half hours of the entertaining story about "the son won in a game" as it is subtitled. The staging transfers to the screen perfectly and the cast of principals, led by Alessandro Corbelli, Alberto Rinaldi and Amelia Felle provide musical excellence together with the flexible Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra under Gianluigi Gelmetti.
Silvio
The story is set in southern Italy and recounts the tragedy of Canio, the lead clown (or pagliaccio in Italian) in a commedia dell'arte troupe, his wife Nedda, and her lover, Silvio. When Nedda spurns the advances of Tonio, another player in the troupe, he tells Canio about Nedda's betrayal. In a jealous rage Canio murders both Nedda and Silvio. Although Leoncavallo's opera was originally set in the late 1860's, Zeffirelli's production is updated to the period between World War I and World War II.
Dandini
La Cenerentola is Gioachino Rossini's version of the popular Cinderella story, an exciting mixture of comedy, pathos, coloratura fireworks and masquerade. This Glyndebourne production by John Cox captures perfectly the fairy-tale spirit of the piece, matched by Allen Charles Klein's imaginative scenery, distorted like three-dimensional cut-outs in an old-fashioned story book.
Story set at the Chaco war between Bolivia and Paraguay.
In an institution for the blind, a man rails against his misfortune, his energy and thinking distorted by a need to fight his blindness. Unhappy and unable to come to grips with his condition, he stirs a sympathetic chord in another blind inmate. She in turn, slowly enters into a relationship with him that starts to transform the ways he perceives himself and his blindness.
A famous football player faces retirement, but his son is still his most faithful fan.
Two boys who love basketball come into the confrontation, already big, for the love of a woman.
Oficial
The repentance of a jailed man and the teachings to his son.
The story of two men and a mysterious family, who repeat the same day forever in order to save the life of one of its daughters.
A man pretends to be dead and his dying wish causes his wife to marry a drifter and lose her inheritance.
El amigo
