Tony Palmer's Classic Film: Renée Fleming

Ladies & Gentlemen

This re-issued classic artist portrait, filmed in 2002, coincides with a new Renée Fleming CD release. Ladies And Gentlemen, Miss Renée Fleming offers an up-close-and-personal survey of a great career and a remarkable woman, featuring extensive interviews alongside rehearsal and concert footage. Rarities include duets with Pavarotti, Domingo and Hvorostovsky, and a famous rendition of 'Summertime' for the Clintons.

Tony Palmer's Film About: Callas

Maria Callas

• Intimate definitive portrait of the most famous and best-loved soprano of all time
• Captures the immortal glamour and tragedy of this diva as both artist and woman: broad appeal extending well beyond opera aficionados
• Features never-before-seen footage and interviews with Franco Zeffirelli, Luchino Visconti, Tito Gobbi, Giuseppe Di Stefano, Carlo Maria Giulini, Aristotle Onassis and others
• Gold Medal, New York Film & TV Festival

Tony Palmer's Film About: Margot

Margot Fonteyn

• Tony Palmer’s critically acclaimed, moving film about legendary ballerina Margot Fonteyn
• Features breathtaking ballet footage of Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev, including Romeo and Juliet, Swan Lake, Giselle, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker Buy Online

Tony Palmer's Film About: Menuhin

Yehudi Menuhin: A Family Portrait

• Intimate documentary portrait of the Menuhin family’s remarkable – and at times oppressive – musical upbringing
• Includes revelatory interviews with Yehudi and his pianist sister Hephzibah (who for some time lived in Australia), as well as rarely seen performance footage
• 2009 marks the ten-year anniversary of Yehudi Menuhin’s death Buy Online

The Fantastic World of Michael Crawford

• Actor, comedian and music theatre legend, Michael Crawford is beloved for his role in the Original London Cast of Phantom of the Opera (alongside Sarah Brightman) and as the delightfully idiotic Frank Spencer in the classic TV series Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em.
• Overview and behind-the-scenes portrait of a fascinating and varied career, including footage from Crawford’s appearances in How I Won The War with John Lennon, Hello Dolly with Barbara Streisand, The Knack with Jane Birkin, to his recent Las Vegas extravaganza.
• Crawford has a huge and devoted Australian following, touring here as recently as 2006, and with one of his albums going Platinum in Australia. Buy Online

Tony Palmer's Film About: André Previn

The Kindness of Strangers

• Features opera stars Kiri Te Kanawa and Renée Fleming, along with celebrated classical (The Emerson Quartet) and jazz (The Ray Brown Trio) ensembles
• Previn turns 80 in 2009
• A Streetcar Named Desire was recently performed by Opera Australia and features prominently in this film Buy Online

The Life of Ralph Vaughan Williams

'O Thou Transcendent'

• 2008 marks the 50th anniversary of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ death
• O Thou Transcendent was discussed by Tony Palmer in great detail during an interview with Andrew Ford on ABC Radio National’s The Music Show
• Nominated for a 2008 Gramophone Award (Best DVD)
• Features celebrated musicians Jordi Savall (who recently toured Australia), Nicola Benedetti (violin), Simon Keenlyside, The London Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Adrian Boult and more. Buy Online

Tony Palmer's Film About: Benjamin Britten

A Time There Was...

• Opera Australia staged Britten’s Billy Budd in 2008, to be followed by Peter Grimes in October 2009
• Includes never-before-seen rehearsal footage of Britten, interviews with his partner, the tenor Peter Pears, and other musicians touched by his brilliance.
• Britten is one of the most popular modern English composers
• Winner of the prestigious Prix Italia documentary award Buy Online

Tony Palmer's Film About: William Walton

At the Haunted End of the Day

• Intimate biographical documentary of British composer William Walton (known for his film music, viola concerto and choral work, Belshazzar’s
  Feast), made 2 years before his death
• Features Australian soprano Yvonne Kenny and world-renowned musicians: violinist Yehudi Menuhin, guitarist Julian Bream and conductor Simon Rattle, as well as interview footage with Laurence Olivier
• Excellent companion piece to Tony Palmer’s other films on English composers, Britten and Vaughan Williams Buy Online

Tony Palmer's Film About: Henry Purcell

England, My England

• Michael Ball, Simon Callow, Rebecca Front, Lucy Speed, John Shrapnel, Robert Stephens, Bill Kenwright. Music: John Eliot Gardiner, Susan Graham, Paul Agnew, Lynn Dawson, Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists
• Features Broadway star Michael Ball in a lead role
• Incomparable musical cast and soundtrack features John Eliot Gardiner, Lynn Dawson, Susan Graham and Paul Agnew
• 2009 marks the 350th anniversary of Purcell’s birth, and his Dido and Aeneas will be performed by Opera Australia with Yvonne Kenny this year. Buy Online

Tony Palmer's Film About: Shoshtakovich

Testimony

• Starring Ben Kingsley, Sherry Baines, Magdalen Asquith, Terence Rigby
• Stars Oscar-winning British actor Sir Ben Kingsley (most recently seen in Elegy with Penelope Cruz, and in Schindler’s List) as the tormented
  composer
• Gripping biopic classic about the great Russian composer who produced some of the 20th century’s most powerful music
• Winner of the Fellini Prize at the Europa Festival and Gold Medal at the 1987 New York Film and Television Festival
• Shostakovich’s troubled, heavily censored life-in-fear under Stalin has been the subject of many films and books, including his controversial
  memoirs, Testimony Buy Online

Tony Palmer's Masterpiece: Górecki

The Symphony of Sorrowful Songs

• Features acclaimed soprano Dawn Upshaw – who tours Australia in 2009 – in her best-selling performance of Górecki’s 3rd Symphony
• The music pays heartfelt, anguished tribute to Holocaust victims, and to all who suffer the inhumanities of war
• Recognised as such a profound and historically absorbing film that it is now on the syllabus of several tertiary institutions
• ‘This film is a major work of art in itself’ – The Guardian
• Gold Medal, New York Film & TV Festival Buy Online

Tony Palmer's Film About: Stravinsky

Once At A Border

• Unique autobiographical documentary on the 20th century’s most famous musical innovator
• Narrated in Stravinsky’s own voice as he looks back on a fascinating life and career
• Features thrilling ballet performances (The Firebird, The Rite of Spring) as well as charming footage of Stravinsky in old age
• Winner of Special Jury Prize at the San Francisco Film Festival Buy Online

Tony Palmer's Film of O, Fortuna!

Carl Orff

• Explores and deconstructs the most dramatic and memorable choral music of the twentieth century
• Offers new insights and little-known facts about Orff’s life and career, focusing on his dedication to children’s music and his ambivalent association with the Nazi Party
• Includes archival footage and stunning excerpts from rarely-heard operas and works for puppet theatre Buy Online

Tony Palmer's Film About: Puccini

• Opera Australia stages its classic production of Madama Butterfly in January 2009
• 2008 is the 150th anniversary of Puccini’s birth
• Biopic focusing on Puccini’s troubled family life, set in 1906 after an ill-received opera premiere
• Starring British actor Robert Stephens as Puccini, the film’s biographical scenes are interspersed with opera rehearsal and performance footage
• Gold Medal, New York Film & TV Festival Buy Online

Tony Palmer's Film About: Handel

God Rot Tunbridge Wells

• 2009 marks the 250th anniversary of Handel’s death (1685-1759)
• Often compared to Milos Forman’s classic film Amadeus
• Delightfully irreverent dramatised biopic of one of the most popular Baroque composers – an enticing melange of history and fantasy
• Gold Medal, New York Film & TV Festival Buy Online

Tony Palmer's Film About: The Salzburg Festival

• An stellar line-up of the world’s most famous conductors and opera legends
• Footage from the festival’s long history features Domingo, Karajan, and today’s greats: Gergiev, Lang Lang, and Anna Netrebko
• Celebrates the birthplace of Mozart in his 250th anniversary year (2006) Buy Online

All You Need Is Love

The Story of Popular Music (5 DVDs)

• A 17-part series on American popular music described by Bing Crosby as ‘a mighty achievement’ and ‘a brilliant authoritative, historical study’.
• Broadcast worldwide between 1976 and 1981, but never repeated or commercially released since then.
• All You Need Is Love makes its DVD debut as a lavish boxed set which contains all 17 episodes of the series on 5 discs. Its story of popular music encompasses Ragtime, Blues, Jazz, Vaudeville, The Musical, Folk, Swing, Country and Western, Rock 'n' Roll and beyond; from early jazz to Bowie. Buy Online

All My Loving

Tony Palmer's Early Masterpiece

• A vibrant and comprehensive examination of rock 'n' roll and politics in the late 1960s, the brainchild of John Lennon and Tony Palmer, so controversial that the BBC banned it for several months before finally agreeing to air it.
• 2008 marks the film’s 40th anniversary with its first-ever release on DVD
• Features the British television debut of Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, Cream and Frank Zappa, alongside rare live footage and interviews with other seminal artists including The Beatles, The Who, Donovan and many more. Buy Online

Fairport Convention

& Matthews Southern Comfort

• By 1970, Fairport Convention had been together for some three years. During this period, the British folk band had recorded and released five studio albums, with Liege and Lief being hailed as genre-defining. At the time this live performance was filmed, the band had just recorded their most recent album, Full House, featuring founder members Richard Thompson and Simon Nicol alongside Dave Pegg, Dave Swarbrick and drummer Dave Mattacks. This is still considered to be the key line-up of Fairport Convention.
• The film’s footage is the only visual recording of the Full House line-up, never filmed commercially until reunions at the band's regular Cropred
  Festival years later.
• Captures the band at the Maidstone Fiesta during the summer of 1970 as they run through their set of the time, including various jigs and reels,
  ‘Sir Patrick Spens’ and the single ‘Now Be Thankful’.
• Features two songs from Matthews Southern Comfort, the band led by former Fairport Convention member Ian Matthews. The latter would also go on to have a massive hit single with a cover of the Joni Mitchell song ‘Woodstock’ in 1970. Buy Online