Renée Fleming Movies

Experience Franco Zeffirelli's lavish production of the Puccini favorite La Bohème in this release of a live performance conducted by Nicola Luisotti, and featuring the magnificent voices of Angela Gheorghiu, Ainhoa Arteta, and Ramón Vargas. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

The Toronto Symphony Orchestra gets a new lease on life when new music director Peter Oundjian steps on board, and music lovers get to see a firsthand account of the creative firestorm that follows in this documentary from filmmaker Barbara Willis Sweete. A former classical violinist who studied under Itzhak Perlman before being forced down another path by a career-ending injury, the charismatic Oundjian caringly utilizes innovation, collaboration skills, and vast musical knowledge to steer the troubled orchestra back into calm waters while providing the musicians with the inspiration needed to truly refine their skills. In this feature documenting the early days of Oundjian's career with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, interviews with the musicians, candid footage, and performance footage all combine to tell the tale of a one man's tireless efforts to coax beauty from the edge of a deep abyss, and the creativity that it inspired. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy) delivers this fact-based drama about one of the most fascinating private lives of the 20th century. Alma Schindler (Sarah Wynter) was one of the most renowned young beauties in turn-of-the-century Vienna, sought after as a romantic conquest by some of the most famous men in the city, including the artist Gustav Klimt (August Schmolzer). She is won, however, by the most challenging and enigmatic artistic figure of them all, composer/conductor Gustav Mahler (Jonathan Pryce). His one demand is that she give up her own aspirations as a composer, which she has nursed for years. She agrees, and their marriage proves to be a devoted yet loveless union, producing two children but leaving Alma bereft of affection. She suppresses her frustrations as her husband's star rises, sublimating her ambitions completely. His career advances yield extraordinary music but equally notable controversies, and the marriage is riven by stress. When their oldest daughter dies, Alma's health is broken. While convalescing at a sanitarium, she meets another patient, Walter Gropius (Simon Verhoeven). He is gentle and attentive, and they begin an affair, which her husband accidentally learns of later. Their marriage survives, but Mahler also knows that he is a doomed man because of a damaged heart. After his death, Alma Mahler marries Gropius, an ambitious young architect with revolutionary ideas. Their marriage lasts but a few years, for Alma is drawn to another man, the artist Oskar Kokoschka (Vincent Perez). Kokoschka is young, iconoclastic, and daring -- all of the things that the career- and status-oriented Gropius isn't. Their affair yields a renowned painting of Alma that Kokoschka calls Bride of the Wind, a depiction of their passion amid a storm-swept background. They also conceive a child that Alma decides not to carry to term. She returns to Gropius for a time, while Kokoschka sells the painting for enough money to buy a commission in the army, and he is reported killed in action during World War I. Finally, after leaving Gropius, Alma meets a gifted author, Franz Werfel (Gregor Seberg), whom she marries. Her past catches up with her in an odd way, however, when Kokoschka returns, having survived the war and captivity -- he is still obsessed with Alma, to the point that he walks around Vienna in the company of a life-size doll of her, which he destroys in a fit of anger one night at a party. Meanwhile, in Alma's life with Franz Werfel, she finally finds peace and fulfillment, even as a composer -- the movie ends with a 1925 recital at which soprano Frances Alda (Renee Fleming) performed Alma Mahler Werfel's songs. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

For his first opera, noted composer Andre Previn collaborated with librettist Phillip Littell for this adaptation of Tennessee Williams Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about Blanche DuBois, an emotionally fragile woman who is forced to confront the real world by her brutal and vulgar brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski. Taped during its premiere engagement presented by The San Francisco Opera Company, this production of A Streetcar Named Desire stars Renee Fleming as Blanche, Rodney Gilfry as Stanley, and Elizabeth Futral as Stella. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This performance of Mozart's opera, Le Nozze di Figaro features the vocal talents of Gerald Finley in the title role. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide