Claudia Schneider

Every Sunday, Mary, Alice and Joan, three long-time friends, find themselves at the pool to talk about their love affairs. Mary, who is a stockbroker, leads her love life with meetings. One night she is raped by Franck in a nightclub toilet. The young woman then discovers she is pregnant. Alice, a student dominated by an authoritarian father, she has difficult relationship with men. She meets a painter who wants to make her his model. Jeanne lives a dreary relationship with her husband and decides to work and earn a living through prostitution.

The authentic story of Maria Zechmeister who lived in an Upper Austrian village and was convicted of the murder of her husband. There was no evidence and no confession. Only rumors. Maria and the witnesses re-enact the trial before the camera. They tell about the marriage, the time the husband was a prisoner of war and his return from captivity. If he really had been poisoned or if she was a victim of injustice remains open. Maria Zechmeister was pardoned after serving 17 years in prison and lives in an isolated house at the outskirts of the village.

A tortuous journey, in the company of the Spanish painter Salvador Dalí, around the figure of the enigmatic and visionary French poet Raymond Roussel (1877-1933).

Obsessive in gambling and in love, the soldier Hermann is the protagonist of Tchaikovsky’s Pique Dame, based on a story by Pushkin. He is smitten with the aristocratic Lisa and fixated on learning the winning secret of ‘the three cards’ from her grandmother, the Countess, played by iconic contralto Ewa Podles. This opulent production from Barcelona’s Liceu captures St Petersburg in the era of Catherine the Great, while the house’s Music Director Michael Boder conducts a large and impressive cast. Recorded at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona, 30th June & 1st July 2010.

Naked bodies are buffeted by water accompanied by the music Il Temporale from the opera La Cenerentola and the overture to Il Barbiere di Siviglia both by Gioacchino Rossini.