The Opera House

The Opera House

NR 2017 · 108 min · ★ 8.3 · Documentary

In this documentary, award-winning filmmaker Susan Froemke explores the creation of the Metropolitan Opera’s storied home of the last five decades. Drawing on rarely seen archival footage, stills, and recent interviews, The Opera House looks at an important period of the Met’s history and delves into some of the untold stories of the artists, architects, and politicians who shaped the cultural life of New York City in the ’50s and ’60s. Among the notable figures in the film are famed soprano Leontyne Price, who opened the new Met in 1966 in Samuel Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra; Rudolf Bing, the Met’s imperious General Manager who engineered the move from the old house to the new one; Robert Moses, the unstoppable city planner who bulldozed an entire neighborhood to make room for Lincoln Center; and Wallace Harrison, whose quest for architectural glory was never fully realized.

Directed by Susan Froemke

Your Rating

Where to Watch

Rent or Buy

Cast

Leontyne Price Self - Interviewee
Humphrey Burton Self - BBC Arts Reporter
Justino Díaz Self (archive footage)
Rudolf Bing Self (archive footage)
Wallace Harrison Self (archive footage)
Franco Zeffirelli Self (archive footage)
Samuel Barber Self (archive footage)
Robert Moses Self (archive footage)
Hilary Ballon Self (archive footage)
Rosalind Elias Self (archive footage)
Kyna Leski Self (archive footage)

Make it a double feature

3h 22m together

The Opera House

The Love We Make

Both from Susan Froemke.

More from Susan FroemkeSee all →

Recording the Producers: A Musical Romp with Mel Brooks

Recording the Producers: A Musical Romp with Mel Brooks · 2001

Recording the Producers: A Musical Romp with Mel Brooks

MovieDocumentaryComedy

An exclusive musical comedy event showcasing the antics of the entire cast and crew of the hit Broadway show The Producers. Includes exclusive candid behind-the-scenes footage, 14 song performances, and much more, all hosted by Mel Brooks.

Ozawa

MovieDocumentaryMusic

This intimate portrait of the legendary conductor Seiji Ozawa focuses on the Japanese master and teacher's career, his advocacy of modern composers and the behind-the-scenes world of the symphony orchestra.

Horowitz Plays Mozart

Horowitz Plays Mozart · 1987

Horowitz Plays Mozart

In March 1987, pianist Vladimir Horowitz embarked on an extraordinary project. For the first time in 35 years, he agreed to record with a symphony orchestra in a studio. He chose the conductor, Carlo Maria Giulini, the orchestra, the La Scala Philharmonic, and the location, the Abanella recording studio of La Scala in Milan. Horowitz steadfastly refused to allow the month-long sessions to be filmed, until the evening before the last scheduled session when he unexpectedly changed his mind. His manager, Peter Gelb, immediately telephoned Albert Maysles and Susan Froemke in New York, the co-filmmakers of "Vladimir Horowitz: The Last Romantic." That same night, the Maysles film crew flew from New York.

The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit

The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit · 1991

The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit

MovieMusicDocumentary

The Beatles First US Visit uniquely chronicles the inside story of the two remarkable weeks when Beatlemania first ignited America. The pioneering Maysles Brothers who filmed at the shoulders of John, Paul, George and Ringo, innovated an intimate documentary style of film-making which set the benchmark for rock and roll cinematography that remains to this day.

Grey Gardens

Grey Gardens · 1976

MovieDocumentary

Edie Bouvier Beale and her mother, Edith, two aging, eccentric relatives of Jackie Kennedy Onassis, are the sole inhabitants of a Long Island estate. The women reveal themselves to be misfits with outsized, engaging personalities. Much of the conversation is centered on their pasts, as mother and daughter now rarely leave home.

Christo in Paris

Christo in Paris · 1990

Christo in Paris

MovieDocumentary

Documentary about conceptual artist Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude's attempt to "wrap" the Pont-Neuf in Paris.

The Love We Make

The Love We Make · 2011

The Love We Make

MovieMusicDocumentary

"The Love We Make", a film directed by Albert Maysles ("Gimme Shelter") and Bradley Kaplan, follows Paul McCartney as he journeys through the streets of New York City in the aftermath of the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001. It also chronicles the planning and performance of the benefit concert that took place less than six months after the attacks: "The Concert For New York City".

Letting Go: A Hospice Journey

Letting Go: A Hospice Journey · 1996

Letting Go: A Hospice Journey

MovieDocumentary

Our medical system is geared toward healing patients. But what if there's no cure available? This moving, intimate documentary uses three cases to explore how hospice care prepares both terminally ill patients and their families for a gentle, safe passage. While patients are given comfort, companionship, dignity and peace, families are prepared for their inevitable loss.

LaLee's Kin: The Legacy of Cotton

LaLee's Kin: The Legacy of Cotton · 2001

LaLee's Kin: The Legacy of Cotton

MovieDocumentary

This heartbreaking documentary depicts the extreme poverty of an African-American family and their Mississippi Delta school district. LaLee's Kin takes us deep into the Mississippi Delta and the intertwined lives of LaLee Wallace, a great-grandmother struggling to hold her world together in the face of dire poverty, and Reggie Barnes, superintendent of the embattled West Tallahatchie School System. The film explores the painful legacy of slavery and sharecropping in the Delta.

Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare

Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare · 2012

Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare

MovieDocumentary

Our healthcare system is broken. Potent forces fight to maintain the status quo in a medical industry created for quick fixes, rather than prevention; for profit-driven, rather than patient-driven, care. Healthcare is at the center of an intense political firestorm in our nation's capital. But the current battle over cost and access does not ultimately address the root of the problem: we have a disease-care system, not a health-care one. After decades of opposition, a movement to introduce innovative high-touch, low-cost methods of prevention and healing is finally gaining ground.

Wagner's Dream

Wagner's Dream · 2012

MovieDocumentaryMusic

The stakes could not be higher as visionary director Robert Lepage, the world's greatest singers, and the Metropolitan Opera tackle Wagner's Ring cycle. An intimate look at the enormous theatrical and musical challenges of staging opera's most monumental work, the film chronicles the quest to fulfill Wagner's dream of a perfect Ring.

Great Performances

Great Performances · 1971

Great Performances

SeriesComedyDocumentary

The best in the performing arts from across America and around the world including a diverse programming portfolio of classical music, opera, popular song, musical theater, dance, drama, and performance documentaries.

Abortion: Desperate Choices

Abortion: Desperate Choices · 1992

Abortion: Desperate Choices

MovieDocumentary

An intensely personal exploration of an explosive issue -- abortion in America. Wrenching first-person narratives from seven decades of women, each one facing an unplanned pregnancy -- and the dreadful decision that no one wants to make. Both pro-life and pro-choice, both out front on the picket line and inside the clinic, these women's stories turn politics into heart-searing drama: a pregnant 17-year-old and her pro-life mother whose conflict unfolds in front of the camera; a 22-year-old who became a pro-life protester when she learned that her mother nearly aborted her; an unhappy mother-of-two who's expecting a third when her marriage suddenly hits the rocks; a 71-year-old grandmother who still grieves for her mother, an early victim of illegal abortion. In this fusion of past and present, the history of abortion is the history of women -- told at a time in America when yesterday's back-alley abortions may be the only choice left for tomorrow.

Addiction

Addiction · 2007

MovieDocumentary

Assembled by some of the nation's top documentary filmmakers, this centerpiece film in HBO's 'Addiction' campaign features insights from experts on trends and treatments in the ongoing battle against drug and alcohol abuse. This documentary consists of nine segments that focus on case studies and cutting-edge treatments that challenge traditional beliefs about addiction.

Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman

Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman · 2017

Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman

MovieDocumentary

From the Montana Rockies to the wheat fields of Kansas and the Gulf of Mexico, families who work the land and sea are crossing political divides to find unexpected ways to protect the natural resources vital to their livelihoods. These are the new heroes of conservation, deep in America's heartland.

Soldiers of Music

Soldiers of Music · 1991

Soldiers of Music

Documentary showing the return to his native Russia of Mstislav Rostropovitch, includes extensive performance footage and coverage of political and personal matters for the cellist.

More Like This

Moonstruck

Moonstruck · 1987

MovieComedyDrama

37-year-old Italian-American widow Loretta Castorini believes she is unlucky in love, and so accepts a marriage proposal from her boyfriend Johnny, even though she doesn't love him. When she meets his estranged younger brother Ronny, an emotional and passionate man, she finds herself drawn to him. She tries to resist, but Ronny, who blames his brother for the loss of his hand, has no scruples about aggressively pursuing her while Johnny is out of the country. As Loretta falls for Ronny, she learns that she's not the only one in her family with a secret romance.

Rate this film

Your ratings make Midnight smarter