Adaneth - Arts & Literature

Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods), WWV 86D, is the last in Richard Wagner's cycle of four music dramas titled Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung, or The Ring for short). It received its premiere at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 17 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of the Ring. The title is a translation into German of the Old Norse phrase Ragnarök, which in Norse mythology refers to a prophesied war among various beings and gods that ultimately results in the burning, immersion in water, and renewal of the world. However, as with the rest of the Ring, Wagner's account diverges significantly from his Old Norse sources. In the final opera of Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle, the lovers Siegfried and Brünnhilde are torn apart by a pair of royal siblings who use magic and deception to gain their love and the magic ring. Götterdammerung Synopsis - Place of action: PROLOGUE: The Valkyrie's rock at night The three norns, spinning their rope of fate, relate how the world ash tree has withered since Wotan cut his spear from it and the spring at its base has dried up. He had the tree chopped down and the branches piled round Valhalla, ready for the final conflagration. The norns' rope frays and they cannot see the end of the story of the stolen gold and the curse. The rope breaks and the Norns' wisdom is at an end. Siegfried leaves Brünnhilde to seek new adventures. He gives her the ring and she gives him her horse Grane. He sets off towards the Rhine. Act I - Scene 1: The hall of the Gibichungs on the Rhine Hagen advises Gunther that both he and his sister Gutrune should marry. He proposes Brünnhilde for Gunther and Siegfried for Gutrune, telling her that Siegfried will be sure to fall in love with her after he has drunk a magic potion, but not mentioning that it is a draught of forgetfulness, necessary to make Siegfried forget Brünnhilde. Siegfried will help Gunther win Brünnhilde, since only he can break through the wall of fire, and will receive Gutrune as his reward. Siegfried arrives at Gunther's court and is welcomed warmly. Gutrune offers him the drink and he forgets Brünnhilde, falls in love with Gutrune and agrees to help Gunther win Brünnhilde, using the Tarnhelm to make himself look like Gunther. Gunther and Siegfried swear blood-brotherhood but Hagen abstains. Siegfried and Gunther set off to win Brünnhilde and Hagen remains on watch, brooding over his plans to win the ring. Scene 2: The Valkyrie's rock Brünnhilde is visited by her sister valkyrie Waltraute. She tells how she has found love and happiness, but Waltraute sadly tells her how Wotan, his spear shattered, has returned to Valhalla and sits there inactive. The only thing that can free the world from Alberich's curse is for the ring to be returned to the Rhinemaidens, but Brünnhilde refuses to surrender Siegfried's parting gift and Waltraute leaves sorrowfully. Siegfried's horn seems to announce the returning hero, but the man who bursts through the flames is a stranger. The disguised Siegfried drags the ring from Brünnhilde's finger and claims her as Gunther's bride. He follows her into the cave, preparing to spend the night there, with his sword between them, to keep faith with Gunther. Act II-III: https://rumble.com/v4bn9ue-richard-wagners-der-ring-des-nibelungen-gtterdmmerung-act-ii-iii-met-1990.html Cast & Character: Siegfried - Siegfried Jerusalem Brünnhilde - Hildegard Behrens Gunther - Anthony Raffell Hagen - Matti Salminen Waltraute - Christa Ludwig Alberich - Ekkehard Wlaschiha Gutrune - Hanna Liskows Woglinde - Kaaren Erickson Wellgunde - Diane Kesling Flosshilde - Meredith Parsons 1. Norn - Gweniet Bean 2. Norn - Joyce Castle 3. Norn - Andrea Gruber

ACT II: In front of the Gibichung hall, near the Rhine Alberich crouches in front of thie sleeping Hagen, urging the destruction of Siegfried. Hagen swears that his schemes to win back the ring are working. Siegfried suddenly materialises, telling Hagen that Gunther is returning with Brünnhilde as his bride. Hagen summons the vassals and orders them to begin preparations for the wedding feast. Gunther arrives with Brünnhilde and announces the double wedding. Brünnhilde is aghast to find that Siegfried does not recognise her and astonished to see on his finger the ring she thinks Gunther took from her. Gunther, knowing nothing about this, is puzzled also and Siegfried says he got the ring from Fafner's treasure. Hagen declares that Siegfried must have taken it from Gunther by fraud. Brünnhilde declares that Siegfried is her husband but he explains that he laid the sword between them, thinking that she is accusing him of usurping Gunther's rights. He swears on the point of Hagen's spear that he did not break faith with Gunther and Brünnhilde swears that he is lying. Siegfried and Gutrune go into the hall and Hagen offers to avenge Brünnhilde's wrongs. She tells him how Siegfried can be killed: when she made him invulnerable by means of her magic arts she left his back unprotected, knowing he would never turn his back on an enemy. Gunther, at first objecting because he has sworn blood-brotherhood with Siegfried, is eventually persuaded by Hagen, who adds the lure of the ring to arguments that Gunther's honor is at stake. They plan to kill Siegfried on a hunt and blame a wild boar for his death. Brünnhilde and Gunther vow vengeance while Hagen vows to regain the ring. ACT III Scene 1: A valley on the Rhine Siegfried, unsuccessful in his hunting, encounters the Rhinemaidens and they ask him for the ring. At first he refuses, then yields; but when they warn him that it will bring him ill luck he disdains the threat and keeps it. The rest of the hunting party appears. Hagen invites Siegfried to tell his history. With promptings from Hagen, he runs through his life story to the point where he killed Mime, when Hagen offers him a drink which contains an antidote to the forgetfulness potion and he goes on to relate his winning of Brünnhilde, to the horror of Gunther. Hagen spears Siegfried through the back. Siegfried addresses a last ecstatic greeting to Brünnhilde and dies. His body is carried away by Gunther's men. Scene 2: The hall of the Gibichungs at night Gutrune is uneasy. Siegfried's body is brought in and Hagen tells Gutrune he was killed by a wild boar, but she does not believe him and accuses Gunther. He blames Hagen, who then admits to the deed. They quarrel over the ring and Hagen kills Gunther. Siegfried's hand rises accusingly as Hagen tries to take the ring, and he falls back in horror. Brünnhilde claims her right as Siegfried's true wife to mourn him. She orders a funeral pyre to be built. All that has happened is now clear to her, and she knows what has to be done, telling the Rhinemaidens to take the ring from the ashes after the fire has burnt down. It will then be purified from the curse. She rides Grane into the flames. The Rhine overflows and the Rhinemaidens take back the ring, dragging Hagen to his death as he tries to stop them. In the distance Valhalla bursts into flames and is consumed, along with the gods.

ACT III - A wild spot at the foot of a mountain. The Wanderer summons the sleeping Erda, once more seeking the benefit of her wisdom, but she answers that she now knows nothing, suggesting first that he ask the Norns (fates) and then Brünnhilde. She is horrifed to learn about Brünnhilde's punishment. The Wanderer then says that he has no need of her advice as he has decided to accept gladly the end of his power; he will leave the world to Siegfried, and Brünnhilde will perform the redeeming deed. But when Siegfried appears, he is impatient to find yet another old man standing in his path. His youthful brashness arouses the Wanderer's anger and as Siegfried tries to go past, he interposes his spear, pointing out that the sword Siegfried carries has already been shattered by it. Believing that he has found his father's enemy, Siegfried breaks the spear with his sword. The Wanderer withdraws, no longer able to oppose Siegfried, who climbs the mountain and passes through the ring of flame which surrounds Brünnhilde. After some hesitation he kisses her awake and she greets him ecstatically by name. At first, however, she shrinks from his embrace, reluctant to lose her divine powers, but eventually responds to his passion and they triumphantly proclaim their love. Götterdämmerung Act I: https://rumble.com/v4bml29-richard-wagners-der-ring-des-nibelungen-gtterdmmerung-act-i-met-1990.html

ACT II - Deep in the forest, near the entrance to Fafner's cave. Alberich waits near the cave, hoping that someone will kill the dragon and give him the chance to take possession once more of the ring. The Wanderer appears and, to Alberich's surprise, professes no interest in the ring, but warns him that Mime is bringing Siegfried to kill the dragon. The Wanderer summons Fafner, who rejects Alberich's offer to protect him from Siegfried in exchange for the ring. 
Mime brings Siegfried to the spot, promising that here he will learn fear. Siegfried wonders about his mother and listens to the murmurs of the forest, in particular a bird, whose warbling he tries to imitate on a roughly improvised reed pipe. He gives up and blows a call on his hunting horn, which wakens Fafner. Siegfried kills the dragon; when he pulls out his sword, his hand is splashed with blood. As he sucks it clean, he finds himself able to understand the woodbird, which tells him to take the ring and Tarnhelm from the hoard. Mime and Alberich meet and quarrel, watching with horror as Siegfried emerges with the ring and Tarnhelm. The woodbird warns Siegfried of Mime's intended treachery and when Mime offers him the drugged drink, he is able to understand Mime's thoughts and strikes him dead. The woodbird tells Siegfried of a bride awaiting him on a rock surrounded by fire and he sets off, following the bird. Act III: https://rumble.com/v4bhoco-richard-wagners-der-ring-des-nibelungen-siegfried-act-iii-met-1990.html

Siegfried is the third of the four operas that constitute Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), by Richard Wagner. It received its premiere at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 16 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of The Ring. This part of the opera is primarily inspired by the story of the legendary hero Sigurd in Norse mythology. In the third opera of Wagner's Ring Cycle, a young man named Siegfried, raised by the dwarf Mime, finds the pieces of a magic sword and goes on a quest to experience fear for the first time, all part of a plan set forth by the god Wotan. ACT I - Mime's forge in the forest Mime tries in vain to forge a sword strong enough for Siegfried to kill the dragon Fafner. Siegfried returns from the forest with a bear with which he terrifies Mime. He easily breaks the latest sword on the anvil. Mime reproaches him with ingratitude, reminding him that he has brought him up from childhood. Refusing to believe that Mime is his father, Siegfried manages to extract from him the information that his mother, Sieglinde, had died giving birth to him, leaving the fragments of his father's sword, Nothung. Siegfried demands that Mime reforge this sword and storms out, hoping he may soon be free of the dwarf. Mime knows he cannot forge the sword, but when the Wanderer (Wotan) appears and offers to answer any three questions on pain of forfeiting his head, Mime asks him only useless questions (about the races of dwarf, giants and gods). When the Wanderer demands a reciprocal question test, Mime is able to answer the first two questions but fails on the third: who will reforge Nothung? The Wanderer tells Mime that his head is forfeit, but he leaves it to be claimed by one who knows no fear. Mime realises that this is one lesson he has failed to teach Siegfried and tries vainly to make up this omission, but Siegfried is unmoved, even by the mention of the fearsome dragon. Mime has to admit that his skill is unequal to the task of forging Nothung and Siegfried takes to the task himself, breaking all the rules of smithing, but succeeding, while Mime brews a potion he plans to administer to Siegfried when he has killed Fafner, so that he can kill him and seize the ring. Cast & Characters: Siegfried - Siegfried Jerusalem Mime - Heinz Zednik Brünnhilde - Hildegard Behrens Wanderer - James Morris Alberich - Ekkehard Wlaschiha Fafner - Matti Salminen Erda - Birgitta Svendén Waldvogel - Dawn Upshaw Act II: https://rumble.com/v4bhgwb-richard-wagners-der-ring-des-nibelungen-siegfried-act-ii-met-1990.html

Act III - The summit of a rocky mountain The valkyries gather on the mountain, bearing heroes on their horses to take to Valhalla. Brünnhilde appears with Sieglinde and begs their protection against Wotan. But first she must save Sieglinde, whose wish for death changes to joy when she learns that she is carrying Siegmund's child, who will grow up to be a mighty hero named Siegfried. She agrees to flee, taking the fragments of the sword entrusted to her by Brünnhilde. As Wotan appears, Brünnhilde tries to hide among her sisters, but steps forward when he accuses her of cowardice. When he pronounces her banishment from Valhalla and her doom to be locked in sleep and forced to become the wife of the first man who finds her, the other valkyries are horrified; but when he threatens them with a similar fate they flee in terror. Brünnhilde pleads with Wotan that she had really carried out his secret wish, knowing that he loved Siegmund, and tells how she had been moved by his pleading and his love for Sieglinde, but Wotan reproaches her for yielding to the claims of love while he has been forced to follow the stern path of duty. She begs that if she must become mortal she should not be left prey to the first comer but be given only to a hero - pointing out that Sieglinde will bear Siegmund's child and has the fragments of the sword. Wotan is finally moved and agrees to surround her with a wall of fire which only a man who knows no fear can cross. He kisses her to sleep, bids her a sad farewell and summons Loge to create a blaze around the rock, declaring that no one who fears his spear will be able to cross the flames. Siegfried Act I: https://rumble.com/v4beex3-richard-wagners-der-ring-des-nibelungen-siegfried-act-i-met-1990.html

A 2015 Arts Documentary hosted by Sir Derek Jacobi. Derek Jacobi goes in search of David Garrick, 18th-century superstar and the man who reinvented acting for the modern era. David Garrick (19 February 1717 – 20 January 1779) was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of European theatrical practice throughout the 18th century, and was a pupil and friend of Samuel Johnson. As an actor, Garrick promoted realistic acting that departed from the bombastic style that was entrenched when he first came to prominence. His acting delighted many audiences and his direction of many of the top actors of the English stage influenced their styles as well. During his tenure as manager of Drury Lane, Garrick also sought to reform audience behaviour. While this led to some discontent among the theatre-going public, many of his reforms eventually did take hold. Garrick also sought reform in production matters, bringing an overarching consistency to productions that included set design, costumes and even special effects.

A 2007 Gala Concert from Berlin with Berliner Philharmoniker Orchestra, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. - Alexander Borodin - Polovtsian Dances, from the Opera "Prince Igor". Symphony No. 2 in B-Minor. - Modest Mussorgsky - Introduction to the Opera "Khovantchina", Pictures at an Exhibition, orchestration by Maurice Ravel. - Dmitri Shostakovich - Dance from "The Golden Age" Ballet Suite, Op.22

Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), WWV 86B, is the second of the four music dramas that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, (English: The Ring of the Nibelung). It was performed, as a single opera, at the National Theatre Munich on 26 June 1870, and received its first performance as part of the Ring cycle at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 14 August 1876. Die Walküre's best-known excerpt is the "Ride of the Valkyries". Die Walküre Synopsis: https://www.opera-arias.com/wagner/die-walk%C3%BCre/synopsis/ Act I - The interior of Hunding's dwelling Act II - A wild rocky pass Prior history: During the lengthy time that has passed since the gods entered Valhalla at the end of Das Rheingold, Fafner has used the Tarnhelm to assume the form of a dragon, and guards the gold and the ring in the depths of the forest. Wotan has visited Erda seeking wisdom, and by her has fathered a daughter, Brünnhilde; he has fathered eight other daughters, possibly also by Erda. These, with Brünnhilde, are the Valkyries, whose task is to recover heroes fallen in battle and bring them to Valhalla, where they will protect the fortress from Alberich's assault should the dwarf recover the ring. Wotan has also wandered the earth, and with a woman of the Völsung race has fathered the twins Siegmund and Sieglinde, who have grown up separately and unaware of each other. From the Völsungs Wotan hopes for a hero who, unencumbered by the gods' treaties, will obtain the ring from Fafner. Cast & Characters: Siegmund - Gary Lakes Sieglinde - Jessye Norman Wotan - James Morris Brünnhilde - Hildegard Behrens Hunding - Kurt Moll Fricka - Christa Ludwig Gerhilde - Pyramid Sellers Ortlinde - Martha Thigpen Waltraute - Joyce Castle Schwertleite - Sondra Kelly Helmwige - Katarina Ikonomu Siegrune - Diane Kesling Grimgerde - Wendy Hillhouse Rossweisse - Jacalyn Bower Act III: https://rumble.com/v4b01lr-richard-wagners-der-ring-des-nibelungen-die-walkre-act-iii-met-1990.html

Composer: Richard Wagner (1813-1883). Conductor: James Levine Stage Production: Otto Schenk Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus. Audio: German (English subtitles hardcoded) Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) is a cycle of four epic operas (or "dramas" to use the composer's preferred term) by the German composer Richard Wagner (1813-83). The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied. The four dramas, which the composer described as a trilogy with a Vorabend ("preliminary evening"), are often referred to as the Ring Cycle, Wagner's Ring, or simply the Ring. Wagner wrote the libretto and music over the course of about twenty-six years, from 1848 to 1874. The four operas that constitute the Ring cycle are, in sequence: 1. Das Rheingold 2. Die Walküre https://rumble.com/v4avrsx-richard-wagners-der-ring-des-nibelungen-die-walkre-act-i-ii-met-1990.html 3. Siegfried https://rumble.com/v4beex3-richard-wagners-der-ring-des-nibelungen-siegfried-act-i-met-1990.html 4. Götterdammerung Das Rheingold ('The Rhine Gold') is the first of the four operas that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen ('The Ring of the Nibelung'). It was originally written as an introduction to the tripartite Ring, but the cycle is now generally regarded as consisting of four individual operas. Das Rheingold Synopsis: https://www.opera-arias.com/wagner/das-rheingold/synopsis/ ONE AND ONLY ACT: Place of Action Scene 1: At the bottom of the Rhine Scene 2: An open space on the mountain tops Scene 3: Nibelheim, the home of the dwarfs, deep under the earth Scene 4: The same as Scene 2, except that all is hidden by mist Cast & Crew: Wotan - James Morris Donner - Alan Held Froh Mark - Baker Loge - Siegfried Jerusalem Alberich - Ekkehard Wlaschiha Mime Heinz - Zednik Fasolt - Jan-Hendrik Rootering Fafner - Matti Salminen Fricka - Christa Ludwig Freia - MariAnne Häggander Erda - Birgitta Svendén Woglinde - Kaaren Erickson Wellgunde - Diane Kesling Flosshilde - Meredith Parsons Filmed March/April, 1990 Set and Projection Designer: Günther Schneider-Siemssen Costume Designer: Rolf Langenfass Lighting Designer: Gil Wechsler Video director: Brian Large

Composer: Giaochino Rossini Librettist: Giovanni Gherardini Premiere: 31 May 1817, La Scala, Milan Language: Italian Subtitles: English Synopsis: https://www.opera-arias.com/rossini/la-gazza-ladra/synopsis/ Opera semiseria in two acts Chorus of the Cologne Opera Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne Conductor Bruno Bartoletti Live recording from the Cologne Opera 1987 Cast & Characters; Fabrizio - Carlos Feller Lucia - Nucci Condo Giannetto - David Kuebler Ninetta - Ileana Cotrubas Fernando - Brent Ellis Il Podesta' - Alberto Rinaldi Pippo - Elena Zilio Isacco - Erlingur Vigfusson Antonio - Eberhard Katz La gazza ladra (The Thieving Magpie) is a melodramma or opera semiseria in two acts by Gioachino Rossini, with a libretto by Giovanni Gherardini based on La pie voleuse by Théodore Baudouin d'Aubigny and Louis-Charles Caigniez. The Thieving Magpie is best known for the overture, which is musically notable for its use of snare drums. This memorable section in Rossini's overture evokes the image of the opera's main subject: a devilishly clever, thieving magpie. Rossini wrote quickly, and La gazza ladra was no exception. A 19th-century biography quotes him as saying that the conductor of the premiere performance locked him in a room at the top of La Scala the day before the premiere with orders to complete the opera's still unfinished overture. He was under the guard of four stagehands whose job it was to toss each completed page out the window to the copyist below. An animated short film called La gazza ladra was made in 1964 by Giulio Gianini and Emanuele Luzzati using the overture as the soundtrack, with motion synchronized to the music. It was constructed by moving cutouts from frame to frame to illustrate a story of a thieving magpie, centered on the magpie, unlike in the opera. In 1965 the film was nominated for an Academy Award and won the first Grand Prix of the Melbourne International Film Festival. Stanley Kubrick used the overture for the early scenes of his movie A Clockwork Orange. The music gives the viewer a voyeuristic insight into the exhilaration that the sociopathic narrator Alex obtains from a typical night out with his friends performing acts of violence and mayhem while mindless of the horrific consequences for his victims.

Episode 8: The Palazzo della Pilotta is a vaste complex of edifices located between Piazzale della Pace and the Lungoparma in the historical centre of Parma, region of Emilia Romagna, Italy. Its name derives from the game of pelota played at one time by Spanish soldiers stationed in Parma. La Pilotta, an imposing palace symbol of the Farnese ducal power, historical and civil center of the city of Parma, is today a unique monumental complex. Originally conceived as a container for the services of the Farnesian court capable of integrating the system of ducal residences, the construction of the monumental Palazzo della Pilotta probably began around 1583, during the last years of the duchy of Ottavio Farnese (1547-1586) based on a project of Francesco Paciotto from Urbino. The long corridors were arranged orthogonally to delimit a real "citadel", connected with the destroyed Ducal Palace and with that of the Garden, located on the other bank of the Parma Torrent. Its system of internal courtyards and the rustic brick wall were intended to contain warehouses, stables, barracks, as well as a grandiose armory room later transformed into a court theatre. The complex derives its name from the noble game of "pelota" which was played in its courtyards on special occasions of representation. Already home to a selected ducal picture gallery and a book collection in the Farnesian era, the Pilotta, during the duchy of Don Filippo di Borbone (1748-1765), hosted the Academy of Fine Arts with its artistic collection, from which it would then have originates the National Gallery, the Palatine Library, the Archaeological Museum and the Bodonian Museum. The existing complex includes three courts: the Cortile di San Pietro Martire (now best known as Cortile della Pilotta), Cortile del Guazzatoio (originally della pelota) and the Cortile della Racchetta. The Pilotta was to house a large hall, later turned into the Teatro Farnese, the stables and the grooms' residences, the Academy Hall and other rooms. After the end of the Farnese family rule of Parma, much of the movable assets of the palace were removed by then Duke Charles I, later King of Spain, and taken to Naples in the 1730s. The Biblioteca Palatina was established here by 1769. Elizabeth Farnese, Queen of Spain, was born here in 1692. By 2015, the building spaces had been taken up by a number of cultural institutions and museums, including in addition to the library: - National Archaeological Museum - Liceo artistico statale Paolo Toschi (an art school named after Paolo Toschi) - Museo Bodoniano (a museum dedicated to Giambattista Bodoni) - Teatro Farnese - Galleria Nazionale di Parma

Episode 5: The Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica or National Gallery of Ancient Art is an art museum in Rome, Italy. It is the principal national collection of older paintings in Rome – mostly from before 1800; it does not hold any antiquities. It has two sites: the Palazzo Barberini and the Palazzo Corsini. The Palazzo Barberini was designed for Pope Urban VIII, a member of the Barberini family, by the sixteenth-century architect Carlo Maderno on the old location of Villa Sforza. Its central salon ceiling was decorated by Pietro da Cortona with the visual panegyric of the Allegory of Divine Providence and Barberini Power. The Palazzo Corsini, formerly known as Palazzo Riario, is a fifteenth-century palace, rebuilt in the eighteenth century by the architect Ferdinando Fuga for Cardinal Neri Maria Corsini. The National Galleries of Ancient Art are a museum and two galleries: Palazzo Barberini and the Corsini Gallery which preserve over 5000 works of art including paintings, sculptures, sketches, decorative arts from the thirteenth to the eighteenth century. The heritage of the National Galleries was formed in 1883 with the donation to the State of the Corsini collection, then located in Palazzo Corsini. The collection was soon enriched with works from prestigious Roman collections, so much so that in 1949 the Italian State purchased Palazzo Barberini to open the new headquarters of the National Gallery in 1953. The Corsini Gallery today only displays works from the Corsini collection and constitutes the only eighteenth-century collection remaining in Rome in its original context: the palace purchased by the family in 1736, under the pontificate of Clement XII Corsini. The building, famous for having hosted Queen Christina of Sweden in the seventeenth century, was transformed into a real palace by the architect Ferdinando Fuga. The recent layout of the museum has relocated the paintings exactly as they had been arranged by Cardinal Neri Maria Corsini, the first and main creator of the collection, on the basis of the 1771 inventory of the rooms. By visiting the Gallery it is therefore possible to enter the apartments of an eighteenth-century cardinal, including the famous Alcove of Christina of Sweden, and admire masterpieces such as Caravaggio's Saint John the Baptist, Salvator Rosa's Prometheus, Rubens' Saint Sebastian or the mysterious Throne Corsini. ​ The gallery's collection includes works by Bernini, lla galleria comprende lavori di Bernini, Caravaggio, van Dyck, Holbein, Beato Angelico, Lippi, Lotto, Preti, Poussin, El Greco, Raffaello, Tiepolo, Tintoretto, Rubens, Murillo, Ribera e Tiziano.

Episode 6: The Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria is housed in the Palazzo dei Priori, Perugia, in central Italy. Located on the upper floors of the Palazzo dei Priori, the exhibition spaces occupy two floors and the collection comprises the greatest representation of the Umbrian School of painting, ranging from the 13th to the 19th century, strongest in the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries. The collection is presented in 40 exhibition rooms in the Palazzo. The collection's origins lie in the foundation of the Perugian Accademia del Disegno in the mid-16th century. The Academy was originally based in the Convento degli Olivetani at Montemorcino, where it began to assemble a collection of paintings and drawings. The town became part of the French department of Trasimène in 1798 and its religious houses were suppressed. This suppression was repeated by the united Kingdom of Italy from the 1860s onwards - both suppressions shifted a large number of paintings and artworks from church to state ownership. In 1863, the civic paintings collection was formally named after Pietro Vannucci, but the problem of establishing an appropriate site to house the collection was not solved until 1878, when it moved into the third floor of the Palazzo dei Priori in the town centre. With the addition of acquisitions, donations and bequests, the pinacoteca became the Regia Galleria Vannucci in 1918, under the patronage of the king. The name was later changed to Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria. Over the years the entire complex of Palazzo dei Priori has been repeatedly affected by renovations and functional adaptation. The museum path, inaugurated in its current form in 2006, occupies an area of 4000 square meters on two floors. Chronologically ordered, the permanent collection has Renaissance and Medieval paintings and sculptures from Italian artists such as Arnolfo di Cambio, Nicola Pisano, Giovanni Pisano, Duccio, Gentile da Fabriano, Fra Angelico, Benozzo Gozzoli, Giovanni Boccati and Piero della Francesca. The particular attention of the collection is given to the Umbrian masters; Benedetto Bonfigli, Bartolomeo Caporali, Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, Perugino, Pintoricchio and their students and followers.

Episode 7: Galleria Borghese is an art gallery in Rome, Italy, housed in the former Villa Borghese Pinciana. At the outset, the gallery building was integrated with its gardens, but nowadays the Villa Borghese gardens are considered a separate tourist attraction. The Galleria Borghese houses a substantial part of the Borghese Collection of paintings, sculpture and antiquities, begun by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the nephew of Pope Paul V (reign 1605–1621). The building was constructed by the architect Flaminio Ponzio, developing sketches by Scipione Borghese himself, who used it as a villa suburbana, a country villa at the edge of Rome. Scipione Borghese was an early patron of Bernini and an avid collector of works by Caravaggio, who is well represented in the collection by his Boy with a Basket of Fruit, St Jerome Writing, Sick Bacchus and others. Additional paintings of note include Titian's Sacred and Profane Love, Raphael's Entombment of Christ and works by Peter Paul Rubens and Federico Barocci. In 1808, Prince Camillo Borghese, Napoleon's brother-in-law, was forced to sell the Borghese Roman sculptures and antiquities to the Emperor. The result is that the Borghese Gladiator, renowned since the 1620s as the most admired single sculpture in Villa Borghese, must now be appreciated in the Musée du Louvre. The "Borghese Hermaphroditus" is also now in the Louvre. The Borghese villa was modified and extended down the years, eventually being sold to the Italian government in 1902, along with the entire Borghese estate and surrounding gardens and parkland. Galleria Borghese includes twenty rooms across two floors. The main floor is mostly devoted to classical antiquities of the 1st–3rd centuries AD (including a famous 320–30 AD mosaic of gladiators found on the Borghese estate at Torrenova, on the Via Casilina outside Rome, in 1834), and classical and neo-classical sculpture such as the Venus Victrix. The main floor's main large room, called the Salone, has a large trompe-l'œil ceiling fresco in the first room by the Sicilian artist Mariano Rossi makes such good use of foreshortening that it appears almost three-dimensional. The fresco depicts Marcus Furius Camillus relieving the siege of the Capitoline Hill by the Gauls. The grotteschi decorations were painted by Pietro Rotari, and the animal decorations by Venceslaus Peter Boemo. The first room off the Salone, is the Camera di Cerere, with marble vase depicting Oedipus and the Sphinx. The second room has a ceiling frescoed by Francesco Caccianiga with the Fall of Phaeton. The third room houses Bernini's Apollo and Daphne. Many of the sculptures are displayed in the spaces for which they were intended, including many works by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, which comprise a significant percentage of his output of secular sculpture, starting with early works such as the Goat Amalthea with Infant Jupiter and Faun (1615) and Aeneas, Anchises & Ascanius (1618–19) to his dynamic Rape of Proserpine (1621–22), Apollo and Daphne (1622–25) and David (1623) which are considered seminal works of baroque sculpture. Also in Villa Borghese gardens or nearby are the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, which specialises in 19th- and 20th-century Italian art, and Museo Nazionale Etrusco, a collection of pre-Roman objects, mostly Etruscan, excavated around Rome.

Episode 4: The Bargello, also known as the Palazzo del Bargello or Palazzo del Popolo ("Palace of the People"), is a former barracks and prison in Florence, Italy. Since 1865, it has housed the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, a national art museum. Construction began in 1255. The palace was built to house first the Capitano del Popolo and later, in 1261, the 'podestà', the highest magistrate of the Florence City Council. This Palazzo del Podestà, as it was originally called, is the oldest public building in Florence. This austere crenellated building served as model for the construction of the Palazzo Vecchio. In 1574, the Medici dispensed with the function of the Podestà and housed the bargello, the police chief of Florence, in this building, hence its name. It was employed as a prison; executions took place in the Bargello's yard until they were abolished by Grand Duke Peter Leopold in 1786, but it remained the headquarters of the Florentine police until 1859. When Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor Peter Leopold was exiled, the makeshift Governor of Tuscany decided that the Bargello should no longer be a jail, and it then became a national museum. The original two-story structure was built alongside the Volognana Tower in 1256. The third storey, which can be identified by the smaller blocks used to construct it, was added after the fire of 1323. The building is designed around an open courtyard with an external staircase leading to the second floor. An open well is found in the centre of the courtyard. The Bargello opened as a national museum (Museo Nazionale del Bargello) in 1865, displaying the largest Italian collection of Gothic and Renaissance sculptures (14–17th century). The museum houses masterpieces by Michelangelo, such as his Bacchus, Pitti Tondo (or Madonna and Child), Brutus and David-Apollo. Its collection includes Donatello's David, Amore-Attis and St. George Tabernacle, Vincenzo Gemito's Pescatore ("fisherboy"), Jacopo Sansovino's Bacchus, Giambologna's Architecture and his Mercury and many works from the Della Robbia family. Benvenuto Cellini is represented with his bronze bust of Cosimo I. There are a few works from the Baroque period, notably Gian Lorenzo Bernini's 1636-7 Bust of Costanza Bonarelli. The museum also has a fine collection of ceramics (maiolica), textile, tapestries, ivory, silver, armour and coins. The formerly lost right-hand panel of the Franks Casket is held by the museum. It also features the competing designs for The Sacrifice of Isaac (Sacrificio di Isacco) that were made by Lorenzo Ghiberti and Filippo Brunelleschi to win the contest for the second set of doors of the Florence Baptistery (1401). Honolulu Hale's interior courtyard, staircase, and open ceiling were modeled after the Bargello.

A 2019 production dedicated to the great Italian museums. Audio in Italian with English subtitles. The Italian National Museums contain masterpieces of unparalleled beauty and compose timeless stories and languages. In this episode, Fabrizio Bentivoglio tells us about the Brera art gallery. Episode 1: The Pinacoteca di Brera ("Brera Art Gallery") is the main public gallery for paintings in Milan, Italy. It contains one of the foremost collections of Italian paintings from the 13th to the 20th century, an outgrowth of the cultural program of the Brera Academy, which shares the site in the Palazzo Brera. The Palazzo Brera owes its name to the Germanic braida, indicating a grassy opening in the city structure: compare the Bra of Verona. The convent on the site passed to the Jesuits (1572), then underwent a radical rebuilding by Francesco Maria Richini (1627–28). When the Jesuits were disbanded in 1773, the palazzo remained the seat of the astronomical Observatory and the Braidense National Library founded by the Jesuits. In 1774 the herbarium of the new botanical garden was added. The buildings were extended to designs by Giuseppe Piermarini, who was appointed professor in the Academy when it was formally founded in 1776, with Giuseppe Parini as dean. Piermarini taught at the Academy for 20 years, while he was controller of the city's urbanistic projects, like the public gardens (1787–1788) and piazza Fontana (1780–1782). For the better teaching of architecture, sculpture and the other arts, the Academy initiated by Parini was provided with a collection of casts after the Antique, an essential for inculcating a refined Neoclassicism in the students. Under Parini's successors, the abate Carlo Bianconi (1778–1802) and artist Giuseppe Bossi (1802–1807), the Academy acquired the first paintings of its Pinacoteca during the reassignment of works of Italian art that characterized the Napoleonic era. Raphael's Sposalizio (the Marriage of the Virgin) was the key painting of the early collection, and the Academy increased its cultural scope by taking on associates across the First French Empire: David, Pietro Benvenuti, Vincenzo Camuccini, Canova, Thorvaldsen and the archaeologist Ennio Quirino Visconti. The opening of the new "Reale Pinacoteca" was celebrated on 15 August 1809, Napoleon's birthday. The paintings were displayed in three of the four Napoleonic halls with pavilion vaults. Fundamental paintings by Bellini, Mantegna, Carpaccio, Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto had entered the gallery. The Romantic era witnessed the triumph of academic history painting, guided at the Academy by Francesco Hayez, and the introduction of the landscape as an acceptable academic genre, inspired by Williamo's Davias and his more known cousin Giuseppe Bisi, while the Academy moved towards becoming an institution for teaching the history of art. In 1903, the Pinacoteca opened 19 new rooms that allowed the exhibition of over 100 newly acquired works, such as Bramante's frescoes from the Visconti Panigarola house. The Brera Observatory hosted the astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli for four decades, and the Orto Botanico di Brera is a historic botanical garden located behind the Pinacoteca. Episode 2: https://rumble.com/v47uq8q-musei-parco-archeologico-di-ercolano-archeological-site-of-herculaneum-epis.html

Episode 2: The Archeological site of Herculaneum (in Italian: Scavi di Ercolano) is the area south of the town centre of modern Ercolano where the Roman town of Herculaneum has been excavated. Herculaneum was destroyed and buried by lava and mud during the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in AD 79 together with Pompeii, Stabiae and Oplontis. In 1997 the Herculaneum site was listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Although Herculaneum was discovered before Pompeii, the excavation was so difficult that it was repeatedly interrupted in favour of the easier excavation of Pompeii. Herculaneum is smaller and less famous than Pompeii, but better preserved due to the different volcanic materials that covered the town. In Herculaneum there are many wooden remains (doors, furniture, beams) and organic goods (fruit, bread, seeds, rope) that were burnt in Pompeii. Many Herculaneum buildings still retain their upper floors either entirely or in part. The excavated area of Herculaneum consists of only one quarter of the entire ancient town because the rest of the site still lies beneath modern Ercolano. The Basilica Pontificia of Santa Maria a Pugliano, in Piazza Pugliano, is the main church of Ercolano and the oldest in town and the area all around Mt. Vesuvius. The Miglio d’Oro is the leg of Corso Resina ( the old Strada Regia per le Calabrie) in Ercolano from the Archeological Site of Herculaneum leading to Torre del Greco where are lined the largest, the finest and the most sumptuous villas designed by the best architects of that time and built in the 18th century by the noble families of the Kingdom of Naples around the Royal Palace of Portici. The most famous are Villa Campolieto, Villa Favorita and Villa Aprile. All the villas had backside gardens and woods, some of them rivaling with the ones of the Royal Palace. Since the time of Roman Herculaneum, the area has attracted famous artists, poets, writers and philosophers. Episode 3: https://rumble.com/v47uv4r-musei-mann-the-national-archaeological-museum-of-naples-episode-3.html

Episode 3: The National Archaeological Museum of Naples (Italian: Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, abbr. MANN) is an important Italian archaeological museum, particularly for ancient Roman remains. Its collection includes works from Greek, Roman and Renaissance times, and especially Roman artifacts from the nearby Pompeii, Stabiae and Herculaneum sites. From 1816 to 1861, it was known as Real Museo Borbonico ("the Royal Bourbon Museum"). The building was built as a cavalry barracks in 1585. From 1616 to 1777 it was the seat of the University of Naples. During the 19th century, after it became a museum, it suffered many changes to the main structure. The museum hosts extensive collections of Greek and Roman antiquities. Their core is from the Farnese Collection, which includes a collection of engraved gems (including the Farnese Cup, a Ptolemaic bowl made of sardonyx agate and the most famous piece in the "Treasure of the Magnificent", and is founded upon gems collected by Cosimo de' Medici and Lorenzo il Magnifico in the 15th century) and the Farnese Marbles. Among the notable works found in the museum are the Menologium Rusticum and the Herculaneum papyri, carbonized by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, found after 1752 in Villa of the Papyri. The greater part of the museum's classical sculpture collection largely comes from the Farnese Marbles, important since they include Roman copies of classical Greek sculpture, which are in many cases the only surviving indications of what the lost works by ancient Greek sculptors such as Calamis, Kritios and Nesiotes looked like. A major collection of ancient Roman bronzes from the Villa of the Papyri is housed at the museum. These include the Seated Hermes, a sprawling Drunken Satyr, a bust of Thespis, another variously identified as Seneca or Hesiod, and a pair of exceptionally lively runners. The museum's Mosaic Collection includes a number of important mosaics recovered from the ruins of Pompeii and the other Vesuvian cities. This includes the Alexander Mosaic, dating from c. 100 BC, originally from the House of the Faun in Pompeii. It depicts a battle between the armies of Alexander the Great and Darius III of Persia. Another mosaic found is that of the gladiatorial fighter depicted in a mosaic found from the Villa of the Figured Capitals in Pompeii. With 2,500 objects, the museum has one of the largest collection of Egyptian artifacts in Italy, smaller only than those in Turin, Florence and Bologna. It is made up primarily of works from two private collections, assembled by Cardinal Stefano Borgia in the second half of the 18th century, and Picchianti in the first years of the 19th. he collection provides an important record of Egyptian civilization from the Old Kingdom (2700-2200 B.C.) up to the Ptolemaic-Roman era. The Secret Cabinet (Gabinetto Segreto) (Gabbinete) or Secret Room is the name the Bourbon Monarchy gave the private rooms in which they held their fairly extensive collection of erotic or sexual items, mostly deriving from excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Access was limited to only persons of mature age and known morals. The rooms were also called Cabinets of matters reserved or obscene or pornographic. After the revolution of 1848, the government of the monarchy even proposed the destruction of objects, fearful of the implications of their ownership, which would tarnish the monarchy with lasciviousness. The then director of the Royal Bourbon Museum instead had access to the collection terminated, and the entrance door was provided with three different locks, whose keys were held respectively by the Director of the Museum, the Museum Controller, and the Palace Butler. The highlight of the censorship occurred in 1851 when even nude Venus statues were locked up, and the entrance walled up in the hope that the collection would vanish from memory. In September 1860, when the forces of Garibaldi occupied Naples, he ordered that the collection be made available for the general public to view. Since the Royal Butler was no longer available, they broke into the collection. Limiting viewership and censorship have always been part of the history of the collection. Censorship was restored during the era of the Kingdom of Italy, and peaked during the Fascist period, when visitors to the rooms needed the permission of the Minister of National Education in Rome. Censorship persisted in the postwar period up to 1967, abating only after 1971 when the Ministry was given the new rules to regulate requests for visits and access to the section. Completely rebuilt a few years ago with all of the new criteria, the collection was finally opened to the public in April 2000. Visitors under the age of 14 can tour the exhibit only with an adult. Episode 4: https://rumble.com/v47v1co-musei-musei-del-barghello-national-museum-of-barghello-episode-4.html

A 2011 documentary Serge Bromberg and Eric Lange, that chronicles the cinematic journey of the iconic film "A Trip to the Moon" (1902).

A Trip to the Moon (French: Le voyage dans la lune)is a 1902 French science-fiction adventure film directed by Georges Méliès. This is the black & white versions with voice over. Inspired by a wide variety of sources, including Jules Verne's 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon and its 1870 sequel Around the Moon, the film follows a group of astronomers who travel to the Moon in a cannon-propelled capsule, explore the Moon's surface, escape from an underground group of Selenites (lunar inhabitants), and return to Earth with a captive Selenite. Méliès leads an ensemble cast of French theatrical performers as the main character Professor Barbenfouillis, in the overtly theatrical style for which he became famous. A Trip to the Moon was an internationally popular success on its release and was extensively pirated by other studios, especially in the United States. Its unusual length, lavish production values, innovative special effects, and emphasis on storytelling were markedly influential on other filmmakers and ultimately on the development of narrative film as a whole. The film remains Méliès' best known, and the moment in which the capsule lands in the Moon's eye remains one of the most iconic and frequently referenced images in the history of cinema. It is widely regarded as the earliest example of the science fiction film genre and, more generally, as one of the most influential films in cinema history.

A Trip to the Moon (French: Le voyage dans la lune)is a 1902 French science-fiction adventure film directed by Georges Méliès. No hand-colored prints of A Trip to the Moon were known to survive until 1993, when one was given to the Filmoteca de Catalunya by an anonymous donor as part of a collection of two hundred silent films.[94] It is unknown whether this version, a hand-colored print struck from a second-generation negative, was colored by Elisabeth Thuillier's lab, but the perforations used imply that the copy was made before 1906. The flag waved during the launching scene in this copy is colored to resemble the flag of Spain, indicating that the hand-colored copy was made for a Spanish exhibitor. In 1999, Anton Gimenez of the Filmoteca de Catalunya mentioned the existence of this print, which he believed to be in a state of total decomposition, to Serge Bromberg and Eric Lange of the French film company Lobster Films. Bromberg and Lange offered to trade a recently rediscovered film by Segundo de Chomón for the hand-colored print, and Gimenez accepted. Bromberg and Lange consulted various specialist laboratories in an attempt to restore the film, but because the reel of film had apparently decomposed into a rigid mass, none believed restoration to be possible. Consequently, Bromberg and Lange themselves set to work separating the film frames, discovering that only the edges of the film stock had decomposed and congealed together, and thus that many of the frames themselves were still salvageable. Between 2002 and 2005, various digitisation efforts allowed 13,375 fragments of images from the print to be saved. In 2010, a complete restoration of the hand-colored print was launched by Lobster Films, the Groupama Gan Foundation for Cinema, and the Technicolor Foundation for Cinema Heritage. The digitised fragments of the hand-colored print were reassembled and restored, with missing frames recreated with the help of a black-and-white print in the possession of the Méliès family, and time-converted to run at an authentic silent-film speed, 16 frames per second. The restoration was completed in 2011 at Technicolor's laboratories in Los Angeles. Restoration costs were $1 million. The restored version premiered on 11 May 2011, eighteen years after its discovery and 109 years after its original release, at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, with a new soundtrack by the French band Air.

1. The Astronomer's Dream, or the Man in the Moon (French: La Lune à un mètre, literally "The Moon from One Meter Off") is an 1898 French short silent film by Georges Méliès. Based on one of his stage magic acts, and starring Méliès himself, the film presents a varied assortment of images and imaginings dreamed by the astronomer of the title, focusing on themes of astronomy and especially the Moon. In an observatory, an astronomer is studying at his desk. Satan appears, then a caped woman appears and makes him vanish before disappearing herself. The astronomer draws a globe on a blackboard. The globe develops a sun-like head and limbs and starts to move on the blackboard. Objects the astronomer attempts to interact with transform or move away from him. The Moon suddenly appears in the building as a large face, eating the astronomer's telescope. Two small clowns tumble from its mouth, but the upset astronomer throws them back in. As the astronomer attempts to attack the Moon, it instantly moves back to the sky. All objects the astronomer astronomer tries to use to attack the Moon vanish in thin air. Once the astronomer sits back down, the Moon becomes a crescent and the mythological goddess Phoebe (i.e., Selene) appears from it. The astronomer attempts to embrace her, but she flies up to the sky. A woman appears in the crescent of the Moon and reclines into its C shape, but as the astronomer tries to reach her, the Moon appears as a prominent face again and he inadvertently jumps into its mouth. The moon spits out distinct body parts of the astronomer. Satan reappears, but he is sent away by the caped woman again. She quickly puts the astronomer back together, piece by piece. Then, in the observatory, the astronomer wakes up. 2. The Eclipse: Courtship of the Sun and Moon (originally L'éclipse du soleil en pleine lune) is a French silent film made in 1907 by director Georges Méliès. A professor of astronomy gives a lecture instructing on an impending solar eclipse. The class rushes to an observation tower to witness the event, which features an anthropomorphic Sun and Moon coming together. The Moon and the Sun lick their lips in anticipation as the eclipse arrives, culminating in a romantic encounter between the two celestial bodies. Various heavenly bodies, including planets and moons, hang in the night sky; a meteor shower is depicted using the ghostly figures of girls. The professor of astronomy, shocked by all he has witnessed, topples from the observation tower. Fortunately, he lands in a rain barrel, and is revived by his students. Cast & Characters: Mlle. Bodson as Comet Manuel as The Class Supervisor Georges Méliès as Professor of Astronomy

A 2008 Art documentary written, directed and hosted by Peter Greenaway. An 'essayistic' documentary in which Greenaway's fierce criticism of today's visual illiteracy is argued by means of a forensic search of Rembrandt's Nightwatch. Greenaway explains the background, the context, the conspiracy, the murder and the motives of all its thirty-four painted characters who have conspired to kill for their combined self-advantage. Greenaway leads us through Rembrandt's paintings into seventeenth-century Amsterdam. He paints a world that is democratic in principle, but is almost entirely ruled by twelve families. The notion exists of these regents as charitable and compassionate entities. However, reality was different.

The Golden Age of Spanish painting began in the late sixteenth century and flourished throughout the seventeenth century, coinciding with the Dutch Golden Age. While the Netherlands was revolting against Spanish rule, Spain was developing its own artistic signature. Philip II, an absolute monarch in a society dominated by the Catholic Church, commissioned the construction of El Escorial in 1563. The enormous palace and monastery complex near Madrid was decorated by great Spanish and Italian masters. Spain’s unimaginable wealth, amassed largely during the country’s period of colonial gold fever – Spain called itself ‘the Empire on which the sun never sets’ – brought painters abundant commissions for the king, churches and private collectors. Spanish art flourished. The Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, has the largest and most diverse collection of Spanish art outside Spain. The Small Skylight Room and the adjoining Spanish Room in the New Hermitage house the collection's most valuable Spanish paintings. They include works by El Greco, Jose Ribera, Francisco de Zurbaran, Diego Velazquez, Bartolome Murillo and Francisco de Goya. Among these masterpices are: The Apostles Peter and Paul (late 1580s) by El Greco; Nailing Christ to the Cross (1582), by F. Ribalta, the founder of the Spanish school of Dramatic Realism; Saints Sebastian and Irene (1682) by Jose Ribera; St Lawrence (1636), King St Fernando III (1630s) and The Childhood of the Virgin (late 1650s-1660s) by Francisco de Zurbaran; Luncheon (1630s) and Portrait of Count Olivares (c.1640) by Diego Velazquez. In addition, the Hermitage's Spanish collection includes 13 works by Bartolome Esteban Murillo including two Biblical epics - Isaac Blessing Jacob and Jacob's Ladder (1665-1670), The Rest on the Flight into Egypt (1665-1670) - and the genre painting Boy with a Dog (1650). The late-18th, early 19th century Spanish school is represented by Goya's Portrait of Antonia Zarate (1811).