The Coolidge Corner Theatre

Regular Price

"Mistakes? We don't make mistakes."

Ducts, ducts, miles of ducts. Aqueducts, flexi-ducts, viaducts and plenty of quacks. When Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) is tasked with attempting to rectify a paperwork error that ended up in the wrongful death of Archibald Buttle instead of suspected terrorist Archibald Tuttle (Robert De Niro), he enters a government world where bureaucratic red-tape is eaten for breakfast and a straight answer could get you killed.

Terry Gilliam's dystopian retro-noir tale is all too familiar as we depend more and more on technology to make decisions for us. With hints of Orwell, Huxley and Philip K. Dick, BRAZIL ranks high in the pantheon of great speculative fiction - especially this extended director's cut.

dir. Terry Gilliam, w/ Jonathan Pryce, Robert De Niro, 2h12m, 35mm

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As the curtain rises, and Mozart’s magnificent Don Giovanni begins, we see Leporello await his unscrupulous master Don Giovanni outside the palace of Donna Anna. He paces back and forth, complaining of being mistreated, underpaid and underfed until Don Giovanni bursts out of the castle pursued by a rageful Donna Anna who calls furiously after her masked assailant. Don Giovanni struggles to control her until the Commendatore - Anna's father - emerges from the house, brandishing his sword. Don Giovanni warns the older man that this duel will end his life. They fight and the Commendatore is overcome. Don Giovanni exits with Leporello as Donna Anna returns with her fiancé Don Ottavio to discover the slain Commendatore. Though Ottavio offers Anna comfort, she can only be satisfied with a vow of vengeance. They set out to plot the demise of the doomed villain.

MUSIC BY Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

KEY CAST

Christopher Maltman (Don Giovanni)

Anatoly Kocherga (Il commandatore)

Annette Dasch (Donna Anna)

CONDUCTOR Bertrand de Billy

2h56m with one intermission, in Italian with English subtitles

James Cameron has always wanted to make everything bigger, badder and wiht more firepower. Twenty-three years before he revolutionized 3-D technology, he ignited the screen with a new take on the ALIEN saga.

Fifty-seven years after Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) first encountered the egg-hatching creatures as a Warrant Officer and only surviving crew member of the Nostromo, she is sent back to planet LV-426 with a marine guard in to to try and figure out what happened to a terraforming colony that had taken up residence on the doomed planet.

Tech-savvy Cameron gives the crew fancy new gadgets to help them navigate their survival, but they are little help against the queen alien and her horde of angry, acid-dripping spawn.

dir. James Cameron, w/ Sigourney Weaver, Paul Reiser, 2h17m, 35mm

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In this love story, courtesan Violetta Valery meets a new admirer, Alfredo Germont, who confesses his love. Trouble brews when Alfredo’s father demands that she renounce his son since the scandal of Alfredo’s affair has threatened his own daughter’s engagement. Violetta resists but eventually agrees, not wanting any harm to come to Alfredo or his family. Despite her undying love, she leaves word to Alfredo that she no longer loves him, in an effort to help him move on. Back in Paris, Alfredo denounces his former love cruelly, and months later, Violetta, deathly ill with tuberculosis, has only days to live. Alfredo and his father become contrite when they learn the truth about Violetta’s selfless love, but it may already be too late to ask her forgiveness.

MUSIC BY: Giuseppe Verdi

KEY CAST

Angela Gheorghiu (Violetta Valery)

Tiziana Tramonti (Flora)

Natascha Petrinsky (Annina)

Ramón Vargas (Alfredo Germont)

CONDUCTOR Lorin Maazel

2h13m with one intermission, in Italian with English subtitles

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Das Rheingold begins Wagner’s four-opera epic, Der Ring, or “The Ring Cycle,” as it commonly called in the United States. The Nibelung dwarf Alberich attempts to woo the lovely Rheinmaidens, but they only mock him. Out of bitterness, he steals their magical Rheingold and forges the Ring out of it. He enlists his brother, Mime, to forge a magical helmet out of the gold as well. Wotan, the king of the Gods, along with Loge, the god of fire, descend upon the underground realm of the Nibelungs and trick the dwarves into capitivity. Wotan ransoms Alberich in exchange for his gold. Wotan uses the gold, including the ring and magic helmet, to pay the ransom on his sister-in-law, Freia, whom the giants Fasolt and Fafner seized as payment upon the completion of Wotan’s new castle in the sky. The angry and humiliated Alberich curses the ring, saying that whoever does not possess will desire it, and whoever possess it will only find unhappiness and death. Soon after, Fafner and Fasolt right over the ring, and Fafner kills his brother in order to keep it—the Ring’s curse has already begun to manifest.

MUSIC BY Richard Wagner

KEY CAST

René Pape (Wotan)

Stephan Rügamer (Loge)

Johannes Martin Kraenzle (Alberich)

Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperracke (Mime)

CONDUCTOR Daniel Barenboim

2h10m with one intermission, in German with English subtitles.

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“Viva la Mamma” (or, “Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali,”) is a mad-cap farce about opera singers behaving badly and stage mothers behaving even worse! Rehearsals are underway for the very serious opera Romolo ed Ersilia, but the unruly performers, and their even more unruly egos, prevent any actual rehearsal from taking place. The prima donna Daria insists that her part is too small—even when Luigia, the seconda donna (the second-most important soprano), the German Tenor and the Musician all insist that the prima donna’s part is far too large. Luigia’s domineering mother Agata (the “mamma” of the title) arrives on the scene, and insists that her daughter’s part be bigger. Soon the Tenor and the Musician fume off, only to be replaced by Agata in the Musician’s role and Daria’s husband as the tenor. The stage manager, impresario and composer are helpless to quell the raging self-absorbed demands of the performers, so the police are called in to stop the chaos. Rehearsals finally begin, but are soon interrupted again by the announcement that the production has been called off. All of the performers sneak out of the theatre, in an effort to avoid having to repay all the money that has already been invested in the production.

MUSIC BY Gaetano Donizetti

KEY CAST

Jessica Pratt (Daria)

Simon Bailey (Procolo)

Christian Senn (Biscroma Strappaviscere)

Vincenzo Taormina (Agata)

Aurora Tirotta (Luigia)

CONDUCTOR Marco Guidarini

2h, with one intermission in Italian with English subtitles