Overview: U-CARMEN is a feature film based on Georges Bizet's 19th-century opera that was filmed on location in a modern South African township setting. The energy, compassion, and heat of township life in all its elements create a constantly visually interesting and dynamic background for the unfolding of the story, which owes part of its huge popularity to the thrilling combination of a violent gangster tale with a passionate, almost supernatural love story. As it unfolds, it explores issues of fame and wealth, the position of a strong and independently minded woman in a very masculine society and, perhaps most importantly, the incomprehensible attraction between abuser and victim. Bizet's opera, based on Prosper Merimée's novel, premiered in Paris on March 3, 1875. Set in a poor area of Seville, the story of the magnetic woman who seduces, loves, and ultimately destroys her lover and herself...

Genres: Music Drama Romance

Overview: One man's journey of love, deception and betrayal in contemporary South Africa. Based on the New Testament.

Genres: Drama

Overview: This modern adaptation of a Benjamin Britten one-act opera on the myth of Noah’s flood is sung entirely in Xhosa, with South African opera star Pauline Malefane as Noah, and is a striking metaphor for man’s inhumanity to man. A stunning feat from a troupe whose U-Carmen eKhayelitsha won the Golden Bear at Berlin in 2005.

Genres: No genres available

Overview: The annual New Year’s Eve Concert is one of the highlights in the calendar of every classical music fan in Berlin and beyond. On New Year‘s Eve, the Berliner Philharmoniker invite an exceptional soloist for a festive gala. Together, the musicians bid farewell to the old year and welcome the new. The 2008 concert was conducted by Simon Rattle and featured Pauline Malefane (soprano), Thomas Quasthoff (bass-baritone). On the programme: George Gershwin: Cuban Overture, Samuel Barber: Adagio for Strings, op. 11 , Aaron Copland: Old American Songs, John Adams: Short Ride in a Fast Machine, George Gershwin: Porgy and Bess (Excerpts), George Gershwin: An American in Paris, Jerome Kern: Show Boat (Ol' Man River).

Genres: Music