Operas / Ballets at Camera 3 Entertainment

Extended! European Opera and Ballet in HD
New Location! New Pricing!

There are many reasons to take advantage of our extended Opera and Ballet in HD series.

We've moved this popular program from Camera 7 Pruneyard to Camera 3 Entertainment, at the corner of Second and San Carlos Streets in downtown San Jose -- Silicon Valley's center of arts and culture. Beginning August 28th through January 10, 2012, see popular titles including Aida, Tosca, Cosi fan tutte and The Nutcracker, Sundays at 12 noon with encore screenings the following Tuesday at 7:30pm.

Enjoy new, lower pricing! Single tickets are now just $17, with a $15 per ticket subscription price when three or more shows are purchased. Partake in specialty coffees or beer and wine in the lobby before and after the show. And of course, we offer 3 hrs 40 min. of FREE validated parking in the attached, covered parking garage. Just present your same day ticket purchase at the box office.

This exclusive series of first class pre-recorded operas and ballets is projected in HD with Dolby Surround Sound. From La Scala in Milan, to the world-famous Salzburg and Glyndebourne Festivals in Austria and England, the Royal Opera House in London, and the Kirov and Bolshoi in Russia, Camera Cinemas brings to you a virtual front row seat to the world's finest opera and ballet. Bravo!

We reserve the right to exercise special pricing options for unique in-theatre experiences. These are special engagements. Passes, discount cards, group discount tickets, and re-admits will not be accepted.

OPERA and BALLET Schedule (click on film title to purchase tickets now, or purchase at box office)

February 5 (12 noon) & 7 (7:30pm)

Il Trittico (Puccini) -- Royal Opera House, London, England
Genre: OPERA (new production)
Running time: 3 hrs, 45 mins (2 intermissions)
Conductor: Antonio Pappano
Director: Richard Jones
Lighting Design: D. M. Wood, Mimi Jordan Sherin
Costume Design: Nicky Gillibrand
Set Design: Ultz, Miriam Buether and John MacFarlane
Cast: Il Tabarro: Lucio Gallo (Michele), Enrico Fissore (Il Talpa), Eva-Maria Westbroek (Giorgetta), Irina Mishura (La Frugola), Aleksandrs Antonenko (Luigi), Ji Hyun Kim (Ballad Seller), Alan Oke (Il Tinca), Anna Devin and Ji Hyun Kim (Two Lovers). Suor Angelica: Anja Harteros (Suor Angelica), Anna Larsson (La Zia Principessa), Irina Mishura (La Badessa), Anna Devin (Suor Genoveva), Elena Zilio (La Suora Zelatrice). Gianni Schicchi: Lucio Gallo (Gianni Schicchi), Ekaterina Siurina (Lauretta), Francesco Demuro (Rinuccio), Elena Zilio (Zita), Alan Oke (Gherardo), Rebecca Evans (Nella), Jeremy White (Betto di Signa), Gwynne Howell (Simone), Robert Poulton (Marco), Marie McLaughlin (La Ciesca), Henry Waddington (Spinelloccio), Enrico Fissore (Amantio), Daniel Grice (Pinellino), John Molloy (Guccio).
Synopsis: Il trittico ("the triptych"), first unveiled at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, in 1918, represented an operatic departure. Instead of a single evening-length narrative, Puccini offered three contrasting one-act works. The first panel, Il Tabarro (The Cloak), takes us to a barge on the banks of the Seine, where an unusually dark version of the eternal operatic triangle is played out with a gruesome and violent ending. Next comes the pastel-shaded Suor Angelica (Sister Angelica), set in a convent where a woman has been sent to expiate the "sin" of having an illegitimate baby; suddenly a relative arrives to bring her some devastating news. Finally, in the mordant comedy Gianni Schicchi we meet the Florentine relatives of the late Buoso Donati, intent upon altering the will of their deceased family member with the aid of a wily newcomer to the city.

February 19 (12 noon) & 21 (7:30pm)

Faust (Charles-Francois Gounod) -- Royal Opera House, London, England
Genre: OPERA (encore presentation)
Running time: 4 hrs, 15 mins (1 intermission)
Conductor: Evelino Pidò
Original Director: David McVicar
Revival Director: Lee Blakeley
Set Designs: Charles Edwards
Costume Designs: Brigitte Reiffenstuel
Lighting Designs: Paule Constable
Choreography: Michael Keegan-Dolan
Revival Choreography: Daphne Strothmann
Cast: Faust (Vittorio Grigolo), Mephistopheles (Rene Pape), Marguerite (Angela Gheorghiu), Valentin (Dmitri Hvortostovsky), Siebel (Michele Losier), Wegner (Daniel Grice), Martha Schwerlein (Carole Wilson).
Synopsis: Gounod's Faust was the most successful opera of its time, reaching Covent Garden in 1863, four years after its Parisian premiere, and quickly becoming a favorite of Victorian audiences. In 2004 Faust returned to The Royal Opera's repertory with a flourish: David McVicar's brilliantly theatrical production, played out in the Paris of the Second Empire, has given its familiar melodies, grand ensembles and epic central struggle between good and evil a new lease of life. The downfall of Faust, the philosopher tempted by the demon Mephistopheles, and the terrible consequences of his tainted love of the innocent Marguerite and her brother Valentin, are charted with insight and theatrical bravura. With its devilish presentation of the Cabaret L'Enfer, where Gounod's famous Waltz brings the second act to an eye-catching climax, this production reclaims Faust for the 21st century.

March 4 (12 noon) & 6 (7:30pm)

Swan Lake (Tchaikovsky) -- Bolshoi Ballet, Moscow, Russia
Genre: BALLET (new production)
Running time: 3 hours (1 intermission)
Music: Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Libretto: Yuri Grigorovich
Choreography: Yuri Grigorovich after Marius Petipa, Lev Ivanov, Alexander Gorsky
Scenery restoration: Margarita Prokudina
Conductor: Pavel Sorokin (Orchestra of the State Academic Bolshoi Theatre of Russia)
Set design: Simon Virsaladze
Designer for costumes revival: Elena Merkurova
Light Designer: Mikhail Sokolov
Assistant choreographer: Natalia Bessmertnova
Balletmasters: Svetlana Adyrkhaeva, Lyudmila Semenyaka, Marina Kondratieva, Tatiana Krasina, Nikolay Fadeechev, Vasiliy Vorokhobko, Valeriy Lagunov
Cast: Odette: Mariya Aleksandrova (Odette), Ruslan Skvortsov (Prince Siegfried), Nikolay Tsiskaridze (Rothbart), Olga Suvorova (the Prince's Mother), Ilya Vorontsov (the Tutor), Vyacheslav Lopatin (Jester), Anna Tikhomirova/Nastasiya Yatsenko (Prince's friends), Alexander Fadeechev (Master of Ceremony), Juliya Grebenshchikova (Hungarian Bride), Viktoriya Osipova (Russian Bride), Anna Tikhomirova (Spanish Bride), Dariya Khokhlova (Neopolitan Bride), Angelina Vlashinets (Polish Bride)
Synopsis: The battle between white and black swan unfolds with savage grace in Swan Lake. Tchaikovsky’s haunting music traces the steps of prima ballerina Mariya Aleksandrova as she dances both Odette and Odile in this definitive production from the Bolshoi Ballet.

March 25 (12 noon) & 27 (7:30pm)

La Boheme (Puccini) -- Gran Teatro del Liceu, Barcelona, Spain
Genre: OPERA (new production)
Running time: 2 hrs, 50 mins (1 intermission)
Conductor: Victor Pablo Perez
Stage Direction: Giancarlo Del Monaco
Lighting Design: Ulrich Niepel
Costume Design: Michael Scott
Set Design: Michael Scott
Production: Teatro Real
Libretto: Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica, based on Scenes de la vie de boheme by Henry Murger (1845-1848)
Cast: Fiorenza Cedolins (Mimi), Ramon Vargas (Rodolfo), Christopher Maltman (Marcello), Gabriel Bermudez (Schaunard), Ainhoa Arteta (Musetta), Carlo Colombara (Colline), Valeriano Lanchas (Benoit/Alcindoro)
Synopsis: La Boheme, which talks of the fragile nature of happiness in a world of poverty, cold and disease, is an example of the 19th century trend toward social realism in art. In Puccini's signature opera, however, the aesthetic of Verism — the Italian equivalent of the French Naturalism of Emile Zola — becomes more sentimental, and the brutality of social reality is depicted less crudely than elsewhere. Four young artists live out their everyday lives amid dreams and disappointments, waiting for the event that is to win them renown, but poverty and misfortune deprive the leading characters —- Mimì and Rodolfo -— of the joy of mutual love.

April 8 (12 noon) & 10 (7:30pm)

Romeo and Juliet (Prokofiev) -- Royal Ballet, London, England
Genre: BALLET (new production)
Running time: 3 hours (1 intermission)
Music: Sergey Prokofiev
Choreography: Kenneth MacMillan
Designer: Nicholas Georgiadis
Lighting: John B. Read
Staging: Monica Mason
Conductor: Pavel Sorokin, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Cast: Juliet (Lauren Cuthbertson), Romeo (Sergei Polunin)
Synopsis: Romeo and Juliet was Kenneth MacMillan’s first full-evening ballet, and, from its premiere in 1965, has been one of The Royal Ballet’s signature works, popular all over the world. The Royal Ballet has performed Romeo and Juliet well over 400 times, yet each performance is subtly different. Every pairing in the title roles brings fresh nuances to the young lovers’ characters, while the wealth of supporting roles, from the exuberant trio of harlots in the town square to the murderous rage of Tybalt, offers scope for dancers throughout the Company. Nicholas Georgiadis’s earthy Renaissance designs, with some of the original details recently restored, are the perfect backdrop.

April 29 (12 noon) & May 1 (7:30pm)

Rigoletto (Verdi) -- Royal Opera House, London, England
Genre: OPERA (new production)
Running time: 2 hrs, 9 mins (1 intermission)
Conductor: John Elliot Gardiner
Stage Direction: David McVicar
Costume Design: Tanya McCallin
Set Design: Michael Vale
Production: Teatro Real
Cast: Il Tabarro: Dimitri Plantanias (Rigoletto), Zhengzhong Zhou (Marullo), Ekaterina Siurina (Gilda), Gianfranco Montresor (Count Monterone), Vittorio Grigolo (Duke of Mantua), Pablo Bemsch (Matteo Borsa), Andrea Hazell (Page), Jihoon Kim (Count Ceprano), Nigel Cliffe (Court Usher), Louise Armit (Countess Ceprano), Christine Rice (Maddalena)
Synopsis: A classic of opera, Verdi's famous score is loved for its melody and its drama. David McVicar's immensely popular production, in period costume and with music conducted by John Eliot Gardiner, brings the 15th century court of Mantua alive: its womanizing Duke, the court jester Rigoletto bent on revenge, and his daughter Gilda, who the Duke loves but still destroys. Based on Le Roi s'amuse, Victor Hugo's controversial play, Verdi's sexually charged 1851 tragedy was undeniably shocking when it first appeared, but has emerged triumphant from transposition to different times and locations.