Franco Zeffirelli is acclaimed for his sets and backdrops of often stunning grandiosity. His spectacular productions are considered timeless and inspire lovers of music and film to this day. Franco Zeffirelli would have been 100 years old in 2023. In his lifetime, he worked with stars including Maria Callas, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. His La Bohème with Mirella Freni, conducted by Herbert von Karajan, made opera history.

This magic moment with music by Giacomo Puccini and artworks by Zeffirelli opens a window into the tender and melancholically intimate story of Mimì in bohemian Paris. The studio-made opera film was the first musical to be directed by Herbert von Karajan and was Franco Zeffirelli’s first opera film production. 

Zeffirelli’s production of La Bohème at La Scala in Milan was such a resounding success that Herbert von Karajan and Zeffirelli were compelled to turn it into an opera film. The soundtrack, featuring the choir and orchestra of the Milan Scala and the renowned ensemble of Mirella Freni, Gianni Raimondi, Rolando Panerai, Ivo Vinco, Gianni Maffeo, Adriana Martino, was recorded first.

The stage was recreated in a film studio and the  production was shot in Technicolor – the best film technology available at the time.  The young Mirella Freni, who sang the role of Mimì for over 50 years, gained fame the world over, not least because of her natural and pure voice.

The screen adaptation of Puccini’s masterpiece of La Bohème was a bold attempt to marry the art of film with the opera stage. Zeffirelli’s staging and the film’s international success have made La Bohème one of the most-performed operas of all time. The original production has been revived again and again and is still performed today.

South African soprano Pretty Yende, who was a student of Mirella Freni and later sang in Franco Zeffirelli’s production of La Bohème, recounts her experiences with her mentor. As a very young tenor, Franco-Italian singer Roberto Alagna sang alongside Mirella Freni in the Zeffirelli production and is grateful to count himself among the great tenors, alongside Pavarotti and Carreras – thanks in large part to this performance of La Bohème.

It took 38 years for Sergiu Celibidache to return to the podium of the Berlin Philharmonic. It went down in music history as the so-called ‘reconciliation concert’. Celibidache made it a condition that he would receive twice as many rehearsals as usual. The program included Anton Bruckner’s 7th Symphony. Before the musicians, Celibidache confessed that the Berlin Philharmonic had played a “determinant role” in his life, and he had the opportunity to make his “first musical and human experiences” there.

In addition to rehearsal and concert excerpts, the film features Celibidache’s son, Serge Ioan Celebidachi, contemporary witnesses from the Berlin Philharmonic, the orchestra’s horn player Sarah Willis, the young French conductor Marie Jacquot, his last conducting student Rémy Ballot, and the Romanian conductor Cristian Măcelaru. They provide insight into Sergiu Celibidache’s personality, working methods, and understanding of music.

International stars from the music scene, including Anne-Sophie Mutter, Daniel Hope and Hilary Hahn as well as major figures from the cinematographic world such as Sunnyi Melles, August Zirner and Bruno Monsaigeon tell of their captivation with this unique recording of the sole collaboration between the two music legends. Together, we experience how their ideals of sound gave rise to timeless beauty and artistry – and how music can still contribute to reconciliation today.

The full concert recording is available online at concert.arte.tv.

The result was indeed a magic moment of music and a landmark in the career of Krystian Zimerman. In this episode, “Leonard Bernstein and Krystian Zimerman Interpret Brahms”, Zimerman gives a rare interview, and for the first time in a TV documentary, speaks in detail about the background to the concert recording and why the collaboration with Leonard Bernstein radically changed the course of his artistic life.

Eminent colleagues including Hélène Grimaud and Igor Levit as well as close confidants of Leonard Bernstein such as the conductor Marin Alsop and his former assistant Charlie Harmon also tell us what makes this concert a great moment for them.

Founded six years earlier by Daniel Barenboim and the late Palestinian scholar Edward Said, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra attracted international attention and became famous almost overnight.

With this performance, the orchestra set a clear signal, not least through the choice of programme. Beethoven’s “Symphony of Destiny” represents a vision of human reconciliation, while Mozart’s “Sinfonia concertante” impressively underscores the possibility of peaceful coexistence through music, with soloists on bassoon, horn, oboe and clarinet originating from Israel and Syria and Egypt.

This great moment in music is reflected not only in the legendary concert recording. Documentary passages about the origins of the orchestra and the closeness and fellowship of the musicians as well as the pictures taken during the spectacular Ramallah trip transform the film into tangible musical history. In newly filmed conversations, Daniel Barenboim, Mariam C. Said and a selection of musicians cast their minds back over their experiences of this momentous evening. Prominent personalities who are friends of the orchestra, including actor Christoph Waltz, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and singer Waltraud Meier, explore the question of what music can achieve in such a context.