La Reine de la nuit demande au prince Tamino de retrouver sa fille Pamina, qui a été enlevée par un prêtre nommé Sarastro. Le prince part avec Papageno, un oiseleur. Lorsqu'ils retrouvent la princesse, ils découvrent que la situation n'est pas aussi tranchée que le disait la reine. Sarastro accepte l'union de Tamino et Pamina à condition qu'ils réussissent chacun leur parcours initiatique.
After an unsuccessful attempt to seduce Donna Anna (soprano Edda Moser), Don Giovanni (baritone Ruggero Raimondi) kills her father Il Commendatore (bass John Macurdy). The next morning, Giovanni meets Donna Elvira (soprano Kiri Te Kanawa), a woman he previously seduced and abandoned. Later, Giovanni happens upon the preparations for a peasant wedding and tries to seduce the bride-to-be Zerlina (mezzo-soprano Teresa Berganza), but his ambition is frustrated by Donna Elvira.
The story is set in southern Italy and recounts the tragedy of Canio, the lead clown (or pagliaccio in Italian) in a commedia dell'arte troupe, his wife Nedda, and her lover, Silvio. When Nedda spurns the advances of Tonio, another player in the troupe, he tells Canio about Nedda's betrayal. In a jealous rage Canio murders both Nedda and Silvio. Although Leoncavallo's opera was originally set in the late 1860s, Zeffirelli's production is updated to the period between World War I and World War II.
In the 1700s, a beggar is tossed into London's Newgate jail, along with a pile of papers upon which his unfinished opera is scribbled. The beggar boasts to the other prisoners that his opera, unlike others of the day, is about a real person, the dashing highwayman Captain Macheath, who, dressed in a red coat, holds off the world with a pistol in each hand, seduces women with five notes of a tune, and generally leaps from misfortune. To the beggar's disappointment, the other prisoners point out that his hero Macheath is among them, in irons and behind bars, and Macheath, who is scheduled to be executed the next morning, admits that there is "no arguing with reality." Taking the first page of the opera, Macheath begins singing, and the beggar, encouraged by Macheath's good voice, urges him to continue, until the following story, the beggar's opera, is sung for the prison inmates: While riding to London, feeling merry and free, Macheath robs a carriage, and steals a kiss and a locket from a maiden. Later, in London, Macheath's wife, Polly Peachum, pines for him. Polly's parents, shopkeepers Mr. Peachum and his wife, are scandalized to learn from their employee Filch that Polly has secretly married the highwayman. To make the best of the situation, as they are always eager to make money, they urge her to lure Macheath into a trap and collect the reward for his capture. Meanwhile, outside of town, Macheath encounters a carriage ridden by Newgate's jailor Mr. Lockit, Lockit's daughter Lucy and Mrs. Trapes, whom Lockit is wooing. Lucy, who met Macheath when he was once imprisoned, scolds him for taking her virtue without making good on his promise to wed. When Macheath rides off, Mrs. Trapes suggests that Lucy betray him for the reward and give the money to her father. Later, during a tryst in a hayloft, Polly warns Macheath that her parents are mounting an ambush. Macheath escapes with Polly's help after a swashbuckling fight, then hides in a back room of a tavern, where he is unable to resist socializing with the prostitutes, whom he considers friends. However, prostitute Jenny Diver has been bribed by Peachum and Lockit to betray him, and with the help of her colleagues, Macheath is soon captured. From his jail cell, Macheath urges Lucy to steal the jail keys and set him free, promising to marry her in return, but then Polly shows up and he is forced to introduce the women to each other. During the night, Lucy steals the keys and releases him, but later Polly sneaks back and, finding Macheath gone from the cell, screams in anguish without thinking, thus drawing attention to his escape. Meanwhile, Macheath disguises himself in the stolen cape and gloves of a lord and slips into a gaming house to avoid making good his promise to unite with Lucy. However, the proprietor recognizes the cape and alerts Lockit and Peachum about the impostor wearing it. Back at the jail, Polly is accused of freeing Macheath and is locked in Lucy's room, where Lucy, after losing track of Macheath, attempts to drug her. When they hear the recaptured Macheath being returned to prison, Lucy and Polly proceed to Macheath's cell and demand that he choose between them. He refuses, as he will soon be hanged and sees no reason to disappoint either of them. The next morning, riding atop his coffin as it is carted through the streets to the gallows, Macheath waves farewell to the friendly crowd that has gathered to see him off. At the gallows, after kissing both Lucy and Polly goodbye, Macheath is blindfolded and awaits his fate, and the opera comes to its incomplete end. The real Macheath, who is still in the jail, protests that he should not have to hang twice. After pondering the complaint, the beggar agrees and yells for Macheath's reprieve. The rest of the prisoners join in the chant and mob the turnkey, who comes to investigate the ruckus, allowing Macheath to escape. The highwayman steals a horse from the cart containing his coffin and when safely out of London, sings that his freedom has been returned because of a beggar's opera.
In 1955 Vienna, during its post-war occupation, the black-market dealer Dr. Falke (Anton Walbrook) moves freely through the French, British, American and Russian sectors, dealing in champagne and caviar amongst the highest echelons of the allied powers. After a costume party, French Colonel Gabriel Eisenstein (Michael Redgrave) plays a practical joke on a drunken Falke, depositing him, asleep and dressed as a bat, in the lap of a patriotic Russian statue, to be discovered the following morning by irate Russian soldiers. Falke is nearly arrested until his friend General Orlofsky (Anthony Quayle) of the USSR intervenes. A vengeful Falke plans an elaborate practical joke on his friend, involving Orlofsky, a British major (Dennis Price), Eisenstein's beautiful wife Rosalinda (Ludmilla Tcherina), her maid (Anneliese Rothenberger) and a masked ball where no one is what they seem. Complicating matters is American Captain Alfred Westerman (Mel Ferrer), an old flame of Rosalinda's who is determined to take advantage of her husband's absence.
Un groupe de danseurs de flamenco met en scène une version très hispanisée de l'œuvre de Prosper Mérimée. Durant les préparations et l'exécution de l'œuvre, Antonio, le chorégraphe, tombe amoureux de Carmen qui en est la danseuse principale. L'œuvre dansée et la vie réelle commencent alors à se mêler.
Satan, in the form of Ms. Beelzebub (Rhea Perlman), sends apprentice demon Griffelkin (Friedle) to Earth's surface to steal the soul of a hotshot young hockey player named Dave (Lawrence), who aspires to be the youngest man to ever win the Stanley Cup.
La Reine de la nuit demande au prince Tamino de retrouver sa fille Pamina, qui a été enlevée par un prêtre nommé Sarastro. Le prince part avec Papageno, un oiseleur. Lorsqu'ils retrouvent la princesse, ils découvrent que la situation n'est pas aussi tranchée que le disait la reine. Sarastro accepte l'union de Tamino et Pamina à condition qu'ils réussissent chacun leur parcours initiatique.