In 19th century France, Jean Valjean, a man imprisoned for stealing bread, must flee a relentless policeman named Javert. The pursuit consumes both men's lives, and soon Valjean finds himself in the midst of the student revolutions in France.
Social & External
The people behind it
Lino Ventura
Jean Valjean / Mr. Madeleine / Champmathieu
Michel Bouquet
Inspector Javert
Jean Carmet
Thénardier, innkeeper of Montfermeil
Évelyne Bouix
Fantine, Cosette's mother
Françoise Seigner
The Thénardier, innkeeper's wife
Christiane Jean
Cosette
Roger Hanin
Innkeeper
Candice Patou
Éponine Thénardier
Corinne Dacla
Azelma Thénardier
Franck Cabot-David
Marius Pontmercy
Set against the conditions leading up to the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, French doctor Alexandre Manette serves an 18-year imprisonment in the Bastille in Paris, followed by his release to live in London with the daughter he has never met.
“In a world that often demands certainty, Dialogues des Carmélites invites us to sit with profound questions that have no easy answers: What makes a life worthy? How can we be truly prepared for our inevitable end? What does security mean when everything familiar is threatened? What sustains us when our institutions crumble? … Rather than imposing answers, the opera creates room for reflection on how faith manifests not as abstract doctrine, but as lived experience under extraordinary pressure.” — Louisa Muller, Director’s Note. Juilliard Opera directed by Louisa Muller. Matthew Aucoin conducts the Juilliard Orchestra. Performed and recorded on April 26, 2025 at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater. Dialogues des Carmélites, an opera by Francis Poulenc. Libretto adapted by the composer.
At the age of 11, Li was plucked from a poor Chinese village by Madame Mao's cultural delegates and taken to Beijing to study ballet. In 1979, during a cultural exchange to Texas, he falls in love with an American woman. Two years later, he managed to defect and went on to perform as a principal dancer for the Houston Ballet and as a principal artist with the Australian Ballet.
Paradise Man searches for meaning in an unknowable universe.
Jeannette Vaubernier, an impulsive shopgirl en route to deliver a hat, dreams of luxury and position as she saunters through the woods, and attracted by a pool of water, she disrobes and plunges in. Cosse de Brissac, a handsome private in the King's Guards, comes to her rescue and they become sweethearts. Meanwhile, Jean Du Barry, a shrewd roué, takes note of her at the millinery shop and tricks her into staying at La Gourda's, where she soon becomes a favorite among the men.
After a one-night fling, Florence Lacaze, a married woman, finds her lover's dead body in a hotel bathroom. Drawn into a hunt by police, Florence is forced to defend herself and uncover the awful truth.
When a confused eyewitness identifies New York City cabbie Brick Tennant as a killer, he is sentenced to death for a murder that he wasn't involved in. Though no one is willing to listen to the innocent prisoner's pleas for freedom, Brick's faithful fiancée, Mary, knows that her lover is innocent because she was with him when the crime was committed. As the scheduled execution draws ever nearer, Mary begins to investigate the murder herself.
The tragic and controversial story of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in Texas for killing his three children after scientific evidence and expert testimony that bolstered his claims of innocence were suppressed.
After a brutal nighttime attack on a woman alone in her suburban home, police investigators zero in on teenager Eric Sutter. When the victim identifies Sutter as her attacker, the legal system closes in on the boy as friends, neighbors and the media turn against him. Only through the dogged determination of his mother, and her loyal boyfriend does Eric and the victim have a chance for justice to be served.
Wanting a better life for herself and her child, Amani decides to flee Lebanon. Her journey unravels impossible choices and sacrifices only a Mother can make.
Morning Express ace reporter 'Timmy' Blake uses her wiles and charms to get the scoop on rival papers, and keep her editor happy. When the Express gets a tip that a wealthy old man was poisoned and 'Timmy' spots the young widow in a nightclub only a day later, she descends on the town where the death took place to dig out the facts. When her reporting results in the arrest of the young widow, 'Timmy' continues to dig, since she isn't quite convinced that the facts she reported cover all the angles.
After the 1815 Restoration, an aging revolutionary finds himself reluctantly involved in an attempted insurrection in Southern Italy while growing increasingly disillusioned with his cause.
A respectable businessman becomes the prime suspect in the abduction and murder of several young girls. He is hounded by the media and disowned by his friends and neighbours.
A man who was falsly accused for murder escapes the sheriffs and starts a new life in a town at the border of the States to Mexico. But he cannot settle in peace as his chasers are trying to find him.
Roseanne looks forward to her high school graduation and leaving her dysfunctional home life behind -- until a brutal act brings doom to all involved.
Two women retreat to a lake house to get a break from the pressures of the outside world, only to realize how disconnected from each other they have become, allowing their suspicions to bleed into reality.
Two sets of identical twins are accidentally switched at birth. One pair, Phillipe and Pierre DeSisi, are aristocratic and haughty, while the other, Charles and Claude Coupé, are poor and dim-witted. On the eve of the French Revolution, both sets find themselves entangled in palace intrigue.
Joan Alton is a lawyer who goes undercover at a strip club to gather clues that might exonerate her lover who has been accused of murder. While the defendant's secrets unveil, she will stop at nothing to catch the real killer.
A mother who remembers the incident with her child who disappeared because he was kidnapped
Painter Francisco Goya becomes involved with the Spanish Inquisition after his muse, Inés, is arrested by the church for heresy. Her family turns to him, hoping that his connection with fanatical Inquisitor Lorenzo, whom he is painting, can secure her release.
At the tense 1938 Munich Conference, former friends who now work for opposing governments become reluctant spies racing to expose a Nazi secret.
Village of Artigat, southern France, summer 1542, during the reign of Francis I. Martin Guerre and Bertrande de Rols marry. A few years later, accused of having committed a robbery, Martin suddenly disappears. When, almost a decade later, a man arrives in Artigat claiming to be Martin, the Guerre family recognizes him as such; but doubts soon arise about his true identity.
After marrying a successful Parisian writer known commonly as Willy, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette is transplanted from her childhood home in rural France to the intellectual and artistic splendor of Paris. Soon after, Willy convinces Colette to ghostwrite for him. She pens a semi-autobiographical novel about a witty and brazen country girl named Claudine, sparking a bestseller and a cultural sensation. After its success, Colette and Willy become the talk of Paris and their adventures inspire additional Claudine novels.
An inexperienced young actress is invited to play a role in a film based on Dostoyevsky's 'The Possessed'. The film director, a Czech immigrant in Paris, takes over her life, and in a short time she is unable to draw the line between acting and reality. She winds up playing a real-life role posing as the dead wife of another Czech immigrant, who is manipulated by the filmmaker into commiting a political assassination.
In 19th-century France, doctor's wife Emma Bovary seeks to escape her dull provincial life through various extramarital affairs and extravagant spending, leading to tragic consequences.
1759, Mauritius Island, Indian Ocean. The island is controlled by French settlers and the deported slave population live in fear while toiling in the sugar cane plantations. Unlike her disillusioned father Massamba, 16-year-old Mati refuses to keep her head down and accept her fate.
Bill Baker, an American oil-rig roughneck from Oklahoma, travels to Marseille to visit his estranged daughter, Allison, who is in prison for a murder she claims she did not commit. Confronted with language barriers, cultural differences, and a complicated legal system, Bill builds a new life for himself in France as he makes it his personal mission to exonerate his daughter.
Raf and Julie, a couple on the verge of breaking up, find themselves in an emergency ward bordering on collapse on the evening of a Parisian Yellow Vest protest. Their encounter with Yann, an angry and injured demonstrator, will shatter each person's certainties and prejudices. Outside, the tension escalates.
Edmond Dantès becomes the target of a sinister plot and is arrested on his wedding day for a crime he did not commit. After 14 years in the island prison of Château d’If, he manages a daring escape. Now rich beyond his dreams, he assumes the identity of the Count of Monte-Cristo and exacts his revenge on the three men who betrayed him.
Maria Callas, the world's greatest opera singer, lives the last days of her life in 1970s Paris, as she confronts her identity and life.
Stéphanie, a police officer working for Internal Affairs, is assigned to a case involving a young man severely wounded during a tense and chaotic demonstration in Paris. While she finds no evidence of illegitimate police violence, the case takes a personal turn when she discovers the victim is from her hometown.
A novelist attends the trial of a woman accused of killing her 15-month-old daughter by abandoning her to the rising tide on a beach in northern France. But as the trial continues, her own family history, doubts, and fears about motherhood are steadily dislodged as the life story of the accused is gradually revealed.
On election night in 1981, celebrations spill out onto the street and there is an air of hope and change throughout Paris. But for Elisabeth, her marriage is coming to an end and she will now have to support herself and her two teenage children. She finds work at a late-night radio show and encounters a troubled teenager named Talulah whom she invites into her home.
Richard Jewell thinks quick, works fast, and saves hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives after a domestic terrorist plants several pipe bombs and they explode during a concert, only to be falsely suspected of the crime by sloppy FBI work and sensational media coverage.
Young Violetta and her mother Hannah are a peculiar couple. Ten-year-old Violetta lives a quiet life with her grandmother, while her mother Hannah is an unpredictable photographer who lives off of the generosity of others. When Hannah forces her daughter to pose as a model, Violetta finds her life with her loving grandmother turned upside down.The resulting pictures quickly become a sensation for the trendy 70's Paris art scene, and Violetta finds herself caught in between her new stature as an art muse and her dull childhood.
Daniel lives with his grandmother and, after a year of high school, goes to live with his mother in the south of France; a harsher environment which rapidly changes his perception of friends, work, and women.
Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself emperor and fights the English, Austrians and Russians in 1802.
In WWII France, poor and illiterate Henri Fortin is introduced to Victor Hugo's classic novel Les Misérables and begins to see parallels between the book and his own life.
France, 1983. The biggest architectural competition in history is launched by the new socialist president, François Mitterrand. Coveted by all the biggest international architectural firms, the open-call competition is surprisingly won by an unknown: Johan Otto von Spreckelsen, an architecture teacher from Copenhagen. Until then, the fifty-year-old Dane had built only four buildings: his home, and three small chapels.