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In the closed world of highly rigorous classical pianists, strict and impressive, Lucas Debargue comes as a breath of fresh air.

He only started playing the piano seriously in his twenties, and mainly performs classical pieces, but with a new touch of talent and out of the common techniques.  
 
 

All that is certain about Serge Prokofiev is that he was a musical genius and one of the greatest composers of the 20th Century.

With the discovery of his personal diaries, the mystery that was Prokofiev is about to be revealed.

Prokofiev fled Russia shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution. He spent the next eighteen years trying to build a successful career in North America and Europe. Then, he made a decision which stunned the world: he returned to Russia in 1936, at the height of the Stalinist purges. Now more than fifty years after his death, this documentary reveals the largely untold story about the pivotal eighteen years (1918-1936) outside Russia, the years which sealed his fate. Through the intimate, revealing and often heartbreaking words of Prokofiev's diaries, the film investigates Prokofiev's life and art through his own words and the prism of some of his most extraordinary musical creations.

Discover the final episode of the world-famous series on Paris Opera Ballet students!

BUDDING STARS
Season 1 - 7x26' 
The 300-year old Paris Opera Ballet School is today a mythical place with an international reputation. In September 2011, it was home to 130 pupils, aged from 8 to 18, all driven by the same desire – to dance one day at the Paris Opera.


BUDDING STARS, FIVE YEARS LATER
Saison 2 - 5x26' 
Experience the Paris Ballet School’s young dancers’ extraordinary lives. The youngest are now trying out for the corps de ballet in which only a lucky few have been inducted. But did the rest continue their career? Find out where they are five years later.
 
BUDDING STARS: COMING OF AGE​
Season 3 - 60' 
Today, those students, we followed for 10 years in the series, are now approaching their 25th birthday and will enter the prime of their careers. It's time to discover the ultimate episode, the conclusion to an incredible dance series!
 
It is also the occasion to discover our catalogue presenting our best documentaries on DANCE! 

From well-known works in the classical repertoire,...

this collection sets out to reveal the history of a work, in the context of its composer's life, its musical composition, and the various performances of it.

In southwest France, on the shores of the Atlantic, Biarritz boasts luxurious villas, long beaches, and cliffs sculpted by the waves. In 1921, it was here that Igor Stravinsky found refuge. The Russian composer who revolutionized music with “The Rites of Spring” had fled the Bolshevik revolution of 1917.

 On this unique piece of coastline, where the climate fluctuates between balmy and tempestuous, he wrote the dazzling “Petrushka”, a work brimming with excess and paradox. 

Off the coast of Africa the Canary archipelago is stretching. It was on this Spanish land, lost in the Atlantic Ocean that Camille Saint-Saëns landed in 1888. The 63 years old composer of the Carnival of the Animals was then broken up by mourning and crushed by his celebrity.

 In Las Palmas, the capital, in the arid countryside or the villages, he will reinvent himself and find here a new life for his work.

This film invites us to discover Milhaud's life, so as to understand his work better.

Darius Milhaud was without doubt one of the most fertile composers of the 20th Century, leaving behind an extensive artistic legacy of nearly 450 Opuses that stands out as one of the most original in French music of his time.

Before being recognized and accepted, many of his works caused scandal and gave rise to impassioned controversy due to their non-conformism and their pioneering character. He also came to prominence in the 1920s as the leading light in the "Groupe des Six".

His music, and more particularly his lyric works, express his greatest sources of inspiration:
- his attachment to popular roots, such as those of his native Provence, but also those he adopted in his encounters with other cultures, such as Brazilian folklore or jazz.
- his religious faith, marked by the Jewish tradition of the Comtat Venaissin.
- his humanist convictions, expressed in his choice of texts and historical figures that express a will for the progress and liberty of mankind, such as Christopher Columbus, Maximilien or Simon Bolivar.

Aided by his wife's reminiscences and by the artist's own comments, this film looks at the work and life of Darius Milhaud, a man that stood for universality and for dialogue between cultures.

Taiwan has been a cultural crossroads for centuries, having undergone in turn European and Japanese colonisation, then American influence. The island enjoys a singular and highly intimate love affair with classical music. 

Leading conductors visiting the country, including Sir Simon Rattle, are amazed at the youth and the “hunger” of their audience during their concerts. It is a passion shared by millionaire Shi Wen-long, who was moved to tears as a child by Schumann’s “Dreaming”, which he first heard during a silent movie in the 1930s. In Tainan, in the south of the island, the elderly man has collected some 1,400 violins, comprising the largest collection in the world and including the most precious Stradivarius models. 

Tucked behind the Parisian Grands Boulevards is a place that imbues today’s budding talents with the spirit of the major 19th century composers and writers.

The Opéra comique is a theatre. It is also a genre – a blend of dialogue and song - and a repertoire, but, above all, it is the cradle of a lively performing art. The last resident troupe at the Opéra comique dated back to 1971 until recently, but this year, the institution has gone back to its roots and created an academy with 10 young opera singers, picked for their talent, their diversity and the way they complement each other. The first set of singers is already busy transforming the Opéra comique’s history, repertoire and culture into song.

Created in 1939, the Geneva Competition is one of the oldest and most prestigious international competitions on a par with those of Munich, Brussels and Prague. It showcases two disciplines every year. In 2010, the Japanese pianist Mami Hagiwara won the first prize in the piano category. This year is the turn of the voice.

A historic discipline in Geneva, the voice category has witnessed a large number of major artists, who have marked the post-war artistic scene: from Eva Stalder to José Van Dam, not forgetting Victoria De Los Angeles, Teresa Stich-Randall, Michelle Crider and Annette Dasch, Geneva is one of the most important stages in the singing world.

Everybody knows Handel's Oratorio, now here's a chance to discover William Klein's Messiah.

The oratorio is a veritable institution in the US and is sung by many a choir. Klein's camera seeks them out everywhere, in the most unlikely places - in Times Square, where the New York homosexual and multiracial choir meets, in Sugarland prison in Texas, where the prisoners sing: "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given", or in Las Vegas, lost among the gaming arcades.

In doing so, we revisit the world - our world - at the close of this 20th century. Klein portrays a religion-bound society and explores multiple territories of faith, and its social relationships. It reminds the viewer of André Malraux's prediction that "the 21st century will be spiritual or will not be."

From now on, it will be difficult to listen to the oratorio without seeing the greatness and decadence of our century.

Created in 1939, the Geneva Music Competition is one of the oldest and most prestigious international competitions, on a par with Munich, Brussels and Prague.

It gives pride of place to two disciplines per year - piano, singing and composition over alternating years, as well as one other disciple, chosen for each edition from a dozen classical instruments, which in 2010 was the oboe.

Watch the 2010 piano final:
Maria Masycheva plays Serge Prokofiev's Concerto n°3 in C Op. 26 2
Mami Hagiwara plays Maurice Ravel's Concerto in G Major
And Hyo Joo Lee plays Serge Rachmaninoff's Concerto n° 2, op.18 in C Minor.