Doris Dörrie

A revolutionary treatment of one of the "sacred cows" of the opera repertoire. Daniel Barenboim, who here conducts, invited Munich film director Doris Dorrie to produce Cosi fan tutte for the Staatsoper Berlin in 2002, and the resulting project drew plaudits from die-hard Mozart fans as well as introducing a whole new generation to the opera genre.

A revolutionary treatment of one of the "sacred cows" of the opera repertoire. Daniel Barenboim, who here conducts, invited Munich film director Doris Dorrie to produce Cosi fan tutte for the Staatsoper Berlin in 2002, and the resulting project drew plaudits from die-hard Mozart fans as well as introducing a whole new generation to the opera genre…

Handel’s second opera for the so-called “rival queens,” Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni, was Admeto, which had its premiere in 1727. Their purported rivalry—created more by the public than by the singers themselves—resulted most famously in the cat fight parodied by John Gay in his Beggar’s Opera of the same year. The operas Handel wrote for these reigning divas are as musically brilliant as any of his other works. But as a result of his attempts to structure dramas that would give absolutely equal value to two leading ladies, the rival-queen operas are dramatically problematic and strain credulity at times, Admeto not excepted.

Doris Dörrie's camera greets Edward Espe Brown when he arrives in Australia to give a class on cooking, Zen, and meditation. We see him back home in Northern California as well. Brown, for forty years a Zen cook, demonstrates cooking as well as commenting on topics including anger, quiet, gleaning and waste, battered pots, and how he found his vocation. A focus of his is to demonstrate how to bring one's self to cooking and to others simultaneously. He quotes often from two masters, with several examples of Zen wit. The camera takes the occasional trip to fast food restaurants to provide contrast to Brown's approach and results.