Margaret Williams

Peter Grimes on Aldeburgh Beach

Margaret Williams, Margaret Williams

Myah Bristow, Alan Oke

An open-air staging by Aldeburgh Music of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes, on the beach that inspired the opera. A small seaside community struggles to accept a fisherman.

Benjamin Britten's Owen Wingrave

Margaret Williams

Gerald Finley, Peter Savidge

Margaret Williams directs this 2001 production of adaptation of Benjamin Britten's television opera based on a short story by Henry James. Performers featured include Gerald Finley, Peter Savidge and Josephine Barstow. The conductor is Kent Nagano. As pertinent now as then, OWEN WINGRAVE was composed by Benjamin Britten at the height of the Vietnam War. The opera poses the question: Is pacifism an act of cowardice? Or rather a desire to escape from the spiral of war and create world peace? To what extent do we determine our own futures? Should we let past events inform the decisions we make? Britten’s characters grapple with timeless issues in this gripping psychodrama.

Hamlet

Sarah Frankcom, Margaret Williams

Maxine Peake, John Shrapnel

From its sell-out run at Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre comes a film version of this unique and critically acclaimed production of Hamlet with BAFTA-nominee Maxine Peake in the title role. This ground-breaking stage production, directed by Sarah Frankcom, was the Royal Exchange's fastest-selling show in a decade.

Margaret Tait: Film Maker

Margaret Williams

Tamara Krikorian, Margaret Tait

A documentary about the life and works of Margaret Tait.

Steve Reich: A New Musical Language

Margaret Williams

Steve Reich

A profile of composer Steve Reich, a leading creator of stripped-down, "minimal" music. The program explores how Reich's music eventually became accessible to the musical audience at large. Included are interviews with the composer himself, and contemporaries, and also performances of some of his works.

Lucia di Lammermoor

Katie Mitchell, Margaret Williams

Diana Damrau, Charles Castronovo

Diana Damrau’s reputation as the world’s leading coloratura soprano has been built on her extraordinary technical virtuosity, her sensitive musicianship and her acute psychological insight. In this DVD of Katie Mitchell’s sometimes radical production of Lucia di Lammermoor from London’s Royal Opera House, she is, as the Financial Times wrote, “brilliantly convincing”. The British award winning director Katie Mitchell – took a revisionist approach to the drama, updating the action to the mid-19th century and applying a feminist slant as she added new and unexpected elements. The Financial Times wrote: “Mitchell shows us on stage personal traumas that a self-respecting woman in the early 19th century was meant to keep to herself. It is a messy, bloody list — nocturnal sex trysts, a knife murder, a miscarriage, a suicide in the bath … In all this Damrau is brilliantly convincing. Her rebellious Lucia is a woman of modern attitudes stuck in a still feudal Victorian world.”

The ROH Live: Lucia di Lammermoor

Margaret Williams

Daniel Oren, Diana Damrau

Lucia’s brother Enrico is horrified to learn she has fallen in love with his sworn enemy Edgardo. He hastily arranges her marriage to his associate Arturo. Edgardo and Lucia privately exchange rings before he leaves to fight in France. Enrico tricks Lucia into believing that Edgardo has been unfaithful. Longing for death, she signs the contract with Arturo – moments before Edgardo returns. Lucia murders Arturo in their wedding bed. His death is followed first by Lucia’s, and then by Edgardo’s.

McGregor: Chroma / Infra / Limen

Jonathan Haswell, Margaret Williams

Sarah Lamb, Tamara Rojo

The diversity of Wayne McGregor's astonishing talent is demonstrated through Chroma, Infra and Limen, each created for The Royal Ballet, for whom he is resident choreographer. Intimate yet universal, light yet dark, frenetic yet lyrical, McGregor pursues his passion for exploring the inner workings of the human body and mind, his many-layered and beautiful dances providing visual, sensual and kinaesthetic stimulus for the viewer. Works: Chroma (Talbot; White III); Infra (Richter); Limen (Saariaho).

Elizabeth Maconchy

Margaret Williams

Elizabeth Maconchy, Nicola Le Fanu

Documentary about the composer Elizabeth Maconchy, filmed during the rehearsal of a new composition

Hello Dolly, Goodbye Mummy. A fairy tale

Margaret Williams

One of a series of films combining music and images: a dramatisation of the Russian folk-tale, Beautiful Vassilisa.

Not Mozart: Scipio's Dream

Margaret Williams

Gwion Thomas, Frances Lynch

Composer Judith Weir collaborates with director Margaret Williams on a commissioned short film to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the death of Mozart.

Jeff Keen Films

Margaret Williams

An engaging and enlightening documentary about Jeff Keen shown on Channel 4 in 1983. Features Keen performing in front of his film projections as well as talking about and showing his work in different media.