Best Tenor Movies & TV Shows

Live from ROH 1985. Giordano's Andrea Chenier is one of the greatest of verismo operas, full of heart-stopping big tunes and powerful emotional situations. If it is not as well-known as it should be, it is because in summary it sounds a little too like Puccini's Tosca: there is a tussle between political opponents over a woman, an attempt to save a condemned man, a tenor aria about writing poetry on the eve of execution. The difference is that Gerard (Giorgio Zancanaro) is not a villain like Scarpia, he is an idealist whom the French Revolution has betrayed as much as it has his rival the poet Chenier (Placido Domingo). His temptation to abuse his power to seduce the virtuous Maddalena (Anna Tomowa-Sintow) is a momentary one, though its consequences are terrible. There is a streak of post-Wagnerian decadence in much of this--Maddalena is at least as much in love with death as she is with Chenier, and the final love duet has a deeply sinister aspect. -- From Amazon.co.uk

France, 1914, during World War I. On Christmas Eve, an extraordinary event takes place in the bloody no man's land that the French and the Scots dispute with the Germans…

Born with a serious eye condition that eventually leads to his blindness, Bocelli nevertheless rises above the challenges, driven by great ambitions towards his passion. The silent pursuit of his daily mission continues.

Inside the Blue Note nightclub one night in 1959 Paris, an aged, ailing jazzman coaxes an eloquent wail from his tenor sax. Outside, a young Parisian too broke to buy a glass of wine strains to hear those notes. Soon they will form a friendship that sparks a final burst of genius.

In this short film, prominent jazz musicians of the 1940s gather for a rare filming of a jam session. This highly stylized chronicle features tenor sax legend Lester Young.

Bugs Bunny vs. a famous opera singer at the Hollywood Bowl.

A young mouse named Fievel and his family decide to migrate to America, a "land without cats," at the turn of the 20th century. But somehow, Fievel ends up in the New World alone and must fend off not only the felines he never thought he'd have to deal with again but also the loneliness of being away from home.

Bilbo Baggins the Hobbit was just minding his own business, when his occasional visitor Gandalf the Wizard drops in one night. One by one, a whole group of dwarves drop in, and before he knows it, Bilbo has joined their quest to reclaim their kingdom, taken from them by the evil dragon Smaug. The only problem is that Gandalf has told the dwarves that Bilbo is an expert burglar, but he isn't...

After Elizabeth's husband dies, she begins to play her tenor saxophone again, and remembers when she was 15 and a member of the Blonde Bombshells, an all-girl (with one exception) swing band. Accompanied by the exception and urged on by her grand-daughter, Elizabeth hunts up all the old members of the band and urges them to perform, and in doing so, learns more than she knew about the band, its members, the roses on the drum set, and herself--the last of the Blonde Bombshells.

The Wind in the Willows: Concise version of Kenneth Grahame's story of the same name. J. Thaddeus Toad, owner of Toad Hall, is prone to fads, such as the newfangled motor car. This desire for the very latest lands him in much trouble with the wrong crowd, and it is up to his friends, Mole, Rat and Badger to save him from himself. - The Legend of Sleepy Hollow: Retelling of Washington Irving's story set in a tiny New England town. Ichabod Crane, the new schoolmaster, falls for the town beauty, Katrina Van Tassel, and the town Bully Brom Bones decides that he is a little too successful and needs "convincing" that Katrina is not for him.

Beautiful manicurist Hallie Hobart sets her sights on handsome David Stone, the son of wealthy wheat farmer Ezra Stone. Professing to hate men, Hallie is only interested in luring David in for a lucrative business deal. David easily falls in love, but older brother Mark brands Hallie a gold-digger. To get even with the straight-laced Stone family, Hallie accepts David's marriage proposal.

A beautiful Gypsy girl falls in love with a horse trainer.

Set in the fictional village of "Ogw" in the valleys of south-east Wales. After her father Jack suffers a stroke Annie Mary Pugh is forced to take care of him but uses the circumstances to emancipate herself and find the courage to sing once again.

Jonas Kaufmann and Anna Caterina Antonacci bring rare erotic intensity to the drama of Don José and Carmen in this darkly passionate reading of one of the most popular operas. Kaufmann uses his burnished tenor and smouldering good looks to portray the man undone by Carmen's love. As the object of his desire, Antonacci gives a physical and compelling performance.

George Romero's unusual story of a modern-day Renaissance troupe whose participants follow a medieval code of honor.

A young refugee travels from Russia to America in search of her lost father and falls in love with a gypsy horseman.

Musical biography of Irish 19th century tenor Chauncey Olcott.

The talented Korean tenor, Bae, who penetrate the audience's hears through his delicate and powerful singing, is on the rise to stardom at the European opera scene. Sawada, a Japanese music producer, is searching for a new tenor for an upcoming performance. He watches a performance of Bae and invites him to Japan, which marks the beginning of friendship. But, the thyroid cancer strikes Bae. During an operation, the nerves of his vocal cords has be cut due to the widely spread cancer. Unfortunately, Ba ends up losing his voice at the peak of his career. Sawada cant's stand to watch Bae's miserable so he starts to look for a solution.

The Irresponsible Toad is in a mess and needs help from his friends try and save Toad Hall.

Striking a zeitgeist nerve, Wild in the Streets stars Christopher Jones (Ryan's Daughter) as Max Frost, rock singer and poster boy for the counterculture revolution of the '60s. While performing with his band, The Troopers, at a political rally for Senate candidate Johnny Fergus (Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild), Max seizes the opportunity to spout his own political philosophies which include, among other things, that the voting age should be lowered to 14. And thus begins the tale of Max's meteoric rise. But as he moves further and further into uncharted waters, first as a voice for the youth movement (or is he just a mouthpiece for opportunist politicians?) and then as a nominee for President of the United States, Max will not bend to the will of the old guard. Instead he begins implementing his own ideas of what would make a better world, including re-education camps for those over the age of 35 along with a liberal dosing of LSD.

Following American reporter Stephen Fitzgerald from Ireland to New York, a grateful leprechaun acts as the newsman's servant and conscience.

Snooty opera singer meets a rough-and-tumble fisherman in the Louisiana bayous, but this fisherman can sing! Her agent lures him away to New Orleans to teach him to sing opera but comes to regret this rash decision when the singers fall in love.

Abigail Chandler has written her stuffy Boston relatives that she's a successful opera singer in New York. In reality, she works at a burlesque house and is billed as High-C Susie. When her sister Martha comes for a visit, Abigail tries to hide the truth from her.

Loosely traces the life of tenor Enrico Caruso (1873-1921). He loves Musetta, in his home town of Naples, and then Dorothy, the daughter of one of the Metropolitan Opera's patrons. Caruso is unacceptable to both women's fathers: to one, because he sings; to Dorothy's, because he is a peasant. To New York patricians, Caruso is short, barrel chested, loud, emotional, unrefined. Their appreciation comes slowly. The film depicts Caruso's lament that "the man does not have the voice, the voice has the man": he cannot be places he wants to be, because he must be elsewhere singing, including the day his mother dies. Throughout, Mario Lanza and stars from the Met sing.

Mary Barrett is an aspiring opera singer who is taken under the wings of a famous operatic maestro, Guilio Monterverdi. After spending endless working hours together and arguing, their relationship develops into love. But, jealousy and misunderstandings prevent Mary and Guilio from acknowledging their true feelings.

Jailed for his reckless driving, rambunctious Mr. Toad has to escape from prison when his beloved Toad Hall comes under threat from the wily weasels, who plan to build a dog food factory on the very meadow sold to them by Toad himself.

In this opera-oriented musical, Riccardo Gatti, an Italian young tenor in Venice, meets a young woman who sneaks into the opera house to try and get her fiancé hired as the orchestra's pianist.

A wealthy woman discovers a vineyard worker with a beautiful operatic singing voice. She helps make him a star but then breaks his heart. He flees in misery to Mexico where he meets a sweet farm girl.

Jerry Biffle is the star of the Blendo Soap Program. He has been invited to participate in an autograph-signing party for his new book at an important department store. Jerry meets Sally Peters, one of the department store models, and makes her part of his TV troupe. As part of his campaign to court Sally, Jerry gets Cliff Lane, the tenor of his TV company, to sing to her over the phone. When Sally and Cliff meet, they fall in love, with Biffle ignorant of the complications.

In Martha's Vineyard, Mass., conjoined twins Walt and Bob Tenor make the best of their handicap by being the fastest grill cooks in town. While outgoing Walt hopes to one day become a famous actor, shy Bob prefers to stay out of the spotlight. When a fading Hollywood actress, Cher, decides to get her show "Honey and the Beaze" cancelled, she hires Walt -- and his brotherly appendage -- as her costars. But their addition surprisingly achieves the opposite.

When a woman learns that her father has passed away, she must confront the past (and the town) she left behind.

A young Irishwoman comes to the United States to live and work with her mother as a cleaning lady at Carnegie Hall. She becomes attached to the place as the people she meets there gradually shape her life. The film also includes a variety of performances from some of the foremost musical artists of the times: conductors Bruno Walter & Leopold Stokowski, solists Arthur Rubinstein & Jascha Haifetz, singers Lily Pons & Jan Peerce and bandleader Vaughn Monroe among many others.

A country bumpkin becomes a singing sensation on the radio.

Biography of popular English composer Leslie Stuart (Robert Morley), who rose to fame through performances of his songs by the tenor Ellaline Terriss (Dorothy Hyson). The peak of Stuart's success in the early 1900s is followed by poverty and obscurity with the arriving Jazz Age. In debtor's prison, Stuart is rescued by friends from happier times, and achieves a comeback in British music halls shortly before his death.

Opera singer Prudence Budell, overhears truck driver Johnny Donnetti singing opera, and persuades her opera company to give him a chance in her new opera. They fall in love, but on meeting his colleague Mary while visiting Johnny's work, Prudence becomes convinced Johnny is in love with her.

In his last film assignment, portly Walter Connolly fills the title role (in more ways than one) in The Great Victor Herbert. Very little of Herbert's life story is incorporated in the screenplay (a closing title actually apologizes for the film's paucity of cold hard facts); instead, the writers allow the famed composer's works to speak for themselves. In the tradition of one of his own operettas, Herbert spends most of his time patching up the shaky marriage between tenor John Ramsey (Allan Jones) and Louise Hall (Mary Martin). Many of Herbert's most famous compositions are well in evidence, including "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life", "March of the Toys" and "Kiss Me Again", the latter performed con brio by teenaged coloratura Susanna Foster. Evidently, the producers were able to secure the film rights for the Herbert songs, but not for the stage productions in which they appeared, which may explain such bizarre interpolations as having a song from Naughty Marietta.

World-renowned tenor Richard Tauber features in a dramatisation of the life of Schubert, focusing on the composer's unrequited love for a dance master's daughter.

Hymn of the Nations, originally titled Arturo Toscanini: Hymn of the Nations, is a 1944 film directed by Alexander Hammid, which features the "Inno delle nazioni," a patriotic work for tenor soloist, chorus, and orchestra, composed by Italian opera composer Giuseppe Verdi in the early 1860s. (For this musical work, Verdi utilized the national anthems of several European nations.) In December 1943, Arturo Toscanini filmed a performance of this music for inclusion in an Office of War Information documentary about the role of Italian-Americans in aiding the Allies during World War II. Toscanini added a bridge passage to include arrangements of "The Star-Spangled Banner" for the United States and "The Internationale" for the Soviet Union and the Italian partisans. Joining Toscanini in the filmed performance in NBC Studio 8-H, were tenor Jan Peerce, the Westminster Choir, and the NBC Symphony Orchestra. The film also included the overture to Verdi's opera La Forza del Destino.

The story deals with the college rivalry of a piccolo player and an All-American halfback on the football team who both love the same co-ed. After graduation they carry their their feud and collegiate ideas over into the department store business.

Broken hearts in Ireland. Sean is a great tenor, in semi-retirement, living in a village close to Mary, the woman he’s always loved. Mary’s aunt convinced her to marry a man for his money; he has recently deserted her, leaving her penniless. She and her two children, Eileen and Tad, move in with the selfish and austere aunt. Eileen is falling in love with Fergus, a young man who’s off to Dublin to seek his fortune. Sean is drawn out of retirement and goes on tour in America. At his first concert, he’s nervous and out of sorts until the last song, when peace descends on him like a gift. What has happened, and can family life be set right?

An 11-year-old boy's amazing ability to break wind leads him first to fame and then to death row, before it helps him to fulfill his ambition of becoming an astronaut.

A man's heavy drinking drives away his family and threatens to destroy his relationship with his little daughter.

Previously filmed in 1930 as True to the Navy, Kenyon Nicholson's old stage farce Sailor Beware returned to the screen in 1936 as Lady Be Careful. The plot remains substantially the same, as an amorous sailor named Dynamite (Lew Ayres) bets his pals that he can "thaw" icy beauty-contest winner Billie (Mary Carlisle). What follows is a series of misunderstandings, arguments and reconciliations, all wrapped up in a happy-ever-after conclusion.

An Italian operatic tenor is dominated by his female business manager.

Kathleen Gerard, a high society wife fed up with her husband's artistic "protegées", decides to take one of her own in Nino, a promising tenor, patronizing him to study in Paris. He and her girlfriend are perfectly happy until the Gerards pay a visit and Mrs. Gerard starts to show too much interest in him.

Marie Bernais, a Breton village girl, possesses a wonderful voice which her father believes is a gift from the devil. Raoul Nieppe loves her, but fears marrying below his social status, and his rejection results in a suicide attempt by Marie. She is rescued by Hector Remey who was once a tenor but is now a showman. Because of his assistance, she becomes a famous singer.

Plácido Domingo hosts this tribute to American tenor Mario Lanza. Interviews, rare footage and vintage recordings chronicle Lanza's life from his Philadelphia childhood to his meteoric rise as an opera singer and film actor and his tragic death. Credited with bringing opera and classical music into the home of everyday Americans, Lanza starred in That Midnight Kiss and The Toast of New Orleans and portrayed Enrico Caruso in The Great Caruso.

Jean-Marie Villegier's modern interpretation of Handel's "Rodelinda" – filmed live at the world-renowned Glyndebourne Opera House in the United Kingdom, sets the timeless tale of jealousy and treachery in the black-and-white world of the silent-movie era. Soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci sings the title role of Rodelinda, with tenor Kurt Streit and bass Umberto Chiummo performing the parts of Grimoaldo and Garibaldo, respectively.

Filmed at the 1992 Glyndebourne Festival in Lewes, England, this production won unanimous critical acclaim for its innovative interpretation of Tchaikovsky's opera "Pique Dame" ("Queen of Spades"). Although sung in Russian, the production features English sopranos Felicity Palmer as the old countess and Nancy Gustafson as Lisa. Russian tenors Dimitri Kharitonov, Sergei Leiferkus and Yuri Marusin co-star.

According to Doughboys in Ireland, there were those who sang their way through WW2. Radio tenor Kenny Baker plays Manhattan orchestra leading Danny O'Keefe, who is drafted into the army along with a Ritz Brothers-like quartet called The Jesters. Stationed in Ireland, Danny believes that his New York sweetheart Gloria (Lynn Merrick) has forgotten about him, thus he inaugurates a romance with Irish colleen Molly Callahan (Jeff Donnell).