The film portrays Rydl not only as a private person but also as a kind of popstar of the modern opera world, jetting from stage to stage with hardly a day of rest in between. He just loves his role as one of the great gladiators - on stage and in real life.

 

 

Parsifal: Kurt Rydl and Plácido Domingo, colleagues and friends 

 

Kurt Rydl not only sings the roles of the gladiators in the operatic works but in real life he simply acts like one. Kurt Rydl is The Gladiator of the Operas.  

A titan in the Circus Maximus of the opera. With more than 100 parts in six languages and more than 3000 performances (!) in 35 years on stage.

Boote shows a side of opera singer Kurt Rydl which is rarely seen. Obsessed with his career, he wishes he could simply beam from one opera house to the next. This intimate portrait also shows the great loneliness and solitude burdening this driven man.

 

Kurt Rydl always knows the cheapest and fastest way to the operahouse 

 

Director Werner Boote accompanied Kurt Rydl for 8 months and created an Emmy-nominated masterwork out of 300 hours of material.

Watch another Trailer

 

 Kurt sings "König Heinrich" in "Lohengrin"

 

Worldsales by ORF                                                  Buy the film at Amazon

 

 Kurt Rydl - The Gladiator

 

 

An Austrian TV documentary on the Wagnerian singer Kurt Rydl, renowned not only for his magnificent bass voice but also the almost unbelievable number of engagements he has so far taken all over the world and sung to a most admirable standard.

 

After the rehearsals in Florence, Italy, he needs to hurry up for the evening show.

  

Kurt misses the train and calls the operahouse to wait. The overture starts as soon as he enters the building.

 

 

Kurt Rydl as Hagen in Richard Wagners "Götterdämmerung"

 

 

 

 

CREDITS:

Writer-Director: Werner Boote

Cinematography: Thomas Kirschner, Hans Selikovsky, Oliver Schneider, Werner Boote

Sound: Dieter Draxler, Bernhard Schmid, Franz Moritz

Editor: Tom Pohanka

Producer: Dieter Pochlatko

Coproduction: epo film, Vienna/ORF/BM:BWK 2003

digibeta, 16:9