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Ten of the world's greatest directors produce one unforgettable film in this sumptuous visual and musical feast based on the most famous arias in the history of opera. Erotic, violent, thought-provoking, funny, and moving, this critically-hailed milestone features the electrifyingly erotic film debut of Briget Fonda, a revealing appearance by supermodel Elizabeth Hurley (Austin Powers), and unforgettable performances from John Hurt (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone), Tilda Swinton (The Deep End), Beverly D'Angelo (Vacation), Theresa Russell (Wild Things), and many more! Segments directed by Robert Altman (Gosford Park), Bruce Beresford (Double Jeopardy), Bill Bryden, Jean-Luc Godard (Contempt), Derek Jarman (Edward II), Franc Roddam (Quadrophenia), Nicolas Roeg (Performance), Ken Russell (Tommy), Charles Sturridge (Longitude), Julien Temple (The Filth and the Fury).

10 short films include:

[01] Un ballo in maschera = (Music composed by Giuseppe Verdi) / Directed by Nicolas Roeg - A fictionalised account of a 1931 assassination attempt on King Zog I of Albania, notable for his shooting back at his would-be assassins and surviving. (In the actual attempt, King Zog was leaving a performance of Pagliacci.)

Extracts: Prelude, "Re dell' abisso", "Di che fulgor che musiche", "La rivedra nell'estasi", "Ebben si t'amo", "Mezza notte", "O giustizia del fato" /
Sung by Leontyne Price, Carlo Bergonzi, Robert Merrill, Shirley Verrett, Reri Grist; conducted by Erich Leinsdorf
Starring Theresa Russell
Running time: 14 minutes


[02] "La vergine degli angeli" from La forza del destino = (Music composed by Giuseppe Verdi) / Directed by Charles Sturridge - Two London teenage girls and a young boy steal a car.

Sung by Leontyne Price; conducted by Thomas Schippers
Starring Nicola Swain, Jackson Kyle, Marianne McLaughlin
Running time: 5 minutes


[03] Armide = (Music composed by Jean-Baptiste Lully) / Directed by Jean-Luc Godard - Two nude women try to attract the attention of oblivious bodybuilders.

Extracts: "Ah! Si la liberté me doit être l'Amour", "Enfin, il est en ma puissance", "Venez,venez, Haine implacable"
Libretto by Philippe Quinault
Performed by Rachel Yakar, Zeger Vandersteene (nl), Danielle Borst; conducted by Philippe Herreweghe
Starring Valérie Allain
Running time: 11 minutes


[04] Rigoletto = (Music composed by Giuseppe Verdi) / Directed by Julien Temple - A bedroom farce set in San Luis Obispo's famous Madonna Inn, in which a movie producer cheats on his wife unaware that she, too, is there with a clandestine lover of her own.

Extracts: "Questa o quella", "Gualtier Maldè... caro nome", "La donna è mobile", "Addio, addio"
Sung by Robert Merrill, Anna Moffo, Alfredo Kraus; conducted by Georg Solti
Written by Charlie Coffey
Starring: Buck Henry and Beverly D'Angelo
Running time: 14 minutes


[05] "Glück, das mir verblieb" from Die tote Stadt = (Music composed by Erich Wolfgang Korngold) / Directed by Bruce Beresford - A look at the seemingly-dead city of Bruges, Belgium. Scenic footage of the empty streets and cemeteries is intercut with a duet of two lovers, providing counter-pointed to the dead city.

Sung by Carol Neblett and René Kollo; conducted by Erich Leinsdorf
Starring Elizabeth Hurley and Peter Birch
Running time: 5 minutes


[06] Abaris ou les Boréades = (Music composed by Jean-Philippe Rameau) / Directed by Robert Altman - A re-creation of opening night at Paris's Théâtre Le Ranelagh (fr) in 1734. The audience is filled with a raffish assortment of inmates from an asylum.

Libretto by Louis de Cahusac
Extracts:Entr'acte – "Suite des vents", "Nuit redoutable! ... Lieu désolé", "Jouissons, jouissons! Jouissons de nos beaux ans"
Performed by Jean-Philippe Lafont, Philip Langridge, John Aler; conducted by John Eliot Gardiner
Starring: Julie Hagerty, Geneviève Page, Sandrine Dumas, Chris Campion
Running time: 7 minutes


[07] "Liebestod" from Tristan und Isolde = (Music composed by Richard Wagner) / Directed by Franc Roddam - Two young lovers arrive in Las Vegas. After driving down Fremont Street, they check into a cheap hotel room where they unsuccessfully try to commit suicide following the consummation of their relationship.

Sung by Leontyne Price; conducted by Henry Lewis
Starring Bridget Fonda in her first credited film role.
Running time: 7 minutes


[08] "Nessun dorma" from Turandot = (Music composed by Giacomo Puccini) / Directed by Ken Russell - After a car crash, a lovely young girl imagines her body is being adorned by jewels mirroring her injuries, in a tribal ritual parallel to the procedures of the surgical team treating her, until she wakes up in the operating room after resuscitation.

Sung by Jussi Björling; conducted by Erich Leinsdorf
Starring Linzi Drew
Running time: 7 minutes


[09] "Depuis le jour" from Louise = (Music composed by Gustave Charpentier) / Directed by Derek Jarman - A veteran opera singer gives her final performance, intercut by 8mm home movies of an early love affair.

Sung by Leontyne Price; conducted by Francesco Molinari-Pradelli
Starring Tilda Swinton
Running time: 6 minutes


[10] "Vesti la giubba" from Pagliacci = (Music composed by Ruggero Leoncavallo) / Directed by Bill Bryden - A virtuoso remembers his career while arriving at an opera house, visiting the dressing room to put on his clown makeup, and performing the aria for his audience of one. (This story provides a vague framing narrative to link together the other segments.)

Sung by Enrico Caruso
Written by Bill Bryden and Don Boyd
Starring John Hurt and Sophie Ward Running time: 4 minutes

REVIEW:
JANET MASLIN, nytimes.com


Giuseppe Verdi never cried out ''I want my MTV,'' but he's gotten it anyhow. So have Wagner, Puccini and the other composers whose work has been given the rock-video treatment by 10 opera-loving film directors in ''Aria,'' the composite film . The best of ''Aria'' isn't any more than cheerful kitsch, and a lot of it is junk. But the underlying idea, that of unleashing these film makers and encouraging them to set their flakiest daydreams to beautiful music, is at least as amusing as it is profane.

The best of the 10 segments is, perhaps predictably, the rare one without lofty pretensions. It's the skit involving an adulterous husband and wife who have both unwittingly scheduled their trysts for the same hideaway, California's blindingly garish Madonna Inn. Directed by Julien Temple, whose vast experience directing bona fide rock videos has given him better-than-average preparation for this job, it makes witty use of ''Rigoletto,'' some of which even comes out of the mouth of an Elvis impersonator. Buck Henry, Anita Morris and Beverly D'Angelo romp mischievously through their brief roles.

On the other end of the spectrum is Bruce Beresford's film of a duet from ''Die Tote Stadt'' by Korngold in which a man imagines that his dead wife has returned to him. Mr. Beresford - who, along with the rest of the film makers, has evidently been encouraged to work high-toned nudity into the proceedings whenever possible - stages this with the two naked singers perched prettily on a bed. The lip-synching is terrible. And the delayed gratification, always a factor when opera singers stop the action to voice their emotions, is in this case almost a joke.

No less peculiar is Jean-Luc Godard's film set to Jean Baptiste Lully's ''Armide.'' This segment is obscure even by Mr. Godard's standards, which is saying something; while it does derive loosely from the opera itself, the film maker's idea of setting the scene at a gymnasium among weight lifters who utterly ignore two swooning, casually naked young lovelies has its ludicrous side. So does Robert Altman's Grand Guignol approach to Jean Philippe Rameau's ''Les Boreades,'' in which a band of gruesomely made-up extras (partly the cast of Mr. Altman's film ''Beyond Therapy'') plays an audience of lunatics. The most prettily pretentious segment of all is from Charles Sturridge, the director of ''Brideshead Revisited,'' as he accompanies Verdi's ''Forza del Destino'' with black-and-white footage of children stealing and burning a Mercedes-Benz.

Ken Russell, avid as ever for both shock and titillation, has turned the ''Nessun dorma'' aria from Puccini's ''Turandot'' into a film inspired by the death of a friend; it begins with scenes of a beautiful woman being painted and ornamented, then turns into operating-room footage. Franc Roddam (''Quadrophenia'') illustrates the ''Liebestod'' from Wagner's ''Tristan and Isolde'' with scenes of young lovers experiencing both passion and grief in Las Vegas, Nev., scenes that would look a lot like soft-core porn if they weren't such aggressively high art.

Bill Bryden casts John Hurt as a performer about to appear in ''Pagliacci,'' in a series of scenes that are meant to connect the other segments, but don't. Derek Jarman has made a lyrical, uncharacteristically tame film in which an old woman recalls her youth, set to the ''Depuis le jour'' aria from Charpentier's ''Louise.'' Nicolas Roeg, for reasons that are quite obscure, casts his wife, Teresa Russell, as King Zog of Albania and has her wear a mustache.

The work of a group of well-known still photographers, among them Annie Leibovitz and David Bailey, has been assembled in a closing montage that has a lot more punch than most of the film segments. This says quite a lot about the lightweight, superficial nature of the entire ''Aria'' method. Also on the bill, and perhaps the program's most inspired idea, is the Chuck Jones animated short ''What's Opera, Doc?'' in which Bugs Bunny appears as Brunnhilde, is chased by a spear-carrying Elmer Fudd and feigns a tragic death. It fits in perfectly with the rest of this pop pastiche. UPDATING 'A NIGHT AT THE OPERA' ARIA/written and directed by Robert Altman, Bruce Beresford, Bill Bryden, Jean-Luc Godard; Derek Jarman; Franc Roddam; Nicolas Roeg, Ken Russell, Charles Sturridge and Julien Temple; released by Miramax Films. At the Regency, Broadway and 67th Street; Quad Cinema, 34 West 13th Street, West of Fifth Avenue, and other theaters. Running time: 90 minutes. This film is rated R. FEATURING: John Hurt, Teresa Russell, Nicola Swain, Jack Kayle, Marion Peterson, Valerie Allain, Buck Henry, Anita Morris, Beverly D'Angelo, Elizabeth Hurley, Peter Birch, Julie Hagerty, Genevieve Page, Bridget Fonda, James Mathers, Linzi Drew, Tilda Swinton, Spencer Leigh and Amy Johnson.