This week the famed Festival Verdi in Parma is set to open in a revamped version that will feature some of the composer’s well-known works and a few curiosities. Among them will be Verdi’s “Macbeth” in its rarely performed French version with one of today’s greatest baritones Ludovic Tézier in the title role. Today Tézier is one of the go-to {…}
Richard Strauss is one of the great composers in opera history. Many of his best works are major staples of the international repertory, including “Der Rosenkavalier,” “Elektra,” Salome,” and “Ariadne auf Naxos,” among others. But Strauss wrote a lot more operas, many of them obscure. While those works will be among those spotlighted in this quiz, we will challenge you {…}
Every year, the Salzburg Festival fascinates with its superhuman efforts to nurture the prosperous cultural life of the city. During the summer they organize and present to the public the full seasonal repertoire of the opera house, drama theater, and concert hall. This year, with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic and the collapse of almost the entire world’s cultural {…}
The 2020-21 season is officially here and many opera companies are beginning to open including the Bayerische Staatsoper, which will open with one of the most anticipated new works of the year. The company will open with the world premiere of “7 Deaths of Maria Callas,” a work that was set to originally open during the spring of the 2019-20 {…}
(Credit: Metropolitan Opera) This week’s quiz takes stock of the operas of Bellini. The Italian composer has seen a resurgence in recent decades with his operas becoming major fixtures of the standard repertory. So for this quiz, we will test your knowledge of the operas’ history as well as their famed arias as well. As always, enjoy!
“Opera Meets Film” is a feature dedicated to exploring the way that opera has been employed in cinema. We will select a section or a film in its entirety, highlighting the impact that utilizing the operatic form or sections from an opera can alter our perception of a film that we are viewing. This week’s installment features Charlie Chaplin’s “The {…}
For this week’s word search, we turn our attention to the great interpreters of Ponchielli’s “La Gioconda.” Instructions: You are free to solve the word search directly on your mobile or desktop device; just click the first and last letter of each word for it to appear on the screen. For those using a mobile device, we highly recommend turning {…}
Puccini’s “La Bohème” might just be the most popular opera ever written. We know its tunes. We know its love story. We know its ability to navigate the totality of life’s highs and lows in sweeping and crushing manner. So for this week’s quiz, we will test that knowledge more intimately. How well do you know it’s history? It’s libretto {…}
“Opera Meets Film” is a feature dedicated to exploring the way that opera has been employed in cinema. We will select a section or a film in its entirety, highlighting the impact that utilizing the operatic form or sections from an opera can alter our perception of a film that we are viewing. This week’s installment features Federico Fellini’s “And {…}
