The history of the Overtures: when first impressions count
You never get a second chance to make a first impression! Thankfully this isn’t always true, but a good start definitely matters a lot. There are many operas with famous and highly appreciated overtures and some of them maintain their position in the top ten greatest overtures ever. The overture is simply an instrumental piece […]
Pietro Mascagni: the composer and the conductor
Pietro Mascagni enjoyed immense success during his lifetime, both as a composer and conductor of his own and other people’s music. He wrote fifteen operas, an operetta, several orchestral and vocal works, and also songs and piano music. His 1890 masterpiece Cavalleria rusticana (1890) has marked the opera history and single-handedly ushered in the Verismo […]
Stabat Mater: Rossini’s sacred masterpiece
Performed for the first time in Paris at the Théâtre-Italien’s Salle Ventadour on 7 January 1842, the Stabat Mater is one of Rossini’s most beloved works, considered by many to be his authentic masterpiece. Poised between sacred music and opera, the composition recalls the more mature Rossini’s operatic style in vocal writing and highly refined […]
UNESCO: Italy candidate Italian opera as an intangible heritage of humanity
Last month in Rome during an online meeting chaired by Franco Bernabè, the Board of Directors of the UNESCO Italian National Commission approved an Italian application to be submitted to the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage for the 2023 cycle: “The Art of the Italian Opera Singing”. Intangible cultural heritage is […]
Le comte Ory: Rossini’s comic masterpiece
Le comte Ory is one of Gioachino Rossini’s late operas written in 1828, a comic masterpiece, a mixture of risky situation and indelicate suggestion, mediaeval chivalry and musical elegance. The French libretto was by Eugène Scribe and Charles-Gaspard Delestre-Poirson adapted from a comedy they had first written in 1817. Six pieces of the music originates […]
William Tell: Rossini’s last opera
Rossini’s William Tell is a French-language opera in four acts to a libretto by Victor-Joseph Étienne de Jouy and L. F. Bis. At the age of 37 Rossini composed this last opera, a great work originally planned for 1828, but it took until August 1829 for the first performance by the Paris Opéra at the […]
A call for peace: Ukrainian and Russian opera stars in emotional embrace
Well yes! The pandemic that has not been completely averted is joined by another urgency that worries a large part of the world. Another war. Another time. The 35-year-old Ukrainian operatic baritone Yuriy Yurchuk, who most recently appeared in Tosca at the Royal Opera House in London, sings his national hymn at 10 Downing Street […]
The Elixir of Love: A melodramma giocoso by Gaetano Donizetti
L’elisir d’amore (The Elixir of Love) is a melodramma giocoso (opera buffa) in two acts by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto and the opera premiered on 12 May 1832 at the Teatro della Canobbiana in Milan. Written in a six-week period, L’elisir d’amore is today one of the most […]
When Carnival meets opera: The best operatic titles that refer to the Carnival
Anything goes at Carnival time! During this festive season that occurs before the liturgical season of Lent, people set aside their everyday individuality and experience a heightened sense of social unity allow. Participants often wear costumes and masks that display exaggerated features such as large noses, bellies, mouths and indulge in mock battles, food fights, […]
Pelleas and Melisande: Opera in five acts by Claude Debussy
Pelléas and Mélisande is an opera in five acts with music by Claude Debussy. The French libretto was adapted from a drama by Maurice Maeterlinck, a Belgian poet who is famous for his use of symbolism. It premiered at the Salle Favart in Paris by the Opéra-Comique on 30 April 1902; Jean Périer was Pelléas […]