Tristan and Isolde: Opera in three acts by Richard Wagner
Tristan and Isolde is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the 12th-century romance Tristan and Iseult by Gottfried von Strassburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered at the Königliches Hoftheater und Nationaltheater in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans […]
What is Opera buffa? The new genre of comic opera in the first half of the 18th century
When thinking about lyric opera, the classic image of the comedy and tragedy masks often comes to mind. Many early operas and musical plays told tragic or sacred stories and these performances eventually developed into a codified genre called opera seria. Comic characters had been a part of opera until the early 18th century, when […]
Covid fan tutte: A comic opera about life during the pandemic
This is neither a typo nor a slip. The Finnish National Opera commissioned and produced “Covid fan tutte”, a comic opera about life during the pandemic using music from Mozart’s “Cosi fan tutte”, an aria from “Don Giovanni” and another from “The Magic Flute”. It premiered in Helsinki on 28 August 2020 with small audiences […]
Verdi’s Macbeth: “The opera without a love affair!”
Macbeth is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi, with an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave and additions by Andrea Maffei, based on William Shakespeare‘s play of the same name. “L’opera senza amore!” (The opera without a love affair!): that was the Italians’ reaction to Verdi’s Macbeth when it premiered in Florence on […]
Christmas operas: Surveying trends throughout history
Our homes and streets are once again decorated for the most engaging holiday of the year: Christmas. There are many operas whose central theme is the Nativity of Jesus or secular Christmas stories and some contain more or less direct references to Christmas. The earliest Christmas operas appeared in the early 17th century and they […]
Joan Sutherland: The leading coloratura soprano of the 20th century
Joan Sutherland (born November 7, 1926, Sydney, Australia – died October 10, 2010, Les Avants, Switzerland), was considered the leading coloratura soprano of the 20th century. A coloratura soprano has great flexibility in high-lying velocity passages, yet with great sustaining power comparable to that of a full spinto or dramatic soprano. Roles written specifically for […]
The Three Donizetti Queens: Anne Boleyn, Mary Stuart and Roberto Devereux
In the first half of the 19th century, Italy was a divided country, and it’s not a surprise that English monarch history fascinated audiences and a composer like Donizetti was attracted to stories of Tudor England. Donizetti’s trilogy of Tudor queens consists of three operas about Elizabeth I’s life and times in the bel canto […]
The Querelle des Bouffons: The controversy beetween French and Italian opera
The Querelle des Bouffons (also known as the War of the Comic Actors) was the name given to a battle of musical philosophies in France which took place between 1752 and 1754. The controversy concerned the relative merits of French and Italian opera. It is also known as the Guerre des Coins (“War of the […]
The myth of Orpheus in the opera
Orpheus was a legendary Greek musician and poet whose songs could charm gods and wild beasts, trees and rocks. The most famous Orphean story tells of his journey to the underworld to rescue his wife, Eurydice. The woman, set upon by a satyr while walking, had fallen into a nest of vipers and had been […]
Women opera composers: 10 of the greatest women in classical music
Gender equality among the opera composers has been unbalanced. This is a fact that can be demonstrated on a purely numerical basis. A number of reasons have been suggested to explain the relatively few women who have been composers of opera. Problems of access to musical education and to the male hierarchy of the musical […]