Showing results for "Opera" in Entertainment & Performing Arts

Opera is the fastest growing of all the performing arts, attracting audiences of all ages who are enthralled by the gorgeous music, vivid drama, and magnificent production values. If you've decided that the time has finally come to learn about opera and discover for yourself what it is about opera that sends your normally reserved friends into states of ecstatic abandon, this is the book for you.

Here is the colorful story of sometimes temperamental composers and even more temperamental singers working in an art form which has produced some of man's noblest artistic creations. This absorbing history is illustrated by over 100 musical examples by Naxos artists as well as some of the greatest singers of the 20th century, including Enrico Caruso and Fyodor Chaliapin.

Known as opera’s “disrupter-in-residence,” director Yuval Sharon has never adhered to the art form’s conventions. In his many productions in both the United States and Europe, he constantly challenges the perception of opera as aloof by urging, among other things: performing operas in “non-places,” such as parking lots; encouraging the use of amplification; and shuffling the traditional structure of classic works, like performing Puccini’s La bohème in reverse order, ending not with the tubercular heroine Mimi’s death but with her first falling in love.

For anyone who has been intimidated, overwhelmed, or just plain confused by what they think opera is, Who’s Afraid of Opera? offers a lively, easy-to-follow guide to what author Michael Walsh describes as “the greatest art form yet invented by humankind.” From opera’s origins in Renaissance Italy to the Who’s rock odyssey “Tommy”, and Stephen Sondheim’s “Into the Woods”, Walsh explores what opera is and what it’s not, what makes a great singer, and why it takes Tristan so long to die.

Through a deft compilation of primary sources—letters, memoirs, and personal accounts from composers, librettists, and performers—Michael Rose re-creates for his readers the circumstances that gave rise to fifteen operatic milestones. From Monteverdi and Mozart to Puccini and Berg, each chapter focuses on a well-known opera and tells the story that lies behind its creation.

Blunt, irreverent, and at times wittily subversive, Opera Wars spotlights opera’s colorful and sometimes warring personalities, increasingly fierce controversies over content, and the battles being waged for its economic future. Drawing on interviews with dozens of opera insiders—as well as...

Rigoletto gilt als das erste Meisterwerk von Giuseppe Verdi und begründet seinen Weltruhm. Bereits bei der Uraufführung, im Jahr 1851 am Teatro La Fenice in Venedig, feierte sie einen überwältigenden Erfolg und wurde in den folgenden Jahren in ganz Europa aufgeführt. Das Libretto stammt von Francesco Maria Piave und beruht auf dem Melodrama Le roi s’amuse von Victor Hugo. Die Oper steht bis heute im Programm zahlreicher Opernhäuser und ist nach wie vor eine der meistgespielten italienischen Opern.

Step into the shadows of an enchanting theatre, now under new management. Witness a diva who believes she has the voice to captivate, a young ingenue with undeniable talent, and a mysterious masked figure whose wrath knows no bounds when his desires go unmet. With a backdrop of secrets, intrigues, and the peril of falling chandeliers, the legend of the Phantom of the Opera unfolds before your very ears! (Summary by Karen Savage)

Explore the thrilling world of opera and its component parts in our series of podcasts, produced as part of the DARE partnership between Opera North and the University of Leeds.

La Traviata owes its enduring popularity to a superb story of young love and fatal sacrifice, set to music by Italy’s master melodist at the peak of his powers. Interest and poignancy are added by the fact that this is a true story - the baritone ‘heavy’ is Alexander Dumas who wrote The Count of Monte Cristo. But it is the central figure, the heroine Violetta, the archetypal ‘whore with the heart of gold’ who dominates the piece. It is her opera and we love her for it.

Music, and more particularly singing is always with us. A certain day we may find ourselves moody and with a melody from La forza del destino playing over and over again in our head. Or maybe we feel like a superhero as we've doing great at work and then we feel like Calaf solving the 3 riddles that Turandot has proposed. First, we would like to share that this is not a place for the platitudes that are everywhere, telling my favorite singer is always the greatest in everything he's sung; and at the same time, we avoid being one of those toxic places where there's endless criticism around the ...

A vibrant celebration of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Tony Award-winning masterpiece that explores its rich history, includes interviews with its cast, crew, and celebrity admirers, and features exclusive photos and archival materials. Since it's premire in 1986, Phantom of the Opera has become not...

Così Fan Tutte contains some of Mozart’s most sublime music. On one level, the opera is purely a social anecdote about young people falling in and out of love; but Mozart was a supreme sensualist and a great humanist, and invested the tale with all his understanding of humanity and young love. In this title, David Timson refutes the charge that Mozart squandered his genius on a work full of trivial nonsense and proves this "miraculous yet problematic" opera to be a great work of theatre. To listen to this thought-provoking examination of the characters and the music is both thoroughly enriching and great fun.

"Wagner's Ring Motifs" is aimed in the first instance at listeners new to the Ring and is intended to convey the fascination of Wagner's music...

Die Hochzeit des Figaro gilt als Höhepunkt der Oper und eines der größten Werke des Genies Mozart. Es begründet die Zusammenarbeit zweier Meister ihres Fachs: Des Komponisten Mozarts, mit dem Librettisten Lorenzo da Ponte. Die literarische Vorlage war ein Skandalstück, das den Autoren ins Gefängnis brachte, der Zensur zum Opfer fiel und überhaupt für Furore sorgte. Ludwig XVI urteilte: „Wenn ich dieses Stück genehmigen würde, müsste ich konsequenterweise gleich die Bastille einreißen.“

The Official Podcast Page of www.wagneroperas.com

Mention The Phantom of the Opera at a dinner party, and each guest will have his or her own vivid, almost visceral, recollection of the tale of a disfigured musical genius and his unrequited love for a beautiful, young singer. Someone will undoubtedly pantomime the famous scene from the silent era film in which Mary Philbin (as Christine Daae) sneaks up behind the Phantom, while he is playing the organ in his subterranean lair, and unmasks the great Lon Chaney, revealing his horribly disfigured face to the audience and her.

With war clouds gathering and harassment increasing, the stars of Continental opera, many of whom are Jewish, face dark futures under the boot heel of the Nazis. What can two middle-aged British spinsters do about such matters? They can form a secret cabal right under Hitler’s nose and get to work saving lives. The sisters conspire to bring together worldwide opera aficionados and insiders in an international operation to rescue Jews in the opera from the horrific fate that everyone intuits is coming.

Die Zauberflöte ist eine der bekanntesten Opern und ein zeitloses Meisterwerk. Schon Kinder pfeifen den „Vogelfänger” und die Rachearie der Königin mit ihren waghalsigen Koloraturen ist unvergesslich. Die Musik Mozarts gepaart mit Schikaneders märchenhaften Libretto sorgt – damals wie heute – für ein Erlebnis, dem man sich nicht entziehen kann. Doch wie war das noch gleich? Warum zürnt die Königin der Nacht dem weisen Sarastro? Warum hat der eigentlich nochmal Pamina in seinen Tempel entführt? Diese Fragen und noch viele mehr wollen wir beantworten.

Welcome to The Opera Training Companion from the National Opera Studio - your go-to podcast for navigating the world of opera. Join us as we bring together industry-leading experts from opera and beyond, covering every aspect of what it takes to thrive (and survive!) as an artist in the operatic world. Hosted by soprano Rachel Nicholls who has been an opera singer for 25 years and is a regular coach at the Studio. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.