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.

Immerse yourself in more than 400 years of the world's most celebrated operas and discover the fascinating stories behind them. Explore the lives of singers such as Maria Callas, Luciano Pavarotti, and Jonas Kaufmann. Meet composers like Mozart, Wagner, and Britten, and the librettists with whom...

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.

Immerse yourself in more than 400 years of the world's most celebrated operas and discover the fascinating stories behind them. Explore the lives of singers such as Maria Callas, Luciano Pavarotti, and Jonas Kaufmann. Meet composers like Mozart, Wagner, and Britten, and the librettists with whom...

Wagner’s Ring cycle is the most ambitious work in the history of music: four operas that combine to tell a single epic story. Based in legend, it has become a legend in its own right: a supreme challenge for conductors, singers, opera producers, and indeed for audiences. But for all its grandeur and complexity, The Ring is far more accessible than many music lovers think.

Blunt and at times wittily subversive, Opera Wars spotlights opera culture—it’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...

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.

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)

DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE ist eine der bekanntesten Opern und ein zeitloses Meisterwerk. DIE HOCHZEIT DES FIGARO des Genies Mozart begründet die Zusammenarbeit zweier Meister ihres Fachs: des Komponisten Mozarts mit dem Librettisten Lorenzo da Ponte. 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.

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.

The Official Podcast Page of www.wagneroperas.com

Operina is an opera podcast for kids hosted by soprano Jessica Cambio. It features children from around the world as weekly guests, free to speak in their own language, and it provides tips, language learning, quizzes, and music education about opera and classical music.

"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...

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.

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.

Unlock the over-the-top drama of live theater with a witty audiobook that demystifies classical music history. Whether unwinding on a Sunday afternoon or seeking high-energy entertainment for your morning commute, this lively journey transforms an intimidating museum piece into a welcoming...

Step inside the dramatic world of classical music and transform your daily commute into an inspiring historical journey. Demystify the soaring vocals and theatrical spectacles of Europe's greatest stages without needing a degree in music theory. Perfect for curious minds seeking deep focus, this...

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.  

A lively introduction to opera, from the Renaissance to the twenty-first century There are few art forms as visceral and emotional as opera -- and few that are as daunting for newcomers. A Mad Love offers a spirited and indispensable tour of opera's eclectic past and present, beginning with...