Lyn Richards
Virtually Opera
Opera is "brought to life" by virtual images, replacing traditional sets with a newly "immersive theatrical experience" - or so we are...
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Lyn Richards
Dec 7, 20235 min read
What is Bel Canto, by the way?
'Bel canto' means beautiful singing. Or oops, alternatively, beautiful song. Admit it, you don't have a clear idea of what it refers to,...
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Lyn Richards
Nov 27, 20236 min read
Innocence walking
If Norma was all about guilt, La Sonnambula is about innocence. Both appeared in 1831, but innocence came first. It was a rare move by...
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Lyn Richards
Nov 14, 20235 min read
And then there was Norma
“This is the Everest of opera,” the soprano Renata Scotto, a brilliant, controversial Norma in the 1980s, said in a recent interview....
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Lyn Richards
Oct 31, 20236 min read
Bellini's bel canto
Beautiful singing, yes, but “bel canto” set singers amazing vocal challenges, not merely for ostentatious show, but for the marriage of...
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Lyn Richards
Oct 25, 20235 min read
Liberty, descend again from heaven!
We’re leaping across Rossini’s prolific output to his final and 39th opera, so different from the scintillating comedy gems we've enjoyed...
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Lyn Richards
Oct 15, 20232 min read
The Visitors
Welcome to a world premiere, reflecting on the meeting of indigenous Australians with the European arrivals. We're starting our term with...
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Lyn Richards
Sep 11, 20235 min read
Unintelligible patter
Gilbert and Sullivan are usually credited with inventing the patter song in opera. They're certainly responsible for the classic...
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Lyn Richards
Aug 30, 20234 min read
Mozart can do no wrong
Yes, but what is it that women are the same as? Mozart's Cosi fan tutte has always been controversial, and more so more recently, for...
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Lyn Richards
Aug 13, 20234 min read
Comte de comedy
It’s not very subtle and not at all PC. It requires three brilliant bel canto voices from actors with a wicked amount of comic ability,...
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Lyn Richards
Aug 6, 20232 min read
Rossini's joke journey
Commissioned to write an opera to celebrate the crowning of a king (Charles X, in 1825), Rossini responded with a perky piece about a...
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Lyn Richards
Jul 23, 20234 min read
Beethoven's only opera
He started with a true rescue-opera story from the French Revolution, he blessed it with some of his most sublime music, then took a...
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Lyn Richards
Jul 18, 20234 min read
Rossini's laundry list
'Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind,' he was reputed to have remarked. And also, 'Give me a laundry list and I'll set it...
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Lyn Richards
Jun 22, 20232 min read
Favourite females in opera
Here's the program of choices for our end of term celebration of great female roles. We start with a tantrum - the Queen of the Night...
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Lyn Richards
Jun 13, 20236 min read
Lucia for our times
Donizetti wrote more than 70 works over a 30-year career, eight of them in three year period, composed one of his finest in 11 days and a...
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Lyn Richards
Jun 6, 20233 min read
Brünnhilde: Glorious Maiden
O hehrstes Wunder! Herrliches Maid! (Oh noblest miracle! Glorious maiden!) Thus sings Sieglinde to Brünnhilde, who has rescued her from...
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Lyn Richards
May 16, 20236 min read
"Eva in Paradise"
That's the punch line of the Prize Song that wins Eva in Wagner's late and only 'comic' opera, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1868). ...
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Lyn Richards
May 2, 20234 min read
Obsession and redemption
Wagner didn’t make this story up (unlike the stories of some of his operas) but it hadn’t yet developed into Pirates of the Caribbean. ...
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Lyn Richards
Apr 27, 20235 min read
Women in Opera
A joke about opera most commonly features a hollering, overweight Valkyrie in compulsory horned helmet. Later this term, we’ll turn to...
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Lyn Richards
Mar 30, 20235 min read
Members' Choices
As an end of term special, our U3A Opera Group is holding a concert of performances by singers chosen by our members. Here's the program...
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