Janáček's strange selection of stories for operas is strangest in The Makropulos Case. No little foxes, this time, and no claustrophobic...

The story Another claustrophobic family in a claustrophobic village, and another opera about women - strong, scary women and vulnerable,...

Jenůfa was the first of a set of powerful operas that drove Janáček's reputation internationally, and the first of his great operas...

In Janáček’s words, Brouček is 'just an ordinary man; he swears at the world and spends his life with a jug of beer in his hand. There is...

Leoš Janáček , like his operas, is an enigma, a tangle of contradictions and complicated relationships, light and dark, sometimes very...

Candide is an operetta, arguably the last of the line - witty and gritty, theatrical, fastmoving (and dancing) and wonderfully,...

The end of the romantic operettas in America came, it's generally agreed, with Showboat . It took the step up from simple romantic plots...

The Student Prince is all about (privileged young men) rejoicing while they're young. "Gaudeamus igitur?" Nothing there about learning! ...

"Naughty Marietta" declared love, of course, as the mystery of life. But this truth is revealed in a plot that rivals most operas for...

"The Merry Widow" was the toast of the new century when the operetta premiered in Vienna on 30 December 1905. It's still undoubtedly the...

Thespis , Gilbert and Sullivan's first partnership operetta hit London in 1871. It was a less than complete effort and it's become more...

Die Fledermaus premiered in Vienna in 1874, in the year Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld hit Paris. Both were clearly operettas,...

Orpheus in the Underworld, by Offenbach, is usually called the first operetta - and it remains the only one to spoof both a Greek myth...

Winter warmers needed! What will the Opera Group do in winter term? What to view when it's too cold for sitting still for long, too dark...

"Most opera is grand, but not all operas are grand operas." Thus we move from Puccini and Adams to the grandest of the grand master,...

Countdown, to the world's annihilation? John Adams created an opera from a true story and the massive moral crisis of the scientist in...

“Girls of the Golden West,” titled to play on Puccini's opera, couldn't be more different. Here's a contrast that takes us not only to...

From the Romantic East to the Wild West - where else would Puccini go, after M. Butterfly? And he made the leap via another play by the...

Madama Butterfly is a problem for opera houses today, despite its immense and enduring popularity. How to handle this "nasty story about...

Beautiful music, for a shocking story. There’s a theme through Puccini’s operas of misuse of women, especially powerless women.  But...