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Tuning in to Opera

A course exploring, enjoying and discussing opera at U3A Nillumbik, Melbourne, conducted by Lyn and Tom Richards

Welcome to Tuning in to Opera. Our group meets on Fridays in U3A terms at the Old Eltham Courthouse. This blog offers information about the operas and composers we study - and links to lots more materials about them including live performances.

Contact U3A Nillumbik to join the course (right now there's a waiting list!)

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Black History at the Met

February is Black History Month - in the US since the Civil Rights movement of the 60s, and lately in Canada, UK and other countries. ...

Redemption rules!

In Wagner's operas redemption recurs as a grand and triumphal core. Nietzsche commented nastily. “Somebody or other always wants to be...

Careful what you wish for!

Operas abound about women demanding to know who this bloke really is, but Semele's punishment was particularly harsh. She was the only...

Romance for a week

Turn off the news and relax with some of opera's best romantic departures from reality. this week, Romeo and Juliette star at San...

Drama queens

Epic rivalries at the Met this week - and it's all about the women. Tuesday, January 5 Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur Starring Anna...

The Pavarotti phenomenon

Luciana Pavarotti was possibly the most popular opera singer in the postwar years. With his brilliant tenor voice and famous smile, he...

Felice opera festiva

Here's to happy opera! Happy for the end of this challenging year, and for the festive season. Celebrate, among other things, the...

Operatic Epics

Ending an epic year, the Met is screening epics, and in Met style of old, they are not light or nifty. But there's some great myths and...

Why can't the English?

... create operas? Well they can, but it's rare for English operas to be featured, and rarer for an opera company, especially an...

Tuning in to 2020 [working title]

‘We won’t keep quiet,’ says the promotional material from Dutch National Opera for the original piece they produced and performed when...

Orpheus in the Modern World

It was (arguably) the first opera - as we know opera. Monteverdi's L'Orfeo (1607) shifted music drama from 'intermedio' - music between...

Maestro At The Met...

Q. What's the difference between a conductor and God? ... A. God doesn't think he's a conductor. Yannick Nézet-Séguin was named the...

Laughs from the Covid Spring

Dealing with pandemic shutdown requires a particular sort of humour. Try a Finnish sense of humour. The Finnish National Opera, forced...

Opera History Tour in Two Weeks!

It’s a cultural virtual tour - if it’s Tuesday it must be Tchaikovsky? The Met has dealt with its unremitting task of livestreaming an...

The Only Game in Town!

(By Tom) What is? Politics of course! If you didn’t know that, you haven’t been living on this planet for the last four years. And as its...

A time to laugh

The Met, with fine attention to current affairs, is giving us a week (in our dates, Oct 20-27) of Operatic Comedies – and the two gems...

Dazzling Donizetti

Romantic musical melodrama can be comic or tragic - and both blossom with bel canto. Donizetti proved it, and his gems are screening at...

Ending the World with Wagner

"Wagner has beautiful moments, but awful quarters of an hour," Rossini remarked. Many of both sorts are coming up this week. In the world...

Many Moods of Mozart

It's a Mozart Week at the Met - on the 29th week of their free live streamings. Note: with daylight saving in Melbourne, times for Met...

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