What else is on? (Week beginning Monday 1st June...)
Have you tried OperaVision? For something different… as Limelight tells us, it’s time to explore this amazing EU opera project. This...
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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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Moby Dick - a whale of an opera
It’s a story for our times – read Paul Daley’s reflections on Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick or The Whale. But if you don’t have enough...
Mozart Can Do No Wrong
This week is Mozart week. Mozart can do no wrong (This is a quotation from one of our members, during a debate about the misogyny of...
O brave new world
In the wonderful wide world of COVID-crisis free opera streaming, opera companies are joining in every week. Our very own Opera Australia...
Nostalgia at the Met
This week's free livestreamings from the Met Opera bring us three historic performances. And lots of slightly more recent ones - but...
Those Tudor Queens
It's the week for the Queens at the Met. Donizetti fed the European fascination with English royal tragedy, embellishing the real...
What a week of opera!
Livestreaming from the Metropolitan Opera in New York this week offers an amazing array of works, and an impossible choice. So this post...
Pursuing Puccini
For those of us who had proudly embarked on a long-promised Puccini term, now rudely interrupted by COVID19, this week brings two late...
Brava Anna!
One of the pleasures of our opera course is tracking the development of a singer. Here's your chance! The Met Opera’s live streaming this...
Bizet’s other opera
Tonight’s the night for the lyrical, sweet music that plummeted Bizet to success. Click here for the Met Opera free livestream. He was...
What, a week of Wagner?
What a week to view the greatest operatic saga of the end of the gods and redemption of the world! If that's your choice, here is the...
Streaming opera - we've never had it so good!
Arts organisations around the world are possibly the hardest hit by lockdown restrictions, and many may not survive. Like our beloved...
Time on your hands? Tackle Wagner!!
For those who’ve joined us recently, there’s an elephant in our U3A room – Richard Wagner. Every composer we discuss owed to him a new...
La Bohème - Romantic tragedy, or...?
This is maybe the most staged opera ever, billed as "the romance of the original bohemian love story" by Opera Australia for their 2020...
The Baritone's the Baddie
There are some likeable baritone roles in opera (think Pappageno and Dandini) but there are a lot more twisted and conflicted characters...
Tosca - "a story of cheating and doubt"
In this most Realist of all operas, nothing is real. Baron Scarpia, the powerful chief of Roman police, lies to singer Floria Tosca in...
Puccini - the end of the golden age
Opera-goers often see Verdi and Puccini as the twin peaks of romantic opera. The top of the operatic pops are household names and...
A Year of Laughter and Tears
2019 in our U3A opera course Opera Australia has a slogan "Life Magnified". How much have we seen magnified in the last year - tears from...
"Nothing is true but life and the love of human beings." Massenet tackles Thaïs
What a let-down for an opera – these days most opera enthusiasts wouldn’t have seen Thaïs or know its plot – but they could all hum the...
The Stepchild of Cinderella Operas
It’s rarely performed, and “Massenet’s flawed yet astonishingly beautiful opera” (Guardian) is always compared with Rossini’s version....
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