Ossian = Homer?
Macpherson, Goethe, Werther and the rise of Romanticism "Pourquoi me réveiller, ô souffle de printemps", sung with such passion by...
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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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A little light music: Massenet’s Clair de Lune.
At the end of Act I, as Werther and Charlotte return from the dance, the orchestra plays a beautiful theme suggesting moonlight, the...
Massenet’s “Werther”: Love and Honour in the late Romantic
The bleak story is by Goethe (apparently autobiographical even to the name Charlotte, though the suicide was of a friend also hopelessly...
Telling it like an Italian: Puccini makes his entrance
Puccini’s publisher tried to stop him from adapting Abbé Prévost’s L’Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut because...
The many stories of Manon
The Abbé and the best seller from 1731 Abbé Prévost (only sometimes an Abbé) lived an amazingly varied life from 1697 to 1763. In many...
HÄNSEL UND GRETEL - Wagner’s shortest opera
Engelbert Humperdinck, (1854—1921), is a true turn-of-the -century mix of influences, and another one of those rare figures in music...
Dvorak's Rusalka "does not deal in trifles".
Fairy tale? Yes. And they all lived happily ever after? No. In fact a steady slide into horror, set running by one mad decision...
Pelléas et Mélisande - the symbolic revolution
Claude Debussy's only opera (1902) is often said to have changed opera forever (but didn't Massenet & Wagner & Mozart &...?) Here is a...
La commedia è finita!
There wasn’t much comedy in either of the usually paired, gritty verismo operas by young Italian composers Mascagni and Leoncavallo. ...
Cavalleria Rusticana - Sicilian realism
The New School Pietro Mascagni (Cavalleria Rusticana, 1890), Ruggero Leoncavallo (Pagliacci, 1892), Umberto Giordano (Andrea Chenier,...
Very verismo: Andrea Chénier
Our first turn of the century composer is Umberto Giordano, and our opera, his only one to survive in the repertoire, is Andrea Chénier....
Opera turning
What do Giordano , Debussy, Dvořák, Humperdinck, Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Janacek, Massenet and Puccini have in common? Yes, OK, they all...
The laughing genius of Vienna
No bats were harmed in the making of this opera. Indeed no bats figure – the title (Dei Fledermaus translates as The Bat) refers to a...
Brutal comedy - then and now
Gogol created the magnificently absurd story in 1835, satirizing the obsession with status in St Petersberg of the time, populating it...
A little bit of (very Russian) history
On Friday, we're rounding up the activities of the devil, the witch and the lovers in Tchaikovsky's 1887 opera Cherevichki from the story...
A thoroughly Ukrainian devil.
Tchaikovsky’s only comic opera, The Tsarina's Slippers (Cherevichki in Russian) is a very Russian folk tale, quirky, charming and...
Orpheus Offenbached
To get the most from this opera you need to know the Orpheus legend. Check out the main themes – incomparable musical ability, true...
Singing sweet satire
Happy 200th birthday, Jacques Offenbach (1819 – 1880)! Satire works brilliantly in opera. Offenbach used classical allusions to get at...
Refrain, audacious tar, your suit from pressing!
We have a G&S indulgence today, a (nearly) full opera relax - and discuss - with the splendid HMAS Pinafore. The Australian Opera...
The ultimately operatic comedy – the patter song
“This particularly rapid Unintelligible patter Isn’t generally heard And if it is it doesn’t matter!” Yes, it’s Gilbert and Sullivan, at...
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