Essays on Opera

Shakespeare and Opera, by the author Gary Schmidgall does not propose to be a study of musical reworking’s of Shakespeare. The author, proposes, in his own words, ‘to explore at length and in detail the shared characteristics of Shakespearean and operatic drama.’ In the opening…

Caterina Ruini Galli was an Italian mezzo-soprano who rose to fame during the period between 1742 and 1754, which we can consider as her early London career. Little is known of her previous life before her operatic debut on the London Stage as the first…

For this essay, I have chosen the opera Carmen written by Georges Bizet. The opera was first performed on March 3rd, 1875 at the Opera-Comique in Paris. The opera has a four-act structure and is ultimately about love and tragedy. At first, audiences didn’t care…

Compared to opera fanatics where the common patterns of those dedicated live alone and have difficulties with balancing opera going with relationships or family, a majority of them being middle class. Many of their encounters with opera have an intense emotional experience which builds their…

According to playbill.com, The Phantom of the Opera is the longest running Broadway show with 12,742 performances as of September 14, 2018. With this in mind, one can infer that people enjoy a well written musical from all over the globe. Though, some have arguably…

Monteverdi wrote, “Let the word be the master of the melody, not its slave.” The debate over the relative importance of words and music has continued for hundreds of years. Which do you think is more important in opera: Words or Music? What does opera…

The Magic Flute I recently saw The Magic Flute, which was performed by Opera Coeur d’ Alene. It was written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The play was performed at North Idaho College’s Schuler Auditorium in Boswell Hall in Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho. I attended it…

The Seraglio: An Opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail also known, as the Seraglio is an opera of three acts in ‘singspiel’. It was written by, none other than, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the 19th century. A singspiel, which means “song play”, is a form…

“Lord, to thee each night and day” was written in the Baroque era by George Frideric Handel as part of his work, Theodora. The Baroque era is classified as the years 1600-1750; following the Renaissance and leading to the Classical period. The era is often…

The History of Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Il barbiere di Siviglia by Gioacchino Rossini Don Giovanni premiered in Prague, the national capitol of the Czech Republic. Wolfgang Amadues Mozart declared his dedication to write the opera during the exuberant opera season of…

The opera Gianni Schicchi is an entertaining musical drama in the form of a solitary act by Italian composer Giacomo Puccini. The writer’s solitary comical opera, it contains the outstanding soprano aria “O mio babbino caro” (“Oh My Dear Father”). The work debuted at New…