The balcony scene of Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet includes Juliet telling Romeo: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose/By any other name would smell as sweet.” Names matter if they need ...

Each booklet contains the original libretto, along with commonly used variants, if any. In addition, pertinent biographical data, a summary of the plot, and explanatory notes are included. All text is ...

Strauss’s radiant Four Last Songs were first heard 76 years ago at the RAH, which makes each appearance just that bit more ...

Composed originally for a Vienna premiere in 1864 the present version of Les FÈes du Rhin, or Die Rheinnixen, was published in the last few years as part of the critical edition of the complete works ...

From the opening phrase declaimed on virtually a single pitch in Monteverdi’s “Io ch’armato sin hor” we are captured and simply have to hear what the next note will sound like, and the next, and the ...

The opera had a somewhat tortured genesis, with five librettists eventually having a hand in it, including composer Ruggiero Leoncavallo and Pucciniís team-of-the-future Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi ...

When, in the Prologue, the Dancing Master jokes that the commedia dell’arte troupe’s vaudeville would be better performed after the new opera that His Lordship has commissioned – because ...

Staged in conjunction with Joffrey Ballet Chicago, the production features both dance and singing. Since Oropesa sings with silver tones and moves as gracefully as a dancer, she is a natural for the ...

Yet the recently issued DVD of a 2006 production from Vienna demonstrates the power of this work onstage. With the excellent visual dimension, this recording differs from CDs in bringing forth the ...

Music composed by Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Cesare Sterbini after Pierre-Augustin Beaumarchais’ Le barbier de Séville and the libretto often attributed to Giuseppe Petrosellini for Giovanni ...

bewitched lovers, an orphan-turned-princess, a usurped prince, a jewel and ...

Just now San Francisco Opera has presented Arrigo Boito’s Mefistofele, in a 25 year old production by Canadian stage director Robert Carsen who was 34 years old at its premiere in Geneva in 1988.