06 Dec 2007
SACCHINI: Oedipe à Colone
Oedipe à Colone: Tragédie lyrique in three acts.
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ROSSINI: Guglielmo Tell — Rome 1954
Guglielmo Tell: Melodramma tragico in four acts
BOITO: Mefistofele
Mefistofele, Opera in un prologo, quattro atti e un epilogo
Music and libretto by Arrigo Boito (1842-1918), based on Faust: Eine Tragödie by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
VERDI: La Forza del Destino
La Forza del Destino, a melodramma in quattro atti
Music composed by Giuseppe Verdi. Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave based on the drama Don Alvaro o La fuerza del sino by Angel Perez de Saavedra
FLOTOW: Martha — Berlin 1944
Martha, an opera in four acts.
Music composed by Friedrich von Flotow. Libretto by Wilhelm Friedrich.
First performance: 25 November 1847 at Theater an der Wien, Vienna.
PERGOLESI: La serva padrona
La serva padrona, intermezzo in two parts
Music composed by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. Libretto by Gennar'antonio Frederico.
First performance: 28 August 1733, Teatro San Bartolomeo, Naples.
BEETHOVEN: Fidelio — Munich 1978
Fidelio, an opera in two acts
Maria Callas Performs Lady Macbeth
Here we offer three selections from Macbeth with Maria Callas performing the role of Lady Macbeth. These are from a live performance given on 7 December 1952 at La Scala. Victor de Sabata conducts the Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala, Milano.
VERDI: Macbeth
VERDI: Macbeth, melodramma in quattro parti.
Music composed by Giuseppe Verdi. Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play by William Shakespeare.
STRAUSS: Die Fledermaus
Music composed by Johann Strauss II.
Libretto by Richard Genée based on Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy/Karl Haffner.
First performance: 5 April 1874 at the Theater an der Wien, Vienna.
NICOLAI: Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor (The Merry Wives of Windsor)
Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor (The Merry Wives of Windsor), a comical-fantastical opera in three acts with dance.
GIORDANO: Fedora
Fedora, a melodrama in three acts.
Umberto Giordano, composer. Arturo Colautti, librettist, based on the play with the same name by Victorien Sardou
First performance: 17 November 1898 at Teatro Lirico Internazionale, Milan
PUCCINI: Tosca
Tosca, a melodrama in three acts
Giacomo Puccini, composer. Libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on the play La Tosca by Victorien Sardou.
First performance: 14 January 1900 at Teatro Costanzi, Rome
Victorien Sardou — A Tale of Two Operas
Victorien Sardou (1831-1908) was a popular French dramatist during the later half of the 19th Century. He, along with Eugène Scribe, combined melodrama and realism to a produce a more serious form of drama that emphasized careful plot construction.
The twists and trysts of Tosca
A few years ago, I had the rare experience of attending a performance of Tosca in a small farm community where opera was a fairly new commodity. After the second act ended, with Scarpia's corpse lying center stage, I happened to overhear a young, wide-eyed woman say to her companion, "I knew she was upset, but I didn't think she'd KILL him!"
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Mozart and Salieri
Mozart and Salieri, an opera in one act consisting of two scenes.
Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908), composer. Libretto derived from Alexander Puskhin's play of the same name.
First performance: 7 December 1898 in Moscow.
MUSSORGSKY: Boris Godunov
Boris Godunov, an opera in four acts with prologue
Modest Mussorgsky, composer. Libretto by the composer, based on Alexander Pushkin's drama Boris Godunov and Nikolai Karamazin's History of the Russian Empire
First performance: 8 February 1874 at the Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg
TCHAIKOVSKY: Eugene Onegin
Eugene Onegin, lyrical scenes in three acts and seven tableaux.
Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky, composer. Libretto by the composer, based on the verse novel by Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin.
First performance: 29 March 1879 at the Maliy Theatre, Moscow.
The Operatic Pushkin
Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin (1799-1837) is generally considered Russia’s greatest poet. According to Andrew Kahn, his contemporaries held him “above all the master of the lyric poem, verse that is famous for its formal perfection and its reticent lyric persona, and infamous for its resistance to translation.” [Alexander Pushkin, The Queen of Spades and Other Stories, trans. Alan Myers, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997]
TCHAIKOVSKY: The Queen of Spades
The Queen of Spades (Pique Dame), an opera in three acts.
Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky, composer. Modest Tchaikovsky and composer, librettists.
First performance: 19 December 1890 at the Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg.
PUCCINI: Manon Lescaut
Manon Lescaut, dramma lirico in quattro atti
Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924), composer. Luigi Illica and Domenico Oliva, librettists.
First performance: 1 February 1893 at Teatro Regio, Turin.
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Music composed by Antonio Sacchini. Libretto by Nicolas-François Guillard after Sophocles.
First Performance: 4 January 1786, Versailles
Principal Characters: |
||
| Antigone | Soprano | |
| Polynice | Tenor | |
| Thésée | Tenor | |
| Oedipe | Baritone | |
| Eriphile | Soprano | |
| Le grand prêtre, the High Priest | Bass-Baritone | |
| Une athénienne, an Athenian woman | Soprano |
Setting: The grove of the Furies at Colonus
Synopsis of the play:
Blind, old Oedipus, a former king of Thebes, wanders for many years guided by his daughter, Antigone. Although once successful as a ruler, he was exiled after the gods sent sickness to the city because Oedipus had killed his father Laius, the prior king, and he commited incest with his mother, Iocasta, after he becoming king of Thebes. Now he and Antigone end their journey near the Greek city-state of Athens at a place called Colonus. There, Oedipus offends the Eumenides -- goddesses of the underworld -- and he must make offerings later to avoid punishment. His youngest daughter, Ismene, joins them at Colonus, bearing news from Thebes that her brothers are fighting over the kingship and that the younger Eteocles exiled his older brother Polyneices from the city.
Oedipus is stunned to hear this, but she also reveals the oracle's prediction that the each of the sons will soon seek Oedipus' support to win the battle for the throne. Disgusted, he refuses to help either of them because Theban citizens had treated him so poorly before. He asks for the help of Theseus, King of Athens, to protect him and his daughters, and the wise king agrees. Later, Creon, Iocasta's brother, finds Oedipus at Colonus and kidnaps his daughters to force Oedipus to return to Thebes, so that the younger Eteocles can win the war. Thankfully, Theseus comes to the rescue by retrieving the two girls and sending Creon back to Thebes empty-handed. Next, the exiled older son Polyneices comes seeking Oedipus' support, yet the old man is angered at his son's request and condemns both of his sons to death because they are so selfish.
After praising the Athenians for their kindness, thunder in the sky summons Oedipus into the wilderness to die. Accompanied by his children and King Theseus, he walks off toward death, declaring that Athens will forever be protected by the gods as long as Theseus does not reveal the location of his grave to anyone. Oedipus thus dies after a long life filled with suffering that is cured only by forgiveness and acknowledging the supremity of the gods. Because of his return to faith, he is absolved from the crimes he committed so many years before. After their father's death, Antigone and Ismene return to Thebes, hoping to prevent the deaths of their two brothers that Oedipus had predicted.