Guglielmo Tell: Melodramma tragico in four acts
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
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
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.
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.
Fidelio, an opera in two acts
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, melodramma in quattro parti.
Music composed by Giuseppe Verdi. Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play by William Shakespeare.
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.
Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor (The Merry Wives of Windsor), a comical-fantastical opera in three acts with dance.
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
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 (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.
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!"
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.
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
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.
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]
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.
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.
Werther: Drame lyrique en 4 actes et 5 tableaux
Music composed by Jules Massenet. Libretto by Edouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann based on Die Leiden des jungen Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Streaming Audio
First performance: 16 February 1892 at the Hofoper, Vienna.
Principal characters
| Werther, 23-years old | Tenor |
| Albert, 25-years old | Baritone |
| Le Bailli, 50-years old | Baritone or bass |
| Schmidt, friend of Bailli | Tenor |
| Johann, friend of Bailli | Baritone or bass |
| Brühlmann, young man | Tenor |
| Charlotte, daugher of Bailli, 20-years old | Mezzo-soprano |
| Sophie, her sister, 15-years old | Soprano |
| Kätchen, young girl | Soprano |
| Six children: Fritz, Max, Hans, Karl, Gretel, Clara | Soprani or children’s voices |
Synopsis
Act I
On the outskirts of Frankfurt, July 178_.
On the terrace of the house of the bailiff, children are practicing Christmas carols. Sophie, the bailiff’s fifteen-year-old daughter, looks on while her older sister, Charlotte, prepares for a party. The guests arrive. Among them is the young dreamer Werther (“Je of it sais him je veille”), whom the bailiff introduces to Charlotte. While all are at the dance, Sophie is at home alone when Albert, who is engaged to Charlotte, returns from a long trip. He is greatly disturbed that Charlotte has gone to a dance with another. But Sophie reassures him — his beloved has always thought of him (“Elle me aime”). The two depart, whereupon Werther and Charlotte reenter. Werther declares to her his love, but Charlotte tells him of her promise to her dying mother to marry Albert. Werther, although desperate, doesn’t oppose (“The faut nous séparer”).
Act II
The following September in the plaza of Wetzlar.
Albert and Charlotte have been married for three months and their friends toast their union. The unhappy Werther attends. Sophie arrives, who is in love with Werther, asks him to dance; but the invitation is rejected. Werther wants to talk to Charlotte. He approaches her to declare his love once more. But she responds by recommending that he leave for a few months and return on Christmas. Werther begins to think that only death can free him from his unhappiness. He again refuses Sophie’s invitation to the dance.
Act III
Christmas Eve in the living room of Albert’s house.
Charlotte is uneasy as she rereads a letter of Werther. Sophie asks her if she were sad because of the absence of Werther (“Je vous écris”). Charlotte begins to weep. Werther arrives. While he is reading her some verses of Ossian, he kisses her. They embrace, but Charlotte then runs away confining herself in a room (“Pourquoi me réveiller”). Werther leaves the house. He now knows that there is no happiness for him. Shortly thereafter he sends a note to Albert to ask him to loan him his pistols to take with him on a trip. Charlotte realizes the truth and hurries to Werther’s home.
Act IV
It is Christmas night.
Werther lies dying in his study. Upon hearing the voice of Charlotte, he is revived for an instant. He asks for forgiveness and for a proper burial (“Là-bas, au fond du cimitière”). He dies in Charlotte’s arms as she confesses the truth — she has always loved him. She expresses her regret at having sacrificed her own true feelings to an oath. Children are heard from afar singing Christmas carols.