El podcast de Yuleny Abarca

KHOL in Jackson WY is Opera for Everyone’s home radio station, and Wyoming’s only community radio station.  If you have ever wanted to support Opera for Everyone, please consider supporting KHOL at 891KHOL.org/donate . June 15 marks the beginning of KHOL’s summer membership drive. Thank you everyone!

“The course of true love never did run smooth.”  Shakespeare’s iconic "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" gives us some of the Bard’s most memorable (and ridiculous) characters and situations.  Benjamin Britten, together with his partner Peter Pears, so appreciated the merits of Shakespeare’s play that they faithfully adapted the script into a libretto for Britten’s 1960 opera of the same name. The good-n...

Was it only a dream? Baroque composer Henry Purcell was on his way to establishing a national operatic tradition based on the dramatic and musical traditions of the English, when, alas, his life was cut short after just 36 years.  Join us as we explore Purcell’s musically and emotionally rich “The Fairy Queen,” a delightful twist on the Bard’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Shakespeare was content t...

Where passion joins with music and poetry we find opera. In this sweet spot, we also find What We Need Is Here, the most recent project by accomplished musician and singer, Lisa Reagan. Lisa joins us to talk about creating an album of songs for classic poems that have been meaningful to her life. Lisa Reagan spent twenty years singing with the Washington National Opera and her first performance th...

Two things never go out of fashion: opera and mystery.  In this episode, mystery writer and former opera violinist Erica Miner talks with us about her opera mystery series and Lulu, Berg’s high-body-count melodrama.  Lulu, which features prominently in Erica’s new novel, centers on a beautiful young woman whose admirers descend into obsession.  Join us for a fascinating discussion of the nuts and...

In Amahl and the Night Visitors, a young boy and his mother unexpectedly play host to the Magi on their way to meet the infant Jesus.  Originally written for television, this opera uniquely bridges the ancient and modern in a heartfelt exploration of the meaning of hospitality. In the second half of this episode, we are joined by Grant to talk about the role of Epiphany in the Christmas story, and...

By turns funny, serious, and seriously funny, L’Italiana in Algeri is a fascinating assembly of romantic tropes: a spurned wife, a shipwrecked lover, a pirate king, and a daring escape.  At the same time, it deals with serious themes of agency, power, and silence.  Set in a world that is both alien and familiar, this opera has something to say to all of us. Guest co-host Emily Cohen, executive dir...

“The face that launched a thousand ships.” Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman in the world, has a problem.  Her husband plans to kill her, but she just wants him to fall in love with her again.  She may just need a miracle to pull it off, but if anyone can do it, she can.  Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal aimed for a light and comic operetta with Die Ägyptische Helena, but delivered...

One of the top ten most-performed operas in the world, Puccini’s Tosca is considered by some the greatest of operas.  A painter provides refuge for an escaped political prisoner, which begins a chain of events that starts with petty jealousy and ends in a death leap.  Things spiral further and further out of control in this epic confrontation of tyranny and passion, set in the tempestuous era of t...

Richard Wagner’s style is one of the most distinctive and recognizable in all of opera.  But Wagner wasn’t always the Wagner we’ve come to know. The earliest of Wagner’s operas to be performed in his lifetime was an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure,  Das Liebesverbot, where he is still developing his craft and working on his relationship to German opera.  The result is an opera whic...

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On today's episode of The Metropolitan Opera Guild Podcast, we have the last of three episodes exploring how the operatic canon is being expanded, featuring Guild lecturer Matthew Timmermans. In this final episode, he will dive into how the Met’s production of foreign works such as Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and Britten’s Peter Grimes have expanded the boundaries of the canon. This mar...

At once a sweeping story about humanity and a deeply personal look at a married couple with unfulfilled aspirations, Die Frau Ohne Schatten is often considered the magnum opus of the famed partnership between composer Richard Strauss and librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal.  Moving between lofty, other-worldly, and gritty settings, this opera simultaneously puzzles and inspires audiences.  Being huma...

Today, we have the second of three episodes exploring how the operatic canon is being expanded, featuring Guild lecturer Matthew Timmermans. In this episode, he will dive into star-studded revivals —looking at somewhat unknown operas that are often revived with all-star casts, such as Cherubini’s Medea and Giordano’s Fedora.

On today's episode of The Metropolitan Opera Guild Podcast, we have the first of three episodes exploring how the operatic canon is being expanded, featuring Guild lecturer Matthew Timmermans. In this first episode, he will dive into two new productions that have pushed the boundaries of the canon—Terence Blanchard’s Champion and Kevin Puts’s The Hours.

On today’s episode of The Metropolitan Opera Guild Podcast, we are delving into our archives to explore Die Zauberflöte with the late renowned music scholar Father Owen Lee. Die Zauberflöte is a sublime and magical fairytale full of mysticism, love, and humor. Listen to learn more about the opera’s fantastical drama and ethereal score.

One of history’s most infamous women, Lucrezia Borgia has inspired artists, dramatists, and TV show writers for centuries.  Donizetti’s opera follows the play by Victor Hugo, telling of Lucrezia’s effort to find the kind of love that might change her life.  However, it isn’t easy being a powerful woman in Renaissance Italy.  Gaetano Donizetti, a prolific composer in the Bel Canto style, gives us a...

On today's episode of The Metropolitan Opera Guild Podcast, we are joined by lecturer Phillip Gainsley as he explores the music and drama of Don Giovanni. Based on the legend of Don Juan, Mozart’s masterpiece has remained on the operatic stage since its premiere in 1787 and has gone on to become a cultural behemoth, inspiring playwrights such as Peter Shaffer and other composers such as Liszt and...

On today's episode of The Metropolitan Opera Guild Podcast, we are joined by lecturer Tanisha Mitchell as she discusses the music and real-life themes of Champion, an “opera in jazz.”

“Double, double toil and trouble.”  Composer Giuseppi Verdi enthusiastically declared that Shakespeare’s Macbeth “is one of the greatest creations of man!”  Harnessing this passionate admiration, he went on to craft the first of his three completed operas based on Shakespeare plays.  Verdi’s Macbeth is full of powerful choral pieces, arias from a royal couple lurching toward self-destruction, and...

On today's episode of The Metropolitan Opera Guild Podcast, we have the second of two episodes exploring the mythos and myths of Wagner’s male characters, featuring Guild lecturer Desiree Mays. In this second episode, she will continue to explore the ideas of myth and mythos and how they are presented in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Lohengrin.

One of the world’s most formidable generals and one of history’s most beguiling politicians are joined by two frustrated young men and an irresistible widow in Handel’s Baroque masterpiece, Giulio Cesare in Egitto.  Join Pat, Kathleen, and Grant for a journey through history, literature, and myth in exploring the influences and meaning of this enduring opera.   For more cultural and arts commentar...

Mythos, myth, legend and folk art were all topics that captivated Richard Wagner when he was no longer satisfied with realistic situations and the confines of time and space. On today's episode of The Metropolitan Opera Guild Podcast, we have the first of two episodes exploring the myth and mythos of Wagner’s male characters, featuring Guild lecturer Desiree Mays. In this first episode she will ex...

Lohengrin is a pivotal work in Wagner’s stylistic development, showcased by his tremendous ability to represent the psychology of his characters through music. Lohengrin returned to the Met stage this season, in a brand-new production by director François Girard, whose previous work includes the Met’s stunning production of Parsifal in 2013. On today's episode of The Metropolitan Opera Guild Podc...