Opera – Neil Kurtzman

I’ll get the easy ones out of the way right now. Beethoven, Debussy, and Bartók. Each completed only one opera – Fidelio, Pelléas et Mélisande, and Bluebeard’s Castle, respectively. Fidelio gave Beethoven more trouble than any of his compositions. The opera went through three versions, in 1805, 1806, and 1814. After the final version he...

Paris was the center of Western Culture in the 19th century. It was for this reason that Italian composers were eager to write new works for the city’s major theaters. Many of the important composers of that era were fluent in French making the task of writing a “French” opera relatively easy. Here are four...

My subject is operas that are known almost entirely because of one hit aria. Without the tune, they would be virtually invisible. Below are 15 arias that I think fit the description just given. Catalani’s Ebben? Ne andrò lontana from the first act of La Wally is probably the supreme example of the one-aria opera....

The prelude to the beginning of an opera or to one of its acts differs from an overture in several ways. A prelude is usually, though not always, shorter. It is not a compendium of the work’s hit tunes. It tends to be less formal and more atmospheric. It typically runs directly into the action...

Jerome Hines was one of the towering figures of twentieth-century American opera – literally and artistically. Standing more than six and a half feet tall, with a sonorous bass voice of exceptional power and clarity, Hines enjoyed one of the longest and most distinguished careers in the history of the Metropolitan Opera. Yet he was...

I’ve previously written about both Renato Capecchi and Ford’s aria from Verdi’s Falstaff. But I came across some material that was so good that I decided to revisit both the baritone and the aria. In 1961, he appeared as Ford in a Naples production of Verdi’s valedictory opera. The cast was remarkable for its all-around...

I’ve been writing a lot about great baritones of the past century, while I’ve mentioned him a few times, this is the first post devoted exclusively to Tito Gobbi (1913-1984). A major figure of 20th-century opera, Gobbi combined vocal distinction with an acting ability rarely equaled among singers of any vocal category. His career, which...

There are several operas in which the organ has a prominent role. It is the reason that many major opera houses have organs built into their architecture. Examples include the Metropolitan Opera House, the Sydney Opera, the Vienna State Opera, the Palais Garnier, the Royal Opera House London, and the Rome Opera. Here are several...

I recently wrote that the title role in Verdi’s Otello was unique and so difficult to fully realize that it needed a tenor so gifted that the role might belong to a class of its own – The Otello Tenor. The role requires a tenor with the strength of an offensive tackle and the finesse...