Nabucco might have been Verdi's first success, but it was his third opera.  What were the first two like?  And how about the two that followed that success in 1842?  Let's explore the operas of Verdi, the early years.

San Diego Opera is producing the evergreen standard "La boheme" by Puccini, an opera that all opera lovers know and love.  But what about one of his lesser known works?  Not terribly long ago, I discovered "La Rondine" and realize what a get this opera is.  Let me introduce it to you so that you can come to love it as much as I do!

Maybe you haven't noticed, but recitative is treated differently in different  eras of opera history.  Earlier operas utilized harpsichord and other keyboard instruments to accompany recitative, later operas used the full orchestra.  But are operatic characters treated differently, even within the same opera?  Let's explore!

OK, I'm a sucker for gorgeous melodies, the perfumed atmosphere of lush orchestrations and over-the-top dramatic singing.  No, not Puccini...but Massenet!  He's one of my all time favorite opera composers, call it a guilty pleasure.  Let me introduce you to some music that you may not know from Massenet's output.

Impress your opera-loving friends with your newly found knowledge of one of the most exciting musical events in most standard repertory Italian operas and that even occasionally shows up in the French and German repertoire!  The Concertato…here it is.  Everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask.  Free of charge.

You may well wonder: was there such a thing as a German opera composer before Wagner?  His works so outshone every other German composer within his lifetime that we tend to forget about people like Weber, Spohr, Nicolai, Lortzing and Marschner.  Who??

Let's get familiar with the music from Gounod's Romeo and Juliet by exploring some of the great artists who essayed these roles in the past.  Does the name Eide Norena ring a bell?  Or Georges Thill?  both of them will become favorites of yours after you hear this!

Now here's a sample of wonderful music from operas that I'm sure you've either never seen or never WILL see!  You'll hear music by such diverse composers as Cilea, Catalani, Auber, Thomas and...Rossini.  Enjoy this excursion into the unknown.

Let's take a few minutes to listen to excerpts from our 2010 Season which feature the secondary principal singers, roles like Marcello, Ismaele, Mercutio and Germont.  You can have the greatest Rodolfo and Mimi in the world, but you'd better have a Marcello who can match them!

We're all looking forward to the debut of Piotr Beczala with San Diego Opera in the role of Rodolfo in La Boheme.  Let's review some of the great Rodolfos of the past, from Caruso to Wunderlich.

No, not your Aunt Abigail, or Abigail Adams, but Abigaille...ah-bee-gah-EE-leh...the power hungry, curtain chewing villainess in Verdi's Nabucco, one of our 2010 productions.  She's ruined many a voice, beginning with the very first lady who attempted the role.  Let's get to know her a bit and find out what it is that makes her so, well, difficult!

We've thrown this term around a lot in our podcast series.  It's time to define it and listen to some worthy examples from the operas of Richard Wagner.  It is summer, after all, with Ring festivals going on throughout the world!

If you think about it, there are a number of operas with gambling, gaming or card-playing scenes in them (and not just Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades!)  Have you ever noticed that those scenes have a remarkable similarity?  Let's start with La traviata and have some summer fun with gambling music!

Here's a singer who was the muse of Maria Callas, among many other great sopranos, who opened the San Francisco Opera's War Memorial Opera House and who was considered one of the great singers of her day.  Ever heard of her?  Probably not; so here she is.  Meet Clauda Muzio!

Love duets are a part of just about every opera in the standard repertory, so much so that we don’t think about them much.  We just luxuriate in their beautiful melodies.  But there’s always a reason for those ebbs and flows of passion.  Let’s explore some of the love duets in the early periods of opera history and see what makes them tick!

The most fascinating aspect of Verdi’s La traviata is that the story is based on true events in the life of a real, 19^th century French socialite, who had many aristocratic, well-connected and famous lovers, went through numerous fortunes and died of tuberculosis at the tender age of 23.  Who was this remarkable woman?  Listen to this week’s podcast to find out!

One of the more unusual aspects of Charles Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet is the fact that the tenor and soprano who sing the two title roles have four (count ‘em, FOUR) love duets!  Let’s take a look at these duets and see what the challenges are in them for the singers as well as for the audience.

Nabucco was Verdi’s third opera and his first true success.  But what was the measure of success in opera in 1840s Italy?  What were other composers doing at the time?  Who inspired Verdi?  Let’s explore this opera by placing it in the context of music and drama of that time.

We've covered Puccini's masterpiece La boheme in our 2010 Season Podcast; but let's take a closer look.  The composer's sense of drama and his complete mastery of the use of melody make this an unforgettable work.  Here's our Director of Education, Dr. Nicolas Reveles, to give you an insight into what makes this opera tick!

Dr. Nicolas Reveles surveys the great moments upcoming in San Diego Opera's 2010 Season from La Boheme, Nabucco, Romeo & Juliet and La Traviata.  Enjoy!

San Diego Opera is proud to announce its 2010 International Season: Puccini's La Boheme, Verdi's Nabucco, Gounod's Romeo and Juliet and Verdi's La Traviata.  Hear Dr. Nicolas Reveles discuss the season with exciting musical excerpts in this special, extended podcast!

Madama Butterfly opens this week, Saturday, May 9!  Nick Reveles previews the opera for you by playing all the great moments from the opera: Pinkerton's first aria, Butterfly's entrance, the great love duet from Act I and Butterfly's touching aria, "Un bel di vedremo".  Enjoy it as we get ready to open this fantastic production!

Puccini went to great lengths to get just the right exotic color for the score of his opera Madama Butterfly.  Take a listen to seven authentic Japanese folk tunes that he inserted in to the fabric of the score!

Are you ready?  Benjamin Britten's opera Peter Grimes opens this Saturday, April 18 at San Diego Opera.  Listen to this repeat of Nicolas Reveles' original podcast on the opera first uploaded last June.  It will get you in the perfect mood to enjoy and appreciate this magnificent opera.

And now for something completely different.  Here is a dramatic reading of the poem upon which Britten's opera, Peter Grimes, is based.  It is a section of the work "The Borough" by George Crabbe, an early nineteenth century poet from Suffolk on the east coast of England.  Note the difference between the Grimes of the poem, who is an outright villain, and the Grimes of the opera, an ambiguous character of whose guilt the audience is never really sure.  Enjoy this reading by Nick Reveles, Director of Education, underscored by music from the opera.

And now for your semi-annual Italian lesson: the word is 'tinta', and it means 'color'.  Now that you know what it means to us, let's discover what it meant to composer Giuseppe Verdi, especially with regards to our next production, Rigoletto, opening this week!

Here's a repeat of the popular June 23, 2008 podcast on Rigoletto, which opens next week on March 28.  Listen as Nick Reveles explores the reasons why this opera is a highlight in the operatic output of composer Giuseppe Verdi, and why we should flock to see it!

Verdi's Rigoletto didn't just spring from nothingness: there were a number of baritone roles in his earlier operas that foreshadowed this brilliant creation.  Here are examples of two of them from Ernani and Macbeth.  Enjoy!

As we look forward to San Diego Opera's production of Verdi's Rigoletto opening in March, let's take a quick tour of the operas that put Verdi on the operatic map!

Those of you with tickets to San Diego Opera's production of Massenet's Don Quixote are in for a real treat: it is a wonderful character study.  Let's dig in to the famous windmill scene and what makes it work musically, textually and dramatically. 

San Diego Opera is currently in rehearsal for Massenet's Don Quixote (Don Quichotte), and we're quickly realizing what a brilliant piece of music theatre it truly is.  Take a listen to this podcast and discover some of this opera's secrets!

Education Director Nick Reveles does a quick survey of great tenors from the past who have interpreted the role of Mario Cavaradossi in Tosca.  There's some great singing here!

For you newcomers out there, here's a list of ten ways to help you enjoy Puccini's masterpiece even more when you come to the Civic Theatre for a performance.  Developed from years of opera-going and a desire to know just a little more about an opera before I go.  I hope it helps!

Let's continue last week's discussion about musical 'characterization' and see how Britten and Puccini deal with defining characters through music.

Musical characterization is something that an opera composer does to distinguish operatic characters from each other, musical signals that tell us about their personalities.  Let's take a look at our first three season productions and try to find out how these composers tell the stories of the characters in their operas. 

Let’s explore further a topic that we discussed a few months back, inspired by a recent article in the New York Times by the eminent music critic Anthony Tommasini on the nature of bel canto.  Does this elusive Italian term describe a style of musical composition, especially in terms of melodic direction, or a composer’s sensitivity to words?  Or both?  You be the judge!

We all know that opera and dance have been intertwined since the beginning, and in France they were co-equal arts living in the same space.  But have you ever given thought to all of those moments in opera where dance actually moves the drama along, not a tacked on, pretty addition to the opera but an important part of the narrative?  Let's talk about it!