by neilhowson | Aug 30, 2019 | Opera Garden
Operas are full of roses, and Opera Garden explores a number of them, since no garden is complete without roses. The rose which is the subject of this article comes from a little-known opera by Umberto Giordano. Giordano is best known for his two great operas Andrea...
by neilhowson | Aug 30, 2019 | Opera Garden
Carl Maria von Weber’s opera Euryanthe is a tale of knightly love, jealousy, villainy and eventual happiness for the lovers. After the success of his opera Der Freischütz, Weber was asked in 1821 by Domenico Barbaia (the same man who had launched Rossini in Naples...
by neilhowson | Aug 30, 2019 | Opera Garden
One of the most beautiful depictions of sunrise in all music forms is the introduction to Mascagni’s opera Iris(pronounced in the Italian way, as ‘ee-ris’ rather that the English way). The libretto for this lovely opera, by Luigi Illica, contains a description of this...
by neilhowson | Aug 30, 2019 | Opera Garden
In the third act of Umberto Giordano’s opera Fedora, when the young Countess Olga and the French diplomat de Siriex are catching up on the gossip, he asks her what has happened to her Polish protégé and lover, the piano virtuoso Boleslao Lazinski, the nephew of...
by neilhowson | Aug 30, 2019 | Opera Garden
Both Rossini’s Otello and the opera by Verdi which supplanted it after seventy years of dominance of the operatic stage have a Willow Song, a beautiful aria for Desdemona just before she meets her sad demise. But there is more to this particular willow than meets the...
