Introduction to Opera + Mozart, Marriage of F...

I'm always tickled by composer trivia questions, like which standard canon works begin in a major key and end in a minor key? I'll give you one, but please comment others below: Mendelssohn's 4th Symphony. Well, how about this one: how many of Beethoven's 16 string quartets end i ...  Show more

Brahms spent much of his adult life battling with his ambition to write the next great symphony and his terror at the shadow of Beethoven standing behind him. Brahms tortured himself for 14 years with his first symphony, and only published it when he was 49 years old. But when th ...  Show more

Today’s episode is drawn from a Talking about Opera excerpt, featuring Mozart's "Le Nozze di Figaro" with lecturer Bridget Paolucci. At the time this recording was made, Bridget was a frequent lecturer at the Met Opera Guild, New York City Opera, and regularly appeared on the Met ...  Show more

Ludwig van Beethoven's only opera Fidelio had a long and complicated compositional history. In fact, Beethoven went through three different versions of the opera during his lifetime. No other composition gave him such frustration. So much so that he never attempted to write an op ...  Show more

Escuchamos la ópera de uno de los compositores más grandes de todos los tiempos: Puccini. Con esta pieza pasó de un día para otro a convertirse en el sucesor de Verdi. Massenet ya había puesto música a esta historia pero Puccini la llevó a la italiana. Un relato que trata los ato ...  Show more

In a pre-performance lecture from our archives, stage director Jay Lesenger explores "Le nozze di Figaro," and the connections between Pierre Beaumarchais (who wrote the play on which the opera is based), Lorenzo Da Ponte (who wrote the libretto for the opera), and Mozart (who br ...  Show more