The portrait of George Gershwin’s aria SUMMERTIME
Read Interesting facts and hear great YouTube Videos about the famous Aria “SUMMERTIME“.
Online opera guide and synopsis to Mussorgsky’s BORIS GODUNOV
With Boris Godunov, Mussorgsky wrote a unique opera, a monolith of opera history. The most Russian of all operas inspires with great music and most fascinating scenes. Many of his musical ideas became decades later the inspiration for a new generation of artists.
Online opera guide and synopsis to Verdi’s SIMON BOCCANEGRA
With the leading role of Simon Boccanegra, Verdi has written a grandiose role portrait. The somewhat convoluted plot offered the composer room for great scenes. Like Macbeth, Simon Boccanegra is undoubtedly a masterpiece, but nevertheless remains an opera for the connoisseur.
Online opera guide and synopsis to Strauss’ ELEKTRA
Few operas can evoke such storms of applause at the end of a performance as Elektra. Its music and its leading role is unique in opera literature, and Strauss, the great tone painter, was able to go to the limits of his time with this music.
Online opera guide and synopsis to Donizetti’s LA FILLE DU REGIMENT
“La fille de régiment” is a firework of voices and calls for two great interpreters of the leading roles. The female lead role of Marie requires a great voice with that of an extraordinary theatrical personality, and the male lead requires the tenoral tour de force of the 9 high C’s of “Pour mon ame”.
Online opera guide & synopsis to Wagner’s RING OF THE NIBELUNG
The Ring of the Nibelung is a total work of art on a par with works of world literature such as Homer’s Iliad or Dante’s Divina commedia. It is astonishing how homogeneous this work appears to us, which was created over a period of 25 years and in a complex process of development.
Online opera guide & synopsis to Wagner’s TWILIGHT OF GODS
The Ring of the Nibelung is a total work of art on a par with works of world literature such as Homer’s Iliad or Dante’s Divina commedia. It is astonishing how homogeneous this work appears to us, which was created over a period of 25 years and in a complex process of development. Twilight of Gods (Götterdämmerung) is an opera with grandiose images and concludes this work with a gigantic finale.
Online opera guide and synopsis to Wagner’s SIEGFRIED
The Ring of the Nibelung is a total work of art on a par with works of world literature such as Homer’s Iliad or Dante’s Divina commedia. It is astonishing how homogeneous this work appears to us, which was created over a period of 25 years and in a complex process of development. “Siegfried” is a huge heroic epic about a revolutionary. It ends with one of the great love apotheoses of the opera genre.
Online opera guide & synopsis to Wagner’s RHINEGOLD
With “Rheingold,” Wagner depicts the worlds of the Rhinemaidens and the gods, the underworld of the Nibelungs and Valhalla Castle with masterful musical means. After a composer’s block of almost six years, the 40-year-old’s creativity exploded and he composed this colorful world within six months. It is inconceivable that the “Rheingold”, when it was heard for the first time 23 years later in the context of a Ring performance in Bayreuth, still convinced as a visionary work.
Online opera guide and synopsis to Verdi’s MACBETH
If the success of an opera were determined by its greatness, Macbeth would be at the forefront of the opera-goers’ favour. Perhaps it is the lack of a love story (Italians call Verdi’s Macbeth “l’opera senza amore”) that stands in the way of the popularity of this work. It cannot be the music. The work has no weak minute and captivates the listener from the beginning to the end. It is musically and artistically on a par with Verdi’s two other Shakespeare works, Otello and Falstaff.
