Opera For Everyone

Richard Wagner’s first truly successful opera, set in medieval Rome, sees a young nobleman in love with a young plebeian woman.  While this might sound like it’s going to be an operatic love story, it’s quite a different thing entirely: Grand Opera, Wagner-style.  Based on a controversial and visionary historical figure who became a footnote, but aspired to change the face of history, it has soaring music, but this opera is less concerned with romance than the fortunes of a leader trying to accumulate power in order to bring peace and equality to his people.   Hosted by Pat, Kathleen, and Grant   For more cultural and arts commentary by Kathleen Van De Wille, visit Constructive Criticism on Substack.

Mac the Knife, terror of the London criminal underworld, is a character paradoxically best known to many as the subject of the upbeat, bubbly eponymous 1955, 1959, and 1960 hit single.  However, his fictional roots go much deeper, to a nearly 300-year old opera called The Beggar’s Opera.  From here, Mac’s trail led to 1928’s The Threepenny Opera, by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, that is the subject of today’s episode.  Join Pat and guest Maria Coulter for a conversation about this opera, which is as atypical as it was popular. A classically trained soprano, Maria is able to provide special insights, having performed the role of Lucy Brown in 2022.

Can an opera, that most complex of art forms, take you back to childhood?  Unlikely though it might seem, L’Enfant et les Sortilèges (“The Child and the Enchantments”) does just that through the talents of composer Maurice Ravel and writer Colette.  This one-act opera, fantastical though it is, can transport you to all-too-real, seemingly lost memories.  Over the course of the story, our nameless child protagonist wrestles with his powerlessness and power, responsibility and dependence, piteousness and pity.  Join host Pat with Erica Miner, the mystery writer, lecturer and former Met Opera violinist, in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the birth of French composer Maurice Ravel on this episode of Opera for Everyone. For more on Erica Miner, visit ericaminer.com

Which is stronger: the temptations of a shadowy wish-granter, or the love of a virtuous woman?  In The Rake’s Progress, Tom’s true love Anne seeks to save him from himself, seeking to unwind the schemes of the literal devil.  Yet when the dust settles, it is hard to say who has triumphed… Tom is saved, but it is a messy and piteous sort of salvation. In the only full opera composed by Igor Stravinsky, powerful supernatural elements are key to the drama, but the characters–archetypal in many respects–become believable individuals given full life by Stravinsky’s shimmering, evocative, and powerful music. Hosted by Pat and Kathleen For more cultural and arts commentary by Kathleen Van De Wille, visit Constructive Criticism on Substack.

King Arthur stands astride the intersection of history, myth, legend, and politics.  In every age of the history of Britain, he is reinterpreted for new audiences and new purposes.  When composer Henry Purcell and poet-librettist John Dryden set out to write their opera about Arthur, they did so following a century in which England had seen monarchs rise, fall, be beheaded, exiled, returned in triumph, and driven out in disgrace.  King Arthur takes place not in Camelot, but in a world of clashing cultures and ideals.  Arthur finds his Britons beset by Saxon invaders, but after his victory, he is able to lead as both peoples transition from fighting one another, to become a stronger people together. Join us for a close look at this fascinating work or art, and enjoy (in English, of course!) Dryden’s poetry and Purcell’s rich and tuneful music. Hosted by Pat with guest co-host Gerald Malone. Gerald Malone’s website, TheRestIsOpera.com is brimming with commentary on opera productions that he has seen around the world, and “scuttlebutt” about opera from a suspiciously well-informed little dog. Gerald Malone is also the Opera Critic of ReactionLife, a UK-based online current affairs and cultural publication.