opera

We’re turning to another opera that’s been forgotten although it was quite popular when it premiered in 1920 on this week’s Sunday Opera (6/15 3:00 p.m.), and as a bonus, it’s written in the Basque idiom. It’s Spanish composer Jesus Guridi’s “Amaya.” Guridi (1886 – 1961) played an important role as a Spanish / Basque composer who wrote operas and zarzuelas as well as orchestral, piano, choral, and organ works.

Victor Hugo’s novel “Angelo, the Tyrant of Padua” has been used for several operatic adaptations with Amilcare Ponchielli’s “La Gioconda” probably being the best known, but on this week’s Sunday Opera (6/8 3:00 p.m.), we’re looking at a different treatment by librettist Angelo Zanardini in Alfredo Catalani’s “Dejanice” which had its premiere in 1883.

It’s an afternoon of some “interesting” relationships on this week’s Sunday Opera (6/1 3:00 p.m.) with Ivar Hallstrom’s “Duke Magnus and the Mermaid” and Louis Spohr’s treatment of “Beauty and the Beast” (“Azore et Zamire”).

Giachino Rossini wrote 39 operas, and unfortunately, only a handful are regularly performed. However, we’re going to look at one of those lesser-known works (number 18 of the 39) on this week’s Sunday Opera (5/11 3:00 p.m.). it’s “Ricciardo e Zoraida” which premiered in Naples in 1818 and is considered by many to be a perfect example of bel canto singing.

Antal Dorati was best known as a conductor who led performances on over 700 recordings, but on this week’s Sunday Opera (5/4 3:00 p.m.), we’re going to look at Dorati the composer with his only opera, “Der Kunder” (“The Chosen”) and two more of his works.

We’re taking a look at two versions of the Orpheus legend that were written about 100 years but stylistically lightyears apart on this week’s Sunday Opera (4/27 3:00 p.m.) with Franz Joseph Haydn’s “L’anima del filosofo ossia Orfeo ed Euridice” and Jacque Offenbach’s “Orpheus in the Underworld.”

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov is the featured composer on this week’s Sunday Opera (4/13 3:00 p.m.) and his 1881 work based on a Russian folk legend. “The Snow Maiden” is an allegorical story dealing with the conflict of “eternal forces of nature” involving the interactions of humans, mythological characters, and those who are a combination of the two. It was said to have been Rimsky-Korsakov’s favorite opera.

Many don’t realize that Franz Joseph Haydn wrote operas because they all seemed to disappear when he died. However, on this week’s Sunday Opera (4/4 3:00 p.m.), we’ll hear one of them, number 11 of 13, in a lovely recording from 2009. “La fedleta premiata” (“Fidelity Rewarded”) was first performed in Hungary in 1781 to celebrating the reopening of the Eszterhaza theatre after it was destroyed by fire. The cast was reduced and most of the low comedy removed, and its new version was performed in 1782. It was a miracle of its day having been written for a “state-of-the-art” theatre that had the latest innovations in stage machinery which it fully used.

Families are wonderful things, until they’re not, and many of the most dysfunctional families have made to the stage. We’re looking at the beginnings of one of them on this week’s Sunday Opera (3/30 3:00 p.m.) with Gaetano Donizetti’s “Rosmonda D’ Inghilterra.”

Antonin Dvorak is the featured composer on this week’s Sunday Opera (3/23 3:00 p.m.), and it’s not “Rusalka”! Instead, we’re turning to his “pastoral comedy” entitled “Die Jakobiner” (“The Jacobin”). This intimate look at the relationship between a father and son which has been soured by false information and innuendo.