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Opera Philadelphia brings fully staged opera back to the Academy of Music for the first time since September 2019 with four spring performances of Rigoletto. Tickets are on sale now. Long one of the most popular works in the operatic canon, Rigoletto features several well-known arias, including the instantly recognizable “La donna è mobile.” Verdi’...

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Florence is like the setting for a historical novel. The cast of characters that come and go through the ancient buildings and world-famous locations can sometimes read like a writer’s arbitrarily thrown together “who’s who” in order to support a story born of a wild imagination. The thing is, when it comes to Florence and her cross-sections of lif...

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Francesca Caccini was born on 18 September 1587 into a highly musical family. Her father, Giulio Caccini was a famed Italian Baroque composer, and her sister, Settimia Caccini, was a well-known singer during the 1600s. A musical virtuoso, Francesca was a singer, lutenist, and talented composer. For years, she was the highest paid musician in the Me...

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The premise seems simple: take a beloved, classic opera and perform it backward. But the execution, it turns out, offers an entirely new experience. Detroit Opera on April 2, 6 and 10 will present Giacomo Puccini’s “La Bohème” as it’s never been seen before — beginning with the final scene and working backward, ending with the first scene. It’s a c...

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Yes to the candidacy of the Italian art of opera as intangible heritage of humanity, no to that of Italian espresso coffee: this is the decision taken by the Italian Commission of UNESCO. So it will be the Italian opera singing to arrive to the Unesco Intergovernmental Committee for the 2023 cycle that will have to decide the new insertions in the...

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By pure coincidence, two American operas based on classic Italian novels had their premieres about five weeks apart. The Garden of the Finzi-Continis premiered in New York on January 27; The Leopard premiered in Miami on March 5. Having discussed the first opera elsewhere, I will concentrate on the second here — but they have a connection. Giuseppe...

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The Metropolitan Opera will broadcast Giuseppe Verdi’s Don Carlos, on Saturday, March 26 at USC Beaufort’s Center for the Arts at 801 Carteret Street. Note that the curtain is at 12 noon rather than the usual 1 p.m. Many of you may be wondering if I haven’t misspelled the title. Shouldn’t it be Don Carlo? This is because the opera originally premie...

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When it comes to tragic opera and heart-wrenching arias, it has to be Giacomo Puccini. Young Giacomo was born in Lucca, Italy in 1858, into a family of musicians and composers. On seeing his first opera, Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida, a 15-year-old Puccini said he “felt a musical window had opened”. Now widely considered the ‘heir’ of Verdi, Puccini is kno...

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Scientists aren't the only professionals concerned about the health of the planet these days. Opera star Joyce DiDonato, on her new album Eden, proposes that Mother Nature has a lot to teach us, if we'd only pay attention. The music of Eden asks more questions than it answers — beginning with the opening track, The Unanswered Question, a mystical o...

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Fans of opera will have the chance to see a performance of Puccini's Tosca in Salt Lake City during March 2022. The venue for Puccini's Tosca will be the beautiful and historic Capitol Theatre in downtown Salt Lake City located at 50 West 200 South. Parking is available close by. Scheduled performances will be held on Saturday, March 12, at 7:30 PM...

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