Society Bytes Radio

OFA 51 I Lombardi. (Italians in the first Crusade.) A complicated plot with many conspiracies, leading to final redemption. Good arias (it is by Verdi after all) ,rousing choruses and marches with a stage band. The chorus "O Signore, dal tetto natio" is deservedly popular.

"In Donizetti's opera, Lucrezia follows a young man, while her husband spies on her and eventually kills him, without realizing the young man was Lucrezia's son"

Verdi's Otello Shakespeare's tragedy set to music equal to words. One of opera's great love duets and Desdemona's Ave Maria are among the highlights.

Vincenzo Bellini's Norma is considered to be the most taxing roles in the soprano repertoire, lending satisfaction and prestige to those who achieved its rendition. In the 1950's, the role of Norma was the calling card of the great soprano MARIA CALLAS, followed by the interpretation of others like Joan Sutherland, Monserrat Caballe, Beverly Sills and others more recently.

Franz Lehar: The Merry Widow. An operetta about a rich widow who wants to rekindle an old love affair with a handsome guards officer. After the usually bumps in the road, love conquers all against a background of some very familiar waltzes and the guardsman/s famous salute to all dancing girls at Maxim's cafe.

"In Verdi's Ernani, the beautiful Elvira is being forced to marry her uncle, but she loves Ernani. The plot thickens when Carlo, the King of Spain is also in love with her."

Idomeneo. Mozart's first mature opera about the travails of a Greek ruler who Neptune saves in a storm at sea. In exchange the God demands the sacrifice of the first person he encounters upon landing who turns out to be his son. Performed in English.

Opera for all presents the splendor of Viena and its waltzes with the opera DER ROSENKAVALIER, {The night of the Rose} by Richard STRAUSS

A mysterious stranger must answer three riddles to win the Princess of China in marriage. Should he fail, the penalty is death. Puccini's last opera, featuring the famous aria Nessun Dorma,Luciano Pavarotti's calling-card.

XAVIER MONTSALVAGE'S opera EL GATO CON BOTAS, in English PUSS'N BOOTS is a delightful children's opera based in the famous children book.

The Golden Cockerel. A satire about a stupid Czar and his downfall. Filled with gorgeous Rimsky-Korsakov oriental music, like his Scherhazade. Highlights include a famous coloratura aria (Hymn to the Sun) and a scary wedding march.

In Massenet's opera "THAIS", the monk Athanael tries to convert the courtesan Thais. While she repents her sinful life and accepts God in the famous "Meditation", Athanael sinfully begins to lust for her."

Two officers are engaged to two sisters. The boys take a bet that their fiancées will remain faithful. They pretend to leave on assignment, assume disguises and pay court to each other's intended. Will the girls give in? Performed in English, you maybe surprised and even disturbed by the outcome, but Mozart's music is hard to resist

Rossini's comic opera "L'Italiana in Algieri" presents Isabella, the Italian girl who travels to Algiers to look for her boyfriend Lindoro who has been kidnapped by theTurkish Bey Mustafa

Set during the French Revolution, Umberto Giordano's opera ANDREA CHENIER presents a love triangle in the verismo style. The most famous aria of this opera "LA MAMMA MORTA" was inmortalized by Maria Callas in the film PHILADELPHIA with Tom Hanks

In Rossini's version of Cinderella, the evil stepmother becomes an evil stepfather; the fairy godmother is a real man, and the lost shoe is a bracelet, but the most important change is that the opera is really a comic opera.