Leontyne Price: Aida

Colette Lorand: Heia In Den Bergen

They Bid Me Slight My Dermont Dear

Felicity Lott and John Mark Ainsley sing this beautiful tune from Beethoven's WoO (Werke ohne Opuszahl or Works without Opus Number)152: 25 Irish Songs.

~DJ Spectra~

V is for Verismo

The great Renee Fleming demonstrates and talks about the Verismo style.

According to Wikipedia:

In musicology, verismo (meaning "realism", from Italian vero, meaning "true") refers to a post-Romantic operatic tradition associated with Italian composers such as Pietro Mascagni, Ruggero Leoncavallo, Umberto Giordano and Giacomo Puccini. They sought to bring the naturalism of influential late 19th-century writers such as Émile Zola and Henrik Ibsen into opera. The style began in 1890 with the first performance of Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana, peaked in the early 1900s, and lingered into the 1920s. The style is distinguished by realistic – sometimes sordid or violent – depictions of everyday life, especially the life of the contemporary lower classes. It by and large rejects the historical or mythical subjects associated with Romanticism. The term may also be used more broadly to refer to the entire output of these composers and others of the giovane scuola ("young school") who were active in Italy during that period.

Powerful stuff indeed! I admit to only a cursory familiarity with opera. This is right up my alley! So glad to have made this find!

~DJ Tempest~

O is for Opera

I'm barely awake, so I'm lifting the definition from Wikipedia. I love my work, but sometimes I swear the schedule may kill me!

Opera (English plural: operas; Italian plural: opere) is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text (called a libretto) and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting.[1] Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble.

Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition.[2] It started in Italy at the end of the 16th century (with Jacopo Peri's lost Dafne, produced in Florence in 1598) and soon spread through the rest of Europe: Schütz in Germany, Lully in France, and Purcell in England all helped to establish their national traditions in the 17th century. In the 18th century, Italian opera continued to dominate most of Europe, except France, attracting foreign composers such as Handel. Opera seria was the most prestigious form of Italian opera, until Gluck reacted against its artificiality with his "reform" operas in the 1760s. Today the most renowned figure of late 18th century opera is Mozart, who began with opera seria but is most famous for his Italian comic operas, especially The Marriage of Figaro (Le Nozze Di Figaro), Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte, as well as The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte), a landmark in the German tradition.

~DJ Aurora~

The Cunning Little Vixen

An opera you may never have heard of.

Here is a playlist of works by Leos Janacek. I hope you will enjoy it!