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Comedy on the Bridge (Veselohra na mostě in Czech) is an opera (originally a radio opera) in one act by Bohuslav Martinů to a Czech libretto by the composer, based on the comedy by Václav Kliment Klicpera.
The first performance occurred over Czech Radio, Prague on 18 March 1937. The first staged performance was at Hunter College, New York City on 28 May 1951, which the composer attended and which received an award for "best new opera" from the New York Music Critics Circle. Martinů arranged three numbers from the opera into a "Little Suite" for chamber orchestra, including piano.
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The Tales of Hoffmann (French: Les contes d'Hoffmann) is an opéra fantastique by Jacques Offenbach. The French libretto was written by Jules Barbier, based on three short stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann. Hoffmann is the protagonist in the opera.
Barbier and Michel Carré had previously written a play, Les contes fantastiques d'Hoffmann, which was produced at the Odéon Theatre in Paris in 1851, and which Offenbach had seen.
The opera was first performed in a public venue, at the Opéra-Comique on 10 February 1881, without the third (Venice) act. It had been presented in an abridged form at Offenbach's house, 8 Boulevard des Capucines, on 18 May 1879, with Madame Franck-Duvernoy in the soprano roles, Auguez as Hoffmann (baritone) and Émile-Alexandre Taskin in the four villain roles, with Edmond Duvernoy at the piano and a chorus directed by Albert Vizentini. Besides Carvalho of the Opéra-Comique, the director of the Ringtheater in Vienna, Franz von Jauner, was also present. A four-act version with recitatives was staged at the Ringtheater on 7 December 1881, although a gas explosion and fire occurred at the theatre after the second performance.
The opera reached its hundredth performance at the Salle Favart on the 15 December 1881. The fire at the Opéra-Comique in 1887 destroyed the orchestral parts, and it was not seen again in Paris until 1893, at the Salle de la Renaissance du Théâtre-Lyrique, when it received 20 performances. A new production by Albert Carré (including the Venice act) was mounted at the Opéra-Comique in 1911, with Léon Beyle in the title role and Albert Wolff conducting. This production remained in the repertoire until World War II, receiving 700 performances. Following a recording by Opéra-Comique forces in March 1948, Louis Musy created the first post-war production in Paris, conducted by André Cluytens. The Paris Opera first staged the work in October 1974, directed by Patrice Chéreau with Nicolai Gedda in the title role.
Outside France, the piece was mounted in Geneva, Budapest, Hamburg, New York, and Mexico in 1882, Vienna (Theater an der Wien), Prague, and Antwerp in 1883, and Lvov and Berlin in 1884. Later local premieres included Buenos Aires in 1894, St Petersburg in 1899, Barcelona in 1905, and London in 1910.
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Der Corregidor is a comic opera by Hugo Wolf. The German libretto was written by Rosa Mayreder-Obermayer, based on the short novel El sombrero de tres picos (The three-cornered Hat) by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón.
Wolf composed the opera in 1895 and revised it in 1897. The score is published by C.F. Peters.
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Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti (Thus Do They All, or The School for Lovers) K. 588, is an Italian-language opera buffa in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte, who also wrote Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni.
Although it is commonly held that Così fan tutte was written and composed at the suggestion of the Emperor Joseph II, recent research does not support this idea. There is evidence that Mozart's contemporary Antonio Salieri tried to set the libretto but left it unfinished. In 1994, John Rice uncovered two terzetti by Salieri in the Austrian National Library.
The title, Così fan tutte, literally means "Thus do all " and is popularly used to mean "Women are like that". The words are sung by the three men in act 2, scene 3, just before the finale. Da Ponte had used the line "Così fan tutte le belle" earlier in Le nozze di Figaro (in act 1, scene 7).
The first performance of Mozart's setting took place at the Burgtheater in Vienna on January 26, 1790. It was given only five times before the run was stopped by the death of the Emperor Joseph II and the resulting period of court mourning. It was performed twice in June 1790, with the composer conducting the second performance, and again in July (twice) and August (once). After that it was not played in Vienna during Mozart's lifetime. The first British performance was in May 1811, at the King's Theatre, London. Così fan tutte was not performed in the U.S. until 1922, when it was given at the Metropolitan Opera
According to William Mann, Mozart disliked prima donna Adriana Ferrarese del Bene, da Ponte's arrogant mistress for whom the role of Fiordiligi had been created. Knowing her idiosyncratic tendency to drop her chin on low notes and throw back her head on high ones, Mozart filled her showpiece aria Come scoglio with constant leaps from low to high and high to low in order to make Ferrarese's head "bob like a chicken" onstage.
The subject matter (see synopsis below) did not offend Viennese sensibilities of the time, but throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries it was considered risqué. The opera was rarely performed, and when it did appear it was presented in one of several bowdlerised forms.
After World War II, it regained its place in the standard operatic repertoire. It is frequently performed and appears 14th on the Operabase list of the most-performed operas worldwide.
Louis Nowra uses the staging of Così fan tutte in a mental hospital as a background for his 1992 play Così.
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The Crucible is an English language opera written by Robert Ward based on the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller. It won both the 1962 Pulitzer Prize for Music and the New York Music Critics Circle Citation. The libretto was lightly adapted from Miller's text by Bernard Stambler.
Ward received a commission from the New York City Opera to write the opera. Arthur Miller was involved in selecting Ward. The opera won both the 1962 Pulitzer Prize for Music and the New York Music Critics Circle Citation. It is one of the most performed operas by an American composer.
The Crucible premiered on 26 October 1961 at the New York City Opera (NYCO), with Chester Ludgin as John Proctor, and Norman Treigle as the Reverend John Hale. The production was staged by Allen Fletcher, used scenery designed by Paul Sylbert, and costumes designed by Ruth Morely. The work was next performed in student productions at the University of California, Los Angeles and The Hartt School in West Hartford, Connecticut in 1964. The opera was mounted by the San Francisco Opera for the first time on June 22, 1965 with much of the same cast as the NYCO production. In 1968 the NYCO revived the production, It has since been staged by the Lake George Opera (1966), the Seattle Opera (1968), and the Tulsa Opera (1995).
The Crucible had its Australian premiere on 10 October 2008 at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, forty-seven years after its world premiere. It was performed by senior opera-students, conducted by Justin Bischof and directed by Leith Taylor.
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Die Csárdásfürstin or A Csárdáskirálynő (literally The Csárdás Princess; translated into English as The Riviera Girl and The Gipsy Princess) is an operetta in 3 acts by Hungarian composer Emmerich Kalman, libretto by Leo Stein and Béla Jenbach. It premiered in Vienna at the Johann Strauss Theater, 17 November 1915. Numerous film versions and recordings have been made. The operetta is widely beloved in Hungary, Austria, Germany, all of Europe and particularly in former Soviet Union, where it had been adapted into a hugely popular film. It is arguably Kálmán's most successful work.
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The Cunning Little Vixen (Czech: Příhody lišky Bystroušky, lit. Adventures of the vixen (female fox) known as Sharp-Ears, and, until the 1970s, generally referred to in English as Adventures of Vixen Sharp-Ears) is an opera by Leoš Janáček, with a libretto adapted by the composer from a serialized novella (daily comic) by Rudolf Těsnohlídek and Stanislav Lolek, which was first published in the newspaper Lidové noviny.
The Cunning Little Vixen incorporates Moravian folk music and rhythms within its composition. Described as a comic opera, it has nonetheless been noted to contain a serious theme. Interpretations of the work, however, remain more varied, ranging from children's entertainment to a tragedy.
When Janáček discovered Těsnohlídek's comic-strip-inspired story and decided to turn it into an opera, he began work by meeting with the author and beginning a study of animals. With this understanding of the characters involved, his own 70 years of life experience, and an undying, unrequited love for the much younger, married Kamila Stösslová, he began work on the opera. Writing his own libretto, he transformed himself into the forester, and Kamila into the vixen and Terynka. He also transformed the originally comedic cartoon into a philosophical reflection on the cycle of life and death by including the death of the vixen. As with other operas by older composers, this late opera shows a deep understanding of life leading to a return to simplicity.
It was given its premiere performance on 6 November 1924 in Brno conducted by František Neumann, with Ota Zítek as director and Eduard Milén as stage designer.
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La Curandera is an opera composed by Robert Xavier Rodriguez to a primarily English libretto by Mary Medrick. It was commissioned and premiered by Opera Colorado in April 2006.
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Curlew River – A Parable for Church Performance (Op. 71) is the first of three Church Parables by Benjamin Britten. The work is based on the Japanese noh play Sumidagawa (Sumida River) of Juro Motomasa (1395–1431), which Britten saw during a visit to Japan and the Far East in early 1956. Beyond the noh source dramatic material, Britten incorporated elements of noh treatment of theatrical time into this composition.
The libretto is by William Plomer, who translated the setting of the original into a Christian parable, set in early medieval times near the fictional Curlew River, in the fenlands of East Anglia. The action centres on the Madwoman – an outsider. This theme is common to almost all of Britten's dramatic works: Peter Grimes, Billy Budd, The Turn of the Screw and Owen Wingrave all focus on an outsider protagonist.
Curlew River marked a departure in style for the remainder of the composer's creative life, paving the way for such works as Owen Wingrave, Death in Venice, and the Third String Quartet.
Under Colin Graham's direction, the work was premiered on 13 June 1964 at St Bartholomew's Church, Orford, Suffolk, England, by the English Opera Group. The original cast included Britten regulars Peter Pears and Bryan Drake.
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Cyrano de Bergerac is a four-act opera with music by Franco Alfano, and libretto by Henri Caïn, based on Edmond Rostand's drama Cyrano de Bergerac. The opera received its first performance in Rome on 22 January 1936, conducted by Tullio Serafin, with Maria Caniglia and José Luccioni. The first performance in Paris was on 29 May 1936 at the Opéra-Comique.
Although Alfano originally set the text in French, the premiere was sung in Italian, as were many early Italian productions. In recent years, most productions have returned to the original French text.
Contemporary commentary on the opera by Guido M. Gatti criticised the composer as fearing "to seem too melodramatic", and the opera for being "overdecorated and labored" and containing "difficult and tortuous vocal writing". However, the same analysis also mentioned that "the opera has moments of definite effectiveness and exquisite poetry".
The US premiere was on 13 May 2005 when the opera was presented at the Metropolitan Opera with Plácido Domingo in the title role.
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