Met Opera Guild Podcast

The topic of today’s episode is Giuseppe Verdi’s last opera, FALSTAFF, which was also his third opera to be adapted from a Shakespeare play. This is a Talking About Opera lecture presented by Bridget Paolucci, split into two parts to ensure the length is manageable without cutting out all the great content. Today we are releasing Part 1, and tomorrow we will release Part 2!

On July 20th, 2016, the Met will be broadcasting the last HD encore opera of the summer to theatres across the globe! The opera is Mozart’s beloved Così fan tutte, and the cast features audience favourites such as Matthew Polenzani, Isabel Leonard, and Danielle de Niese. So to get us all prepared for the broadcast, our episode today features a wonderful Talking About Opera lecture from our archives, with Bridget Paolucci discussing this beloved Mozart work.

Great arias have long been an opportunity for singers to showcase their virtuosity and offer an intimate look at a character’s inner most feelings. In this episode, podcast host Naomi Barrettara takes a deep dive into two different aria forms - the Da Capo aria and the Cabaletta, discussing musical elements of each form, and providing examples by Handel, Rossini, and Verdi.

This is Part 2 of Episode 38, featuring Albert Innaurato giving a Talking About Opera lecture on Verdi's Macbeth. The episode picks up right where Part 1 left off, at the beginning of Act II in the opera.

This week we are continuing our celebration of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death with a Talking About Opera lecture devoted to Verdi’s "Macbeth." This particular Talking About Opera recording is somewhat special, as it has never before been released to the public. In an effort to keep our episodes manageable and appealing to a wide audience, we typically try to limit their duration to an hour or less. Seeing as there is so much great information and wonderful musical examples included in this Talking About Opera lecture, we have split it into two parts so that you can experience the full recording.

The second of this summer’s Met Live in HD Encore presentation will be of Donizetti’s "L’Elisir d’Amore," with an exceptional cast starring Anna Netrebko as Adina, Matthew Polenzani as Nemorino, Mariusz Kwiecień as Belcore, and Ambrogio Maestri as the clever Dulcamara. In preparation for the broadcast, the Met Opera Guild’s Kyle Homewood joins Naomi Barrettara in a casual conversation discussing things they love about the opera and musical moments to listen for in one of the most popular operatic comedies of the last two centuries.

With a Met Live in HD Encore presentation of Puccini’s Tosca coming to theatres this Wednesday, June 22, 2016, today's episode once again reaches into the Talking about Opera archives to give you some added insight into one of Puccini’s dramatic works.

The summer of 2016 is in full swing, with festivals and performances in cities across the globe celebrating the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's death. This podcast episode explores the operatic adaptation of a beloved Shakespeare work - A Midsummer Night's Dream - with a musical setting composed by Benjamin Britten. This lecture is taken from our Talking About Opera archives, featuring Guild lecturer Harlow Robinson.

Today’s episode is the second installment of our Memories from the Golden Horseshoe series in which Met broadcast commentator Ira Siff speaks about the legendary performances he witnessed at the old Metropolitan Opera house in its final years between 1961 and 1966. In the episode, I hope you will enjoy remembering or perhaps discovering the likes of Leonie Rysanek, John Vickers, Birgit Nilsson, Franco Corelli, Zinka Milanov, Renata Tebaldi, and several others. This is part two of Memories from the Golden Horseshoe!

Today we are happy to present a very special artist interview that took place in March 2016 as part of our Singers’ Studio series with Opera News. In the interview, tenor Roberto Alagna sits down with Opera News Editor-in-Chief F. Paul Driscoll to talk about his life and career. In case you don’t know or don’t remember, this interview took place just after Alagna’s successful run in the Met’s new production of Manon Lescaut in which he replaced Jonas Kaufmann as Des Grieux with only a few weeks’ notice.