Despite the similarity of their names (Verdi means greens and Monteverdi means green mountain), the opera composers Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) and Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) were not related to each other. Since Monteverdi was born 256 years earlier, he could have been Verdi’s great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, but he wasn’t. Geographically, however, they were Read More …
Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) was one of the world’s first opera composers. He wrote at least eighteen operas, but most of them have been lost. His earliest surviving opera, L’Orfeo (Orpheus), was first performed in 1607 in Mantua, Italy, at the court of Duke Vincenzo I. Monteverdi was forty years old Read More …
If the legendary ancient Greek singer Orpheus were alive today he would be an opera singer, right? Well, not exactly. He would sing like an opera singer, but he would look, dress and act like a rock star, and his beautiful bride Eurydice would be a spaced-out groupie. At least Read More …
From the outside, the City Theater in Bremerhaven looks rather cramped and austere, but inside it is pleasant, with wood paneling on the walls both in the lobby and in the auditorium. The theater was first built from 1909 to 1911, at a time when new municipal theaters were being Read More …
The Reims Opera House was originally called the Grand Théâtre when it was first built in 1873. It was severely damaged in World War I. After several years’ delay it was rebuilt by two architects named François Maille and Louis Sollier, who kept the original façade but redesigned the interior Read More …
Like many other European opera houses and theaters, the one in Kiel was built in the first decade of the 20th century. Construction began in 1905 and was completed in 1907, when the opera house was inaugurated with a performance of Beethoven’s opera Fidelio. (My father was born in 1905 Read More …
When I go to art museums I am always glad to see paintings on themes that I ‘know’ because they have also been made into operas. I noticed four of these at the Musée des Beaux Arts in Bordeaux. (Have I overlooked any?) The one in my first photo is Read More …
The Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum in Innsbruck is a museum for pre-history, early history, art history, music history, graphics and natural sciences, in other words just about everything. My first photo shows the museum from the outside, with a red banner advertising an exhibition on “The Cultural History of Sexuality, 100,000 Read More …
Opera was an invention of the Renaissance, starting around the year 1600. Perhaps the world’s first full-scale opera, or one of the first, was L’Orfeo by Claudio Monteverdi, composed in 1607. I have seen L’Orfeo several times at the Bockenheimer Depot in Frankfurt am Main, as staged by David Hermann, Read More …