During his long career, Giuseppe Verdi composed twenty-six operas — or twenty-eight, depending what you count as what. The following list is the 28-opera version, with the year of the world premiere in parentheses after each title. I have listed the opera titles in different colors: Red means I have Read More …
On the Schillerplatz in the center of Stuttgart there is an exhibition of historical musical instruments. While this collection is not as large as the ones in Brussels, Berlin, Nürnberg or Paris, it is still well worth seeing and has interesting explanations of why certain Baroque instruments went out of fashion, Read More …
One thing I’ll say for the Lyon opera house: you can’t mistake it for any other building in Lyon, or for any other opera house in the world that I know of. Or do you know of any other building that has a nineteenth century façade topped by a huge Read More …
One of William Shakespeare’s biggest fans in the 19th century was the great Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901), who based three of his operas on Shakespeare plays, namely Macbeth, Otello and Falstaff. The composer’s second favorite author was the 18th century German playwright Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805), whom Verdi admired not Read More …
If you look at a map of Karlsruhe, Germany, you will see that there are streets radiating out from the Palace in all directions. Actually the back ones radiate out through the woods and the front ones through the city. It was all planned this way by the Margrave Karl Read More …
My favorite thing about Fontainebleau is the music it inspired at the beginning of the five-act versions of the opera Don Carlos (in French) or Don Carlo (in Italian), by Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901). The Spanish prince Don Carlos, alone in the twilight in the wintry forest, sings: Fontainebleau! Immense, lonely Read More …
When people ask me which opera I would take with me to a desert island if I could only take one (I’ve really been asked that), I always say it would be Don Carlos, by Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) — but all seven versions. On a visit to Strasbourg in 2006 Read More …
Meiningen is a small city in southern Thüringen which advertises itself as “The Theater City.” It has an impressive theater building with six Corinthian columns, dating from the year 1909, and a unique theater tradition going back to the middle of the 19th century. From 1866 to 1914 Meiningen was Read More …
Performances at the Semper Opera House in Dresden are often sold out weeks or months in advance. When this happens you will notice because they remove the ticket icon from that performance on their website. Don’t give up too quickly though, because a night at the opera in Dresden is a Read More …
Gigantomania was a common feature of all the Nazi building projects, and the Anhaltisches Theater in Dessau was no exception. With over a thousand seats, it was one of the largest theaters in Germany when it was built in the 1930s on orders of the local Nazi ruler. The grand Read More …