Opera

See also Opera: Composers, Opera: Excerpts, Gilbert & Sullivan.

Terminology

Text of an opera (or musical play)		Libretto
Opening orchestral piece, introducing the main melodies		Overture
Translation of the libretto, projected onto a screen above the stage		Surtitles
Opera on a grandiose scale – all sung, with no spoken lines		Grand Opera
A brindisi (paradoxically from the German (ich) bringe dir's – "(I) offer it to you") is a		Drinking song

People

Founder of the Vic–Wells Opera company, 1931, which eventually became English National Opera (ENO)		Lilian Bayliss
Often called the father of opera: Dafne (c. 1597) is often referred to as the first opera, and Eurydice (first performed in the Pitti Palace, Florence, in 1600) is the oldest to survive to the present day		Jacopo Peri
Appointed Maestro di Cappella to the viceroy of Naples, 1684; founder of the Neapolitan School of opera, and regarded as the founder of modern opera (father of two other composers, Domenico and Pietro Filippo)		Alessandro Scarlatti
British prime minister, satirised in the Beggar's Opera in the character of Macheath		Sir Robert Walpole
English poet: collaborated with his American friend and lover Chester Kallman on the libretti for several operas, including Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress		W. H. Auden

Companies

Company that succeeded Lilian Bayliss's Vic–Wells Opera and was renamed ENO in 1974		Sadler's Wells
German–born impresario: founded and gave his name to a British opera company, founded in 1873 to present operas in English in London and the Provinces; closed in 1960, revived in 1997		Carl Rosa

Titles

Ballad opera in three acts, first performed in London in 1728: written by John Gay, with musical arrangements by Johann Christoph Pepusch; translated into German in the 1920s by Elisabeth Hauptmann, and arranged by Kurt Weill (with added lyrics by Bertold Brecht, based on works by Rudyard Kipling and the 15th–century French poet François Villon) into Der Dreigrosschenoper (The Threepenny Opera – first performed 1928)

The Beggar's Opera

Details

Rossini and Massenet wrote operas (and Prokofiev wrote a ballet) based on			Cinderella
Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov (composed around 1870) was based on a play of the same title, dating from 1825, by			Aleksandr Pushkin
Spanish city: setting for four of the most popular operas (and named in the title of one of them)			Seville
(Spoiler alert!): Il Segreto di Susanna (Susanna's Secret – Ermano Wolf–Ferrari, 1909): the secret is that			She smokes!

Bizet

Based on a story by Prosper Merimee; features the Toreador's Song		Carmen
Carmen works in a		Cigarette factory
Sergeant who falls in love with Carmen and eventually stabs her		Don Jose
Carmen: Escamillo is a		Bullfighter
Carmen is set in		Seville
Famous for a duet sung by Zurga and Nadir		The Pearl Fishers
The Pearl Fishers is set in		Ceylon

Benjamin Britten

Based on Lytton Strachey's book Elizabeth and Essex: A Tragic History (1928); first performed at Covent Garden in 1953, as part of the celebrations for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II		Gloriana
Central character in the above		Elizabeth I
Written in 1952 to celebrate the Festival of Britain; set on board HMS Indomitable, in the aftermath of the Spithead and Nore mutinies, during the French Revolutionary Wars (1797); based on a novella by Herman Melville		Billy Budd
Tells the tragic (fictional) story of a fisherman from a fictional village (The Borough) based on Aldeburgh – libretto from a poem by George Crabbe who, like Britten, lived in Aldeburgh		Peter Grimes
Comic opera, first performed in 1947: based on a short story by Guy de Maupassant, but transposed to the fictional Suffolk village of Loxford		Albert Herring

Delibes

Set in India; title is the French rendition of the Sanskrit name of the Hindu goddess of wealth

Lakmé

Mozart

Name translates approximately as So do all women		Cosi Fan Tutti
Title character (a legendary libertine) murders Don Pedro (a.k.a. the Commendatore, or Commander) in the opening scene, after attempting to rape his daughter (but she has escaped)		Don Giovanni
Leporello, the title character's servant, enumerates his master's sexual conquests (including 1,003 in Spain); later, he complains that he's sick and tired of hearing a particular Mozart aria everywhere all the time
Masetto, a peasant, and his fiancée Zerlina, appear in
In the final scene, a statue of the Commendatore comes to life – after which the disreputable title character is dragged off to Hell by a chorus of demons
Don Giovanni is set in		Seville
Set in ancient Egypt: the Queen of the Night engages Tamino, a handsome young prince, and the birdcatcher Papageno to free her daughter Pamina from the hands of Sarastro, the High Priest of Isis, with the help of the eponymous enchanted instrument. Sarastro convinces them that he is holding Pamina for her own good; after many trials and tribulations, Tamino and Pamina are united in love		The Magic Flute
Has been described as "a barely veiled Masonic allegory ... a kind of introduction to the secret society ... an Enlightenment allegory, veiled in Masonic ritual"
Based on the play La Folle Giornata (The Day of Madness) by Pierre Beaumarchais – whose subtitle is the title of the opera; a sequel to Rossini's The Barber of Seville		The Marriage of Figaro
Recounts a single day in the palace of Count Almaviva – the employer of the title character
Begins with the hero measuring the space where his marriage bed will be, while the bride tries on her wedding bonnet
The Marriage of Figaro: name of Figaro's bride (the Countess's maid)		Susanna
Librettist for Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro, and Cosi Fan Tutte		Lorenzo da Ponte

Puccini

Title is the nickname of the tragic heroine, Cio Cio San (Cho–Cho San), who commits suicide on her father's sword after being betrayed by Lieutenant Pinkerton, an American naval officer			Madame Butterfly
Lt. Pinkerton's ship			Abraham Lincoln
Madame Butterfly is set in (Japanese city)			Nagasaki
Set in Rome, in 1800 (at the time of Napoleonic occupation); the eponymous heroine is a famous singer, who kills the villainous police chief, Baron Scarpia, but hurls herself from the parapet of the Castel Sant'Angelo after her lover, the painter Mario Cavaradossi, is executed for helping a prisoner to escape			Tosca
Set in Peking (Beijing); Ping, Pang and Pong are government ministers; tells the story of Prince Calaf's suit for the title character; includes Nessun Dorma			Turandot
Includes Your Tiny Hand is Frozen			La Boheme
Whose tiny hand was frozen?			Mimi's
Your Tiny Hand is Frozen: sung by			Rodolfo
Set in a miners' camp in California			The Girl of the (Golden) West

Rossini

Based on a play by Pierre Beaumarchais; subtitle The Useless Precaution		The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville: name of the title character		Figaro
Extract from overture used as theme tune to The Lone Ranger on TV		William Tell
La Cenerentola is the Italian name for (central character)		Cinderella
Prince Charming's right hand man, in La Cenerentola (Cinderella)		Dandini

Richard Strauss

Baron Ochs and Octavian appear in		Der Rosenkavalkier
Based on a controversial play by Oscar Wilde (biblical theme)		Salome

Tchaikovsky

Librettist for The Queen of Spades (1890) and Iolanta (1892)

His brother, Modest

Verdi

Commissioned by the Khedive of Egypt for the opening of the Suez Canal; first performed at the Khedivial Opera House in Cairo, on Christmas Eve 1871		Aida
Title character is an Ethiopian princess who has been captured and enslaved by the Egyptians
Set in Berkshire		Falstaff
Set on Cyprus (Shakespeare's play is also set in Venice)		Othello
Based on Victor Hugo's novel Le Roi s'amuse; the eponymous character is the deformed court jester to the licentious Duke of Mantua		Rigoletto
Includes La Donna e Mobile
Tells the story of the Jews' captivity in Babylon; features the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves		Nabucco
Nabucco is an abbreviation of the Italian name for the Biblical character known in English as		Nebuchadnezzar
Manrico is the title character in		Il Trovatore
The Anvil Chorus comes from
Opera about Philip II of Spain		Don Carlos
Based on the play La Dame aux Camelias, by Alexandre Dumas (fils); set in Paris; title translates as The Fallen Woman		La Traviata
Violetta Valery, a consumptive courtesan, is the heroine of

Wagner

Hero of the Ring of the Niebelungen		Siegfried
Title characters are given a love potion instead of poison; includes the Liebestod (love in death) – a.k.a. Mild und Leise (Mildly and Quietly)		Tristan and Isolde
Based on two 13th–century versions of the Knight of the Swan legend; title character is a knight of the Holy Grail, sent in a boat pulled by swans to rescue a maiden who can never ask his identity; the son of Parsifal (Percival), one of the Knights of the Round Table		Lohengrin
Includes Here Comes the Bride and the Swan Chorus
Augustine Mosler (a tailor), Veit Pogner (goldsmith) and Herman Ortel (soap boiler) appear in		Meistersingers
The immolation scene in Gotterdammerung includes the longest aria in opera – sung by		Brunnhilde

Other composers

Beethoven	Beethoven's only opera: a faithful wife disguises herself as a man in order to free her husband from prison		Fidelio
Alban Berg	Lulu: the heroine is killed by		Jack the Ripper
Berlioz	Beatrice e Benedict: based on Shakespeare's		Much Ado About Nothing
Delius	Characters include the Dark Fiddler; includes the orchestral interlude The Walk to the Paradise Garden (the Paradise Garden is an inn)		A Village Romeo & Juliet
Gershwin	Takes place on Catfish Row, Charleston, South Carolina (said to be based on the real–life Cabbage Row)		Porgy & Bess
	The first opera by a US–born composer to be performed at La Scala (Milan)
	Crown (a tough stevedore) and Sportin' Life (a drug dealer) are two of the main characters in
Handel	The overture to Act III of Solomon is commonly known as		The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba
Leoncavallo	Title means "Clowns"; includes a famous prologue sung by a clown		Pagliacci
Mascagni	One–act opera often performed alongside Pagliacci		Cavalieri Rusticana
Offenbach	The Infernal Galop, better known outside classical music circles as 'the can–can', is the climax to (an opéra bouffe, or operetta)		Orpheus in the Underworld
Ponchielli	Famous dance interlude from La Gioconda (parodied as Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh)		Dance of the Hours
Purcell	His only true opera		Dido & Aeneas
Rimsky–Korsakov	His last opera – about a bird that warns of danger		The Golden Cockerel
Sigmund Romberg	University attended by the title character of The Student Prince		Heidelberg
Johann Strauss II	Centres around a ball at the summer house of Prince Orlovsky		Die Fledermaus
Igor Stravinsky	1951: loosely based on a series of paintings by William Hogarth (also published as engravings)		The Rake's Progress
Ralph Vaughan Williams	Based on Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor – the title refers to Falstaff		Sir John In Love
Richard Wagner	Title character is a 13th–century German minnesinger or troubador		Tannhäuser
Kurt Weill	The Threepenny Opera: libretto		Bertholt Brecht

© Haydn Thompson 2017–23