Opera Cheat Sheet | Houston Public Media

Bluebeard and Judith in an illustration by Gustave Doré for an 1862 edition of Perrault's Tales. Public domain. In this OCS, Houston Public Media’s St.John Flynn and Eric Skelly, executive director of the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, provide a quick overview of Béla Bartók’s 1918 one-act opera Bluebeard’s Castle. Based on a Charles Perrault fairy tale, Bluebeard’s Castle is a cautionary tale about what can happen when a new wife wants to know all about... Read More

Butter sculpture of "The Dreaming Iolanthe", depicting the blind Yolande, as portrayed in Henrik Hertz's play King René's Daughter, by Caroline Shawk Brooks, 1876. Public domain. In this OCS, Houston Public Media’s St.John Flynn and Eric Skelly, Executive Director of the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, give a quick overview of Tchaikovsky’s last opera. Written in 1892, and with a libretto by the composer’s brother Modest, Iolanta is a one-act work about a blind princess who... Read More

In this Opera Cheat Sheet, Houston Public Media’s St.John Flynn and Eric Skelly discuss Giuseppe Verdi’s Macbeth. First staged in Florence in 1847, Macbeth was Verdi’s tenth opera and his first stab at adapting Shakespeare for the musical theatre stage. A tragedy set in medieval Scotland, Macbeth is a cautionary tale about what can happen to a marriage when three witches dangle the carrot of absolute power in front of you! [The opera excerpts heard... Read More

Jacques Offenbach. Photo by Felix Nadar. Wikimedia Commons. In this OCS, Houston Public Media’s St.John Flynn and Eric Skelly provide an overview to Jacques Offenbach’s 1881 opera. Based on three short stories by E.T.A. Hoffmann, Offenbach’s last work (unfinished at the time of his death) tells the story of a poet, Hoffmann, who recounts the tales of the three women he loved and lost only to find his true love was much closer to home.... Read More

La Bohème from the Metropolitan Opera April 2014. Photo by Bengt Nyman/Wikimedia Commons. Houston Public Media’s St.John Flynn and Eric Skelly give a quick overview of this powerful and tragic love story set in the Latin Quarter of Paris in the early nineteenth century. Tune in to Classical 91.7 for the Met’s La Boheme, Saturday, January 24th at noon. [The musical excerpts in this OCS are taken from the 2008 Deutsche Grammophon release of La... Read More

Opera News Editor-in-Chief, F. Paul Driscoll. Photo courtesy of Opera News. In this OCS, Houston Public Media’s St.John Flynn and Eric Skelly talk with F. Paul Driscoll, Editor-in-Chief of Opera News, the classical music magazine with the largest circulation in the U.S. They discuss how opera as an art form is faring in America and Europe; some of the up-and-coming opera singers to watch out for; and which contemporary operas might still be around in 50... Read More

Aida at the Verona Arena. Wikimedia Commons. Houston Public Media’s St.John Flynn and Eric Skelly give a light-hearted overview of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida. You can hear the Metropolitan Opera broadcast of Aida featuring HGO Studio alum Tamara Wilson in the title role, Saturday at noon on Houston Public Media Classical 91.7.

Hansel and Gretel by Arthur Rackham, 1909. Public domain. In this Opera Cheat Sheet Houston Public Media’s “opera guys,” St.John Flynn and Eric Skelly, give a quick, light-hearted overview of Engelbert Humperdinck’s lush, magical opera. Based on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale of the same name, Hansel and Gretel tells the story of the poor brother and sister, lost in a forest, who are lured into a wicked witch’s gingerbread house and prepped for the... Read More

Catherine Malfitano in the rôle of Violetta, Opéra National du Rhin, Strasbourg, March 1980. ©Claude Truong-Ngoc / Wikimedia Commons. This week, Houston Public Media’s “opera guys,” St.John Flynn and Eric Skelly, discuss Giuseppe Verdi's magnificent La Traviata, the story of the ill-fated love between the dying courtesan Violetta and the young and besotted Alfredo. Tune in to Houston Public Media Classical 91.7 Saturday at noon for the Metropolitan Opera broadcast of La Traviata featuring Marina... Read More

In this week’s OCS Houston Public Media’s St.John Flynn talks to bass-baritone Patrick Carfizzi, who sang the role of Figaro, and conductor James Gaffigan, from the Houston Grand Opera 2011 production of The Marriage of Figaro. Le Nozze di Figaro, to give it its original Italian title, was the first of the three great collaborations between Mozart and librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte. Based on the French play by Beaumarchais, it tells the story of the... Read More

In this week’s Opera Cheat Sheet, Houston Public Media’s St.John Flynn and Eric Skelly discuss one of the most massive operas ever written, Richard Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. The ancient guild of Mastersingers in Nuremburg, Germany, is searching for the greatest singer in the world, and hosts a singing contest to find him. Besides earning this honor, the winner gets to marry Eva, the beautiful daughter of the contest’s sponsor. [The excerpts heard in... Read More

Scene from DuPage Opera Theatre production of The Barber of Seville. Public domain. In this week’s Opera Cheat Sheet, Houston Public Media’s St.John Flynn and Eric Skelly, introduce Rossini’s musical version of the story of the wily barber and his efforts to secure the lovely Rosina’s hand in marriage for the besotted, and disguised, Count Almaviva. Subtitled "The Futile Precaution," Rossini’s great opera buffa consistently ranks among the top 10 operas performed worldwide. The 2014-15... Read More

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo - Rinaldo ed il mago di Ascalona - Art Institute of Chicago. Public domain. In this week’s Opera Cheat Sheet, Houston Public Media’s St.John Flynn and Eric Skelly give their humorous overview of Rossini’s 1817 opera, Armida. One of the many operas inspired by the tale of Armida and Rinaldo told in Torquato Tasso’s 16th-century Italian epic, La Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem Delivered), it’s a story of love, duty and sorcery. Rinaldo, a... Read More

Théodore Chassériau (1891-56), Macbeth and Banquo meeting the witches on the heath, Musée d’Orsay. Public domain. In this Opera Cheat Sheet, Houston Public Media’s St.John Flynn and Eric Skelly discuss Giuseppe Verdi’s Macbeth.  First staged in Florence in 1847, it was Verdi’s tenth opera and his first stab at adapting Shakespeare for the musical theatre stage.  A tragedy set in medieval Scotland, Macbeth is a cautionary tale about what can happen to a marriage when... Read More

Portrait of Lucrezia Borgia by Bartolomeo Veneziano (c. 1510). Public domain. Houston Public Media’s Arts & Culture Director, St.John Flynn, and opera expert, Eric Skelly, discuss Gaetano Donizetti’s opera Lucrezia Borgia, about the femme fatale, renowned for her ruthless pursuit of power, whose vulnerability is unveiled when she comes face to face with her long-lost son. You can hear the 2014 Caramoor Festival production of Lucrezia Borgia, starring Angela Meade in the title role, Saturday... Read More

In this week’s Opera Cheat Sheet, Houston Public Media’s St.John Flynn and Eric Skelly discuss Show Boat, the 1927 musical by Jerome Kern (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (book and lyrics). Based on Edna Ferber’s 1926 best-selling novel of the same name, Show Boat tells the story, over a forty-year time span, of the performers and crew of the Cotton Blossom, a Mississippi River show boat.  Set between 1887 and 1927, and dealing with the... Read More

Eduard Grützner’s Falstaff (Wikimedia Commons) In this Opera Cheat Sheet, Houston Public Media’s St.John Flynn and Eric Skelly present a light-hearted overview of Verdi’s last opera. Only the second comedy Verdi ever wrote, Falstaff is based on the larger than life character from Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry IV who tries to seduce two women (who know each other!) at the same time. You can listen to San Francisco Opera’s performance of... Read More

Metropolitan Opera House, New York City. Photo by Niall Kennedy (Creative Commons license). This Saturday’s San Francisco Opera broadcast, Saturday at noon, is the world première performance of Tobias Picker’s Dolores Claiborne, featuring Patricia Racette in the title role, and conducted by George Manahan, recorded Fall 2013 in War Memorial Opera House.  As neither of our opera experts, St.John Flynn and Eric Skelly, have seen this new opera, they feel they cannot make it the... Read More

Houston Public Media’s arts & culture director St.John Flynn and opera expert Eric Skelly discuss Giuseppe Verdi's magnificent La Traviata, the story of the ill-fated love between the dying courtesan Violetta and the young and besotted Alfredo. [The musical excerpts used in this OCS are from the Deutsche Grammophon recording of La Traviata featuring James Levine conducting the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus; Cheryl Studer, Violetta; Luciano Pavarotti, Alfredo; Juan Pons, Germont (DG435 797-2)] You... Read More

A quick, lighthearted overview of Richard Strauss’ celebration of the beauty of humanity Die Frau ohne Schatten (The Woman Without a Shadow). In this Opera Cheat Sheet, Houston Public Media’s arts & culture director, St.John Flynn, and opera expert, Eric Skelly, discuss Strauss’ Die Frau Ohne Schatten, a magical story of a half-mortal Empress who must find a shadow to avoid having to leave her husband and her life on earth to return to the... Read More