Inside Opera – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Birgit Nillson was a 20th-century Swedish dramatic soprano famous for her renditions of the works of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss.

Rudolph Bing was an Austrian opera impresario (producer) who worked around the world. He notably served as the General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.

The first (old) Metropolitan Opera House in New York was located on Broadway but was demolished in 1967. The current (new) Metropolitan Opera House is located in Lincoln Center in the Upper West Side.

La fanciulla del West (1910) is an opera by Italian composer Giacomo Puccini.

Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg (Hamburg College for Music and Theatre) is a large public university of music in Hamburg, Germany.

Rolf Liebermann was a Swiss composer and music administrator who served as the Artistic Director of the Hamburg State Opera and Paris Opera.

Judith Blegen is an American operatic soprano.

La voix humaine (1959) is a one-act opera by 20th-century French composer Francis Poulenc.

In July 1980, a 30-year-old violinist named Helen Mintiks was murdered during the intermission of a performance at the Metropolitan Opera. Read more here.

Guarino refers to “Jimmy,” or James Levine, a Cincinnati-born opera conductor who became the Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera. He was notably terminated from this position in 2018 over sexual assault allegations that he denies.

John Dexter was an English theatre, opera, and film director. Guarino mentions his production of French composer Francis Poulenc’s opera Dialogues des Carmélites (1956).

Franco Zeffirelli was an Italian director and producer of opera, films, and television. Many of his opera productions are still in use today around the world.

Margarete Wallmann was a German ballerina, choreographer, set designer, and opera director.

Rhoda Levine is an American opera director, choreographer, and professor.

Francesca Zambello is an American opera and theatre director who currently serves as director of the Glimmerglass Festival and Washington National Opera.

Ricky Ian Gordon is a contemporary American composer.

Fiora Contino was an American opera conductor and teacher.

Jean-Pierre Ponnelle was a 20th-century French opera director and scenic designer.

Dawn Upshaw is an American operatic soprano.

Robert Wilson is an American experimental theatre director and playwright.

The 19th-century Viennese composer W.A. Mozart frequently collaborated with librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, such as for their opera The Marriage of Figaro (1786).

Blind Injustice was an opera by composer *** and librettist *** which premiered at Cincinnati Opera in 2019.

Patricia (“Patty”) K. Beggs was the General Director of Cincinnati Opera from 1997 to 2019.

Opera Fusion: New Works (OF:NW) is a partnership between Cincinnati Opera and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music focused on fostering contemporary American opera.

In 2011, Doubt by composer Douglas J Cuomo and librettist John Patrick Shirley became the first project workshopped by OF:NW. The opera premiered at Minnesota Opera in 2013.

Fellow Travelers by composer Gregory Spears and librettist Gregory Pierce is another opera that participated in OF:NW in 2013. Cincinnati Opera premiered the work in 2015. Hear Fellow Travelers composer Gregory Spears talk about the work on a previous episode of Inside Opera.

Castor and Patience by composer Gregory Spears and librettist Tracy K. Smith participated in OF:NW in 2019. Cincinnati Opera will premiere the work as part of its 2021 Summer Festival. Hear Castor and Patience composer Gregory Spears talk about the work on a previous episode of Inside Opera.

Rachel Maddow is an American television program host and political commentator, known for the nightly Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC.

Joni Mitchell is a critically acclaimed Canadian singer-songwriter.

Bob Dylan is a Nobel Prize-winning American singer-songwriter.

The American Opera Project is an opera company in Brooklyn, New York dedicated to developing new operatic and musical theatre works.

Fugues are a musical composition technique in which a melody is blended with other melodies, usually in complex ways. German Baroque composer J.S. Bach is notable for having written many collections of fugues.

Early in his life, Spears studied music theory and composition with prolific American composer and educator Adolphus Hailstork.

Pietà (Pity) is a statue by Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo Buonarroti currently housed in St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City.

Anton Webern was an Austrian avant-garde composer of the early 20th century.

Tracy K. Smith is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet and former Poet Laureate of the U.S.

Charles Jarden was the former General Director of The American Opera Project.

Troubadours were composers and singers of lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages (12th to 14th centuries).

The Requiem in D Minor is an unfinished work by W.A. Mozart who passed away before it was completed.

Plainchant (sometimes called “Gregorian chant”) is a liturgical musical style used historically in the Western Church (and now mainly in the Catholic Church) for singing texts to a congregation. In this style, the text is sung on one unaccompanied melody.

Hot yoga is a modern yoga-inspired exercise where typical yoga sequences are performed under hot and humid conditions.

Joan Panetti is a pianist, composer, and Professor of Music at the Yale School of Music.

Ta-Nehesi Coates is an American author and essayist who generally focuses on the subject of race relations in the United States. One of his best-known essays is The Case for Reparations.

Seeing the Body is a book by poet and photographer Rachel Eliza Griffiths.

Revolutions is a podcast which explores political revolutions throughout history.

The Criterion Collection is an American video distribution company focusing on “important classic and contemporary films.”

Stevie Wonder is a 25 Grammy Award-winning American singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer known for tracks such as his 1970 “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours” and his 1972 “Superstition.”

Brian Eno is an English musician and visual artist known for his ambient musical style and collaborations to rock, pop, and electronic music as well.

Arthur Russell was an American avant-garde cellist and composer.

Liz Wright is an American jazz and gospel singer.

Kelley sang the role of Federico Lorca in the original version of Osvaldo Golijov’s opera Ainadamar.

Kelley earned her Bachelor of Music degree from Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California and her master's degree in Music from the University of California, Los Angeles.

John Adams is an American composer, clarinetist, and conductor of classical music and opera, with strong roots in minimalism.

Suzuki is a character in the opera Madame Butterfly, an opera in three acts (originally two) by Giacomo Puccini.

Roberto De Candia is an Italian operatic baritone.

Maria Luigia Borsi is an Italian opera singer.

Hadleigh Adams is an operatic baritone from Palmerston North, New Zealand. Hadleigh recently played Mercutio in Cincinnati Opera’s performance of Charles Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet.

Die Fledermaus is an operetta composed by Johann Strauss II.

A breeches role (also pants role or trouser role) is a role in which an actress appears in male clothing.

Tanglewood is a music venue in the towns of Lenox and Stockbridge in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts.

The Cleveland Orchestra, based in Cleveland, is one of the five American orchestras informally referred to as the "Big Five".

Requiem Canticles is a 15-minute composition by Igor Stravinsky, for contralto and bass soli, chorus, and orchestra.

Cherubino is a character in The Marriage of Figaro, an opera buffa (comic opera composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

"The Composer" is a character in Richard Strauss's opera Ariadne auf Naxos.

Das Lied von der Erde ("The Song of the Earth") is a composition for two voices and orchestra written by the Austrian composer Gustav Mahler.

Cecilia Bartoli is an Italian coloratura mezzo-soprano opera singer and recitalist.

“Voi Che Sapete” is an aria from The Marriage of Figaro.

Renée Fleming is an American soprano, known for performances in opera, concerts, recordings, theater, film, and at major public occasions.

Leontyne Price is an American soprano. She rose to international acclaim in the 1950s and 1960s, and was the first African American to become a leading performer, or prima donna, at the Metropolitan Opera, and one of the most popular American classical singers of her generation.

Robert Spano is an American conductor and pianist.

The Gospel According to the Other Mary is an opera/oratorio by John Adams.

Peter Sellars is an American theatre director, noted for his unique contemporary staging of classical and contemporary operas and plays.

El Niño is an opera-oratorio by John Adams.

Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music.

El Salón México is a symphonic composition in one movement by Aaron Copland, which uses Mexican folk music extensively.

Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) is a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner.

Kelley grew up in Clovis, California.

Audra McDonald is an American actress and singer. Primarily known for her work on the Broadway stage, she has won six Tony Awards, more performance wins than any other actor, and is the only person to win all four acting categories. McDonald was raised in Fresno, California.

La Cenerentola is an operatic dramma giocoso by Gioachino Rossini.

The Turn of the Screw is a 20th-century English chamber opera composed by Benjamin Britten.

Claude Debussy was a French composer.

Phyllis Curtin was an American classical soprano who had an active career in operas and concerts from the early 1950s through the 1980s.

Donald Runnicles is a Scottish conductor.

Louis Langrée is the music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

Evans mentions the following Mahler works: Symphony No. 2 (known as the Resurrection Symphony), Symphony No. 3, Symphony No.8, Rückert-Lieder, and Kindertotenlieder.

The songs of Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy’s Magic Horn) by Gustav Mahler are voice-and-piano and orchestral settings of German folk poems chosen from a collection of the same name.

The Rape of Lucretia is an opera by Benjamin Britten.

Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City.

The Neruda Songs are a cycle of five songs composed for mezzo-soprano soloist and orchestra by the American composer Peter Lieberson for his wife, singer Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. Lieberson chose O'Connor as the first mezzo-soprano to sing his composition Neruda Songs live in concert after the death of his wife.

Bernard Haitink is a Dutch conductor.

The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO) is an American orchestra based in Atlanta, Georgia. Robert Spano has been its music director since 2001.

Agustín Barrios was a Paraguayan virtuoso classical guitarist and composer, largely regarded as one of the greatest performers and most prolific composers for the guitar.

Carmen is an opera by French composer Georges Bizet.

The Dream of Gerontius is a work for voices and orchestra in two parts composed by Edward Elgar in 1900, to text from the poem by John Henry Newman.

Wesendonck Lieder is the common name of a set of five songs for female voice and piano Wagner, Fünf Gedichte für eine Frauenstimme (Five Poems for a Female Voice).

Hans Werner Henze was a German composer.

Sea Pictures is a song cycle by Elgar consisting of five songs written by various poets.

Jascha Heifetz was a Russian-American violinist.

Kelley cites Dawn Upshaw, an American soprano, as her most important mentor.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a 1984 novel by Milan Kundera, about two women, two men, a dog and their lives in the 1968 Prague Spring period of Czechoslovak history.

Tidying Up with Marie Kondo is a reality television series developed for Netflix and released on January 1, 2019.

Kelley mentions Here’s the Thing and Fresh Air as some of her favorite podcasts.

Zero, aptly named for the amount of food you eat during a fast, is a simple tracker that helps users sync a fast with their biological clock.

Spotify Technology S.A. is a Swedish media-services provider founded in 2006 with an app of the same name.

Pandora is a music application.

Metropol Restaurant & Bar

Jessica Rivera is an American soprano of Peruvian-American ancestry.

Kelley cites Nina Simone as one of her favorite musicians outside of classical music.

Stephen grew up in the town of Warrington, England.

Stratford-upon-Avon is a market town and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon District, in the county of Warwickshire, England.

The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Sir Trevor Nunn is an English theatre director. Nunn has been the Artistic Director for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Antony and Cleopatra is a tragedy by William Shakespeare.

Richard II is a history play by William Shakespeare.

John Barton was a British theatre director and (with Peter Hall) a co-founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Twelfth Night is a comedy by William Shakespeare.

Dame Judi Dench is an English actress.

John Copley is a British theatre and opera producer and director.

The Times is a British daily (Monday to Saturday) national newspaper based in London.

Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End.

The London Opera Centre, a school for the training of opera singers and other opera professionals, existed in England between 1963 and 1977.Glineborn

Benjamin Britten was an English composer, conductor and pianist.

Sir Peter Pears was an English tenor. His career was closely associated with the composer Benjamin Britten, his personal and professional partner for nearly forty years.

Joan Cross was an English soprano, closely associated with the operas of Benjamin Britten.

Aldborough is a village in the civil parish of Boroughbridge in the Borough of Harrogate in North Yorkshire, England.

La bohème is an opera composed by Giacomo Puccini.

Paul Bunyan is an operetta in two acts and a prologue composed by Benjamin Britten to a libretto by W. H. Auden, designed for performance by semi-professional groups.

Malcolm Fraser was an opera director.

The Magic Flute is an opera by Mozart.

Scottish Opera is the national opera company of Scotland.

Sir David Pountney is a British and Polish theatre and opera director and librettist internationally known for his productions of rarely performed operas and new productions of classic works.

“Four Sea Interludes” are from the opera Peter Grimes by Benjamin Britten

Peter Hemmings was an English opera administrator, impresario and singer.

LA Opera

John Cox is an English opera director.

The Marriage of Figaro is an opera buffa (comic opera) composed in 1786 by Mozart.

Così fan tutte an opera by Mozart.

Wozzeck is the first opera by the Austrian composer Alban Berg.

Don Giovanni is an opera by Mozart.

Glyndebourne is an English country house, the site of an opera house that, since 1934, has been the venue for the annual Glyndebourne Festival Opera.

Falstaff is a comic opera by the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi.

Ariadne auf Naxos is an opera by Richard Strauss.

Un ballo in maschera is an opera by Verdi.

English Touring Opera (ETO) is an opera company in the United Kingdom founded in 1979 under the name Opera 80 by the then-existing Arts Council of Great Britain.

The Barber of Seville is an opera by Gioachino Rossini

Sir Thomas Allen is an English operatic baritone.

Dame Janet Baker is an English mezzo-soprano best known as an opera, concert, and lieder singer.

Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis.

Serenade to Music is a work by Ralph Vaughan Williams

Robert Lloyd

Danielle de Niese is an Australian-American lyric soprano.

Jules Massenet was a French composer of the Romantic era best known for his operas, of which he wrote more than thirty. The two most frequently staged are Manon (1884) and Werther (1892).

Sir Roger Norrington is a British conductor. He is the son of Sir Arthur Norrington and his brother is Humphrey Thomas Norrington.

Elijah Moshinsky is an Australian opera director, theatre director and television director who has worked at the Royal Opera House, the Metropolitan Opera, the Royal National Theatre, BBC Television and numerous other venues.

The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is the oldest conservatoire in the UK.

The Guildhall School of Music and Drama is an independent music and dramatic arts school which was founded in 1880 in London, England.

Valery Gergiev is a Soviet and Russian conductor and opera company director of Ossetian origin.

Der Rosenkavalier is a comic opera by Richard Strauss

Carol Vaness is an American lirico-spinto soprano.

Opera Kansas

Palm Beach Opera Vocal Competition

Opera Philadelphia

Count Almaviva is a character in the Marriage of Figaro

Theresa May is a British politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party.

Don Carlos is a grand opera composed by Verdi.

Simon Boccanegra is an opera by Verdi.

Madame Butterfly is an opera by Giacomo Puccini.

Der Freischütz is a German opera with spoken dialogue by Carl Maria von Weber.

Washington Irving was an American short story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century.

Glenn Platt is Cincinnati Opera’s Director of Production

Giorgio Strehler was an Italian opera and theatre director.

Killing Eve is a British spy thriller television series, produced in the United Kingdom by Sid Gentle Films for BBC America.

Breaking Bad is an American neo-Western crime drama television series created and produced by Vince Gilligan.

The Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden is the second-oldest zoo in the United States.

Amy Winehouse was an English singer and songwriter.

René Jacobs is a Belgian musician. He came to fame as a countertenor but in recent years has become renowned as a conductor of Baroque and early Classical opera.

Carmen is an opera by French composer Georges Bizet.

Santa Fe Opera (SFO) is an American opera company.

Lorenzo Da Ponte was an Italian, later American opera librettist, poet and Roman Catholic priest.

Carmen is an opera by French composer Georges Bizet.

The San Diego Opera Association (SDO) is a professional opera company located in the city of San Diego, California.

La sonnambula (The Sleepwalker) is an opera semiseria in two acts, with music in the bel canto tradition by Vincenzo Bellini.

Rusalka is an opera ('lyric fairy tale') by Antonín Dvořák.

Eugene Onegin is an opera composed by Pyotr Tchaikovsky.

Oberlin College and Conservatory

Seiji Ozawa is a Japanese conductor known for his advocacy of modern composers and for his work with the San Francisco Symphony, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

The Heart Mountain War Relocation Center was one of ten concentration camps used for the internment of Japanese Americans evicted from the West Coast Exclusion Zone during World War II by executive order from President Franklin Roosevelt after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

The Holocaust was the World War II genocide of the European Jews.

An American Dream is an opera by Jack Perla, a composer and pianist.

Lyric Opera of Chicago

Everything Is Illuminated is a 2005 biographical comedy-drama film, written and directed by Liev Schreiber and starring Elijah Wood and Eugene Hütz. It was adapted from the novel of the same name by Jonathan Safran Foer.

Marie Kondo is a Japanese organizing consultant and author.

Boris Goldovsky was a Russian-born conductor and broadcast commentator, active in the United States. He has been called an important "popularizer" of opera in America.

Roméo et Juliette (Romeo and Juliet) is an opera by Charles Gounod.

The Marriage of Figaro is an opera buffa (comic opera) composed in 1786 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

La bohème is an opera composed by Giacomo Puccini.

Minnesota Opera is a performance organization based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Nicole Cabell is an American operatic soprano. She recently played Juliet in Cincinnati Opera’s production of Romeo and Juliet.

Matthew White recently played Romeo in Cincinnati Opera’s production of Romeo and Juliet.

Traditional Japanese theatre includes Kabuki, Noh(and its comic accompaniment, Kyōgen) and the puppet theatre, Bunraku.

Jennifer Good is the Managing Director of Production at the San Francisco Opera.

Santa Fe Opera (SFO) is an American opera company.

Rupert Hemmings is the Vice President of Artistic Planning at the LA Opera.

Paul Moser is an American philosopher who writes on epistemology and the philosophy of religion. He is Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University Chicago and past editor of the American Philosophical Quarterly.

Houston Ballet, operated by Houston Ballet Foundation, is the fourth-largest professional ballet company in the United States, based in Houston, Texas.

William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist.

Mozawa is a performing arts company that, through hybridity and fusion, aims to break down the barriers that exist between differing artistic media and cultures.

Nabucco is an Italian-language opera by Giuseppe Verdi.

Franco Zeffirelli was an Italian director and producer of operas, films and television.

Origami is the art of paper folding, which is often associated with Japanese culture.

Don Carlos is a (historical) tragedy in five acts by Friedrich Schiller.

Sir Derek Jacobi is an English actor and stage director.

Madame Butterfly is an opera by Giacomo Puccini.

Ana Martínez is a Puerto Rican soprano.

Kelly Kaduce is an American soprano.

Robert Wilson is an American experimental theater stage director and playwright who has been described by the media as "[America]'s – or even the world's – foremost vanguard 'theater artist'".

University of Michigan

DePaul University

North Park University

The Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center

Adler Fellowship Program

Die Frau ohne Schatten (The Woman without a Shadow) is an opera by Richard Strauss.

The Turn of the Screw is a 20th-century English chamber opera composed by Benjamin Britten.

The Rake's Progress is an English-language opera in three acts and an epilogue by Igor Stravinsky.

Marco Polo is an opera by the Chinese-born composer Tan Dun.

Carousel is the second musical by the team of Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (book and lyrics).

My Fair Lady is a musical based on George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion.

Stephen Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist known for more than a half-century of contributions to musical theatre.

A Little Night Music is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.

Isaac Mizrahi is an American fashion designer, TV presenter, and Chief Designer of the Isaac Mizrahi brand for Xcel Brands.

Houston Grand Opera (HGO), located in Houston, Texas, was founded in 1955 by German-born impresario Walter Herbert.

Opera Theatre of Saint Louis (OTSL) is an American summer opera festival held in St. Louis, Missouri.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a 1979 musical thriller with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.

American Gods (2001) is a fantasy novel by British author Neil Gaiman.

Dark is a German science fiction thriller web television series.

Uber Technologies, Inc. is an American multinational transportation network company offering services that include peer-to-peer ridesharing, ride service hailing, food delivery, and a bicycle-sharing system.

The John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge, originally known as the Cincinnati-Covington Bridge spans the Ohio River between Cincinnati, Ohio and Covington, Kentucky.

Ohio River Trail

The Brooklyn Bridge is a hybrid cable-stayed/suspension bridge in New York City.

Matthew mentions Beyoncé as one of his favorite artists outside of the opera world.

Jessye Norman is an American opera singer and recitalist.

Susanna is from Huntsville, Alabama where she attended Randolph School. She received Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from the Juilliard School. After completing her master's degree in 2004, she became a member of Santa Fe Opera's Apprentice Program for Singers.

The Metropolitan Opera

Madame Butterfly is an opera by Giacomo Puccini.

Leave It to Beaver is a late 1950s black-and-white American television sitcom about an inquisitive and often naïve boy.

Susanna originally wanted to attend the following higher education institutions: Northwestern University, Vanderbilt University, Samford University, and Furman University.

The New York City Opera (NYCO) is an American opera company located in Manhattan in New York City. The company has been active from 1943 through 2013 (when it filed for bankruptcy), and again since 2016 when it was revived.

New York Philharmonic Orchestra(NYPO) or New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, is an orchestra based in New York City.

Carnegie Hall is a concert venue located in Manhattan in New York City.

Operalia, The World Opera Competition is an annual international competition for young opera singers. Founded in 1993 by Plácido Domingo, the competition has helped launch the careers of several important artists.

The Music Academy of the West is a summer music conservatory located in Montecito, California. Participation is merit-based and tuition free.

Marilyn Horne is an American mezzo-soprano opera singer.

Matthew Epstein is the Director of Vocal Divisions at Columbia Artists Management, Inc.

Cynthia Hoffmann is a member of the voice faculties of Manhattan School of Music, where she also teaches a class in Vocal Performance, and of the Juilliard School, where she served as Chair from 1995 to 2006.

Matthew A. Horner is the Executive Vice President - Global Head of Vocal for IMG Artists, New York.

Lyric Opera of Chicago Young Artists Program

Countess Rosina Almaviva is a character in The Marriage of Figaro, an opera buffa composed in 1786 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Birdie is a character in Regina, an opera by Marc Blitzstein.

Musetta is a character in La bohème, an opera by Giacomo Puccini.

Fiordiligi is a character in Così fan tutte an opera by Mozart.

Agrippina is a character in an opera of the same name by George Frideric Handel.

Don Giovanni is an opera by Mozart. Donna Anna, Don Giovanni’s daughter, and Donna Elvira, a lady of Burgos abandoned by Don Giovanni, are characters in the opera.

Arabella and Der Rosenkavalier are comic operas by Richard Strauss

Daphne is a one-act opera by Richard Strauss.

Opera Theatre of Saint Louis (OTSL) is an American summer opera festival held in St. Louis, Missouri.

Kaija Saariaho is a Finnish composer based in Paris, France.

Renée Fleming is an American soprano, known for performances in opera, concerts, recordings, theater, film, and at major public occasions.

Julian Bream is an English virtuoso classical guitarist and lutenist. One of the most distinguished classical guitarists of the 20th century, he played a significant role in improving the public perception of the classical guitar as a respectable instrument.

Natalie Dessay is a French singer and actress who had a highly acclaimed career as an operatic coloratura soprano before leaving the opera stage on 15 October 2013. She is married to the bass-baritone Laurent Naouri.

Violetta is a character in the opera La traviata by Giuseppe Verdi.

Cleopatra is a character in the opera Antony and Cleopatra, an opera by American composer Samuel Barber.

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves is a 2013 novel by the American writer Karen Joy Fowler.

Fresh Air is a podcast hosted by Terry Gross, the show features intimate conversations with today's biggest luminaries.

White Lies is an NPR podcast. More information can be found here.

The Eagle OTR and Salazar are restaurants in Cincinnati.

Dolly Parton is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, actress, author, businesswoman, and humanitarian, known primarily for her work in country music.

Kathleen Battle is an American operatic soprano known for her distinctive vocal range and tone.

Lyric Opera of Chicago

Luciano Pavarotti an Italian operatic tenor who also crossed over into popular music, eventually becoming one of the most commercially successful tenors of all time.

Plácido Domingo is a Spanish opera singer, conductor, and arts administrator.

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa is a New Zealand soprano.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a prolific and influential composer of the classical era.

Shirley Verrett was an African-American operatic mezzo-soprano who successfully transitioned into soprano roles, i.e. soprano sfogato.

Don Carlos is a grand opera composed by Giuseppe Verdi.

Pomona is a German-language opera by Reinhard Keiser.

Susanna is the countess Almaviva’s maid in The Marriage of Figaro.

Clara is a character in the opera Porgy and Bess, by the American composer George Gershwin.

Susanne Mentzer is an American operatic mezzo-soprano. She is best known for singing trouser roles, such as Cherubino in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Idamante in Mozart's Idomeneo, Octavian in Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier and the composer in Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos, as well as other music of Mozart, Strauss, Rossini, Berlioz and Mahler.

The Chicago Opera Theater (COT) is an American opera company based in Chicago, Illinois.

Renée Fleming is an American soprano, known for performances in opera, concerts, recordings, theater, film, and at major public occasions.

Leontyne Price is an American soprano. She rose to international acclaim in the 1950s and 1960s, and was the first African American to become a leading performer, or prima donna, at the Metropolitan Opera, and one of the most popular American classical singers of her generation.

In music performance and notation, legato indicates that musical notes are played or sung smoothly and connected.

Tatyana and Eugene Onegin are character is the opera Eugene Onegin composed by Pyotr Tchaikovsky.

The Magic Flute is an opera by Mozart.

Così fan tutte is an Italian-language opera buffa by Mozart.

Victoria Okafor is an American opera soprano.

Barbarina is a character in in The Marriage of Figaro.

Operalia, The World Opera Competition, founded in 1993 by Plácido Domingo, is an annual international competition for young opera singers.

Liù is a character in the opera Turandot by Giacomo Puccini.

Deborah Birnbaum is an internationally established voice teacher.

The Gershwin Initiative at the University of Michigan.

"Summertime" is an aria composed in 1934 by George Gershwin for the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess.

Morris Robinson is an American bass opera singer and former All-American college football player who has performed with the Metropolitan Opera at Carnegie Hall, at La Scala in Milan, Italy, at the Sydney Opera House and in numerous other Opera Houses throughout the United States and internationally. He was the first African-American artist to sign with a major classical record label.

Mimì is a character in the opera La bohème.

Countess Rosina Almaviva is a character in the opera The Marriage of Figaro.

Micaëla is a character in the opera Carmen.

Carmen is an opera by French composer Georges Bizet.

Cendrillon (Cinderella) is an opera—described as a "fairy tale"—by Jules Massenet.

Castor and Patience will premiere during Cincinnati Opera's 100th anniversary season in 2020.

Me Before You is a romance novel written by Jojo Moyes.

Game of Thrones is an American fantasy drama television series created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss for HBO. It is an adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire, George R. R. Martin's series of fantasy novels, the first of which is A Game of Thrones.

Breaking Bad is an American neo-Western crime drama television series created and produced by Vince Gilligan.

Instacart is an American technology company that operates as a same-day grocery delivery and pick-up service in the U.S. and Canada.

The Eagle OTR and Salazar are restaurants in Cincinnati.

Beyoncé is an American singer, songwriter and actress.

Drake is a Canadian rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, actor, and entrepreneur.

Radiohead are an English rock band. The band consists of Thom Yorke, brothers Jonny Greenwood and Colin Greenwood, Ed O'Brien, and Philip Selway.

Muse are an English rock band. The band consists of Matt Bellamy, Chris Wolstenholme, and Dominic Howard.

Teletubbies is a British pre-school children's television series.

Tel Aviv is the most populous city in the largest metropolitan area of Israel.

The Gulf War

The First Intifada was a Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

The Second Intifada was a period of intensified Israeli–Palestinian violence.

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist.

In May of 1809, eager to protect his precious hearing during the heavy bombardment of the Siege of Vienna, composer Ludwig von Beethoven hid in his brother’s basement with pillows covering his ears.

The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) are the military forces of the State of Israel.

The Staatsoper, the Vienna State Opera, is an Austrian opera house and opera company based in Vienna.

"Largo al factotum" is an aria from The Barber of Seville by Gioachino Rossini.

The Israeli Opera is the principal opera company of Israel.

Robin Guarino is an opera and film director.She is a Professor of Opera at the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music (CCM).

The Marriage of Figaro is an opera buffa (comic opera) composed in 1786 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Pierre Beaumarchais was a French polymath. At various times in his life, he was a watchmaker, inventor, playwright, musician, diplomat, spy, publisher, horticulturist, arms dealer, satirist, financier, and revolutionary (both French and American).

Ariadne auf Naxos is an opera by Richard Strauss.

Powel Crosley Jr. was an American inventor, industrialist, and entrepreneur. He was also a pioneer in radio broadcasting, and a former owner of the Cincinnati Reds major league baseball team

Hugo Hofmannsthal was an Austrian prodigy, a novelist, librettist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist.

Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras.

Maria Callas was an American-born Greek soprano. She was one of the most renowned and influential opera singers of the 20th century.

Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, model, and singer.

Omer mentions the following as pieces she would love to direct: Der Rosenkavalier, Strauss and Hofmannstha, The Rake’s Progress, Carmen, Don Giovanni.

The Magic Flute is an opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Beyoncé is an American singer, songwriter and actress.

The Metropolitan Opera

Naomi Andre attended Westtown School

Eric Mitchko is the General Director for the North Carolina Opera.

Barnard College, Columbia University

The Magic Flute is an opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Der Rosenkavalier is a comic opera by Richard Strauss.

Tatiana Troyanos was an American mezzo-soprano of Greek and German descent, remembered as "one of the defining singers of her generation" (Boston Globe).

Dame Gwyneth Jones is a Welsh operatic dramatic soprano.

Kathleen Battle is an American operatic soprano known for her distinctive vocal range and tone.

Khovanshchina is an opera by Modest Mussorgsky.

Dialogues des Carmélites is an opera, divided into twelve scenes with linking orchestral interludes, by Francis Poulenc.

Manon Lescaut is an opera by Giacomo Puccini.

Columbia University

Jessye Norman is an American opera singer and recitalist.

Sieglinde is a character in Die Walküre, the second of the four music dramas that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen.

Leona Mitchell is an American operatic soprano and an Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame inductee.

Mimi is a character in the opera La bohème, composed by Giacomo Puccini.

Martina Arroyo is an American operatic soprano who had a major international opera career from the 1960s through the 1980s. She was part of the first generation of black opera singers of Puerto Rican descent to achieve wide success, and is viewed as part of an instrumental group of performers who helped break down the barriers of racial prejudice in the opera world.

Aida is an opera by Giuseppe Verdi.

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa is a New Zealand soprano.

The Māori are the indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand.

Nabucco is an Italian-language opera composed in 1841 by Giuseppe Verdi.

Samuel Ramey is an American operatic bass.

Andrea Gruber is an American dramatic soprano particularly admired for her interpretations of the works of Puccini, Verdi, and Wagner.

James Levine is an American conductor and pianist. He is primarily known for his tenure as Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera, a position he held for 40 years.

Alfred Walker is an American operatic bass-baritone.

Michèle Crider is an American lirico spinto operatic soprano.

Mark Rucker, baritone, serves as professor of voice at MSU's College of Music.

Porgy and Bess is an English-language opera by the American composer George Gershwin.

Fidelio is Ludwig van Beethoven's only opera.

Marian Anderson was an American contralto singer, one of the most celebrated of the twentieth century.

Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, dubbed "The Black Swan" (a play on Jenny Lind's sobriquet, "The Swedish Nightingale”, was an African-American singer considered the best-known black concert artist of her time.

James Alan Bland, also known as Jimmy Bland, was an African-American musician and song writer.

Thomas Dartmouth Rice, known professionally as Daddy Rice, was an American performer and playwright who performed blackface and used African American vernacular speech, song and dance to become one of the most popular minstrel show entertainers of his time.

"Oh, Dem Golden Slippers" is a popular song commonly sung by blackface performers in the 19th century.

Prada S.p.A. is an Italian luxury fashion house, specializing in leather handbags, travel accessories, shoes, ready-to-wear, perfumes and other fashion accessories, founded in 1913 by Mario Prada.

Gucci is an Italian luxury brand of fashion and leather goods. Gucci was founded by Guccio Gucci in Florence, Tuscany, in 1921.

Ralph Shearer Northam is an American politician and physician serving as the Governor of Virginia.

Matilda Sissieretta Joyner Jones, known as Sissieretta Jones, was an American soprano. She sometimes was called "The Black Patti", a reference to Italian opera singer Adelina Patti.

The Daughters of the American Revolution is a lineage-based membership service organization for women who are directly descended from a person involved in the United States' efforts towards independence.

Eleanor Roosevelt was an American political figure, diplomat and activist, and served as First Lady of the United States.

Rosa Parks was an American activist in the civil rights movement best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott.

Mattiwilda Dobbs was an African-American coloratura soprano and one of the first black singers to enjoy a major international career in opera.

Lillian Evanti was an African-American opera singer.

Mary Lucinda Cardwell Dawson was an African-American musician and teacher and the founding director of the National Negro Opera Company.

Theodore Drury, born in Kentucky, was a singer and music promoter.

Dr. Kristen Turner’s work has been published in the Journal of the Society for American Music, and the Journal of Musicological Research. Her research interests are in 19th century opera, 19th and 20th century American musical culture, African American music, music and politics, and music and gender.

Sir Rudolf Bing, KBE was an Austrian-born opera impresario who worked in Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States, most notably as General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City from 1950 to 1972.

Ulrica is a character in the opera Un ballo in maschera, an opera by Giuseppe Verdi.

RCA Studio B is a music recording studio in Nashville, Tennessee built in 1956. Originally known simply by the name “RCA Studios”, it became known in the 1960s for being an essential factor to the development of the production style and technique known as the Nashville Sound.

“O don fatale” is an aria from the opera Les Troyens, a French grand opera by Hector Berlioz.

Dom Sébastien, Roi de Portugal is a French grand opera by Gaetano Donizetti.

Leontyne Price is an American soprano. She rose to international acclaim in the 1950s and 1960s, and was the first African American to become a leading performer, or prima donna, at the Metropolitan Opera, and one of the most popular American classical singers of her generation.

The Julliard School

William Warfield was an American concert bass-baritone singer and actor.

Alice Ford is a character in the opera Falstaff.

Donna Anna is a character in the opera Don Giovanni.

Franco Corelli was an Italian tenor who had a major international opera career between 1951 and 1976.

Il Trovatore is an opera by Giuseppe Verdi.

Madame Butterfly is an opera by Giacomo Puccini.

Liù is a character in the opera Turandot by Giacomo Puccini.

The Messa da Requiem is a musical setting of the Catholic funeral mass (Requiem) for four soloists, double choir and orchestra by Giuseppe Verdi.

Joe is a character in the musical Show Boat by Jerome Kern.

La Scala is an opera house in Milan, Italy.

Otello is an opera by Giuseppe Verdi.

Atlanta Symphony Orchestra

Russell Thomas is an American operatic tenor.

Robert Spano is an American conductor and pianist.

The Gershwin Initiative at the University of Michigan

Houston Grand Opera

Lyric Opera of Chicago

Francesca Zambello is an American opera and theatre director. She serves as General Director of The Glimmerglass Festival and Artistic Director of the Washington National Opera.

The Neil Simon Theatre, formerly the Alvin Theatre, is a Broadway venue built in 1927.

Götterdämmerung is the last in Richard Wagner's cycle of four music dramas titled Der Ring des Nibelungen.

Treemonisha is an opera by African-American composer Scott Joplin, who is most noted for his ragtime piano works.

Harry Lawrence Freeman was a United States opera composer, conductor, impresario and teacher. He was the first African-American to write an opera (Epthalia, 1891) that was successfully produced.

Voodoo is an opera in three acts with music and libretto by Harry Lawrence Freeman.

William Menefield is a Cincinnati-born composer. How work Fierce will be premiered by the Cincinnati Opera in 2020.

Sheila Williams is the author of Dancing on the Edge of the Roof, On the Right Side of a Dream, The Shade of My Own Tree and Girls Most Likely.

Mozart’s Requiem is a requiem mass by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

David Robertson guest conductor

Lyric Opera of Chicago

The Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center

“Roger Norrington”, Sir Roger Arthur Caver Norrington is a British conductor.

The Metropolitan Opera

Elvira is a character in the opera Don Giovanni

Musetta and Mimi are characters in the opera La Bohème

DePaul University Music Department

Nicole mentioned her education at the Chautauqua Institution run by Marlena Kleinman Malas in upstate New York as well as the influence of the late Richard Pearlman who was an American theatre and opera director.

Stacey Tappan is an American coloratura soprano.

Erin Wall is a Canadian soprano acclaimed for her performances of Strauss, Mozart, Mahler and contemporary opera.

Miss Saigon is a musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil. It is based on Giacomo Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly.

Cats is a sung-through musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot.

Joni Mitchell, The Doors, Fleetwood Mac, Sting

James Taylor

PBS: Public Broadcasting Service

Both Nicole Cabell and Renée Fleming attended the Eastman School of Music for their undergraduate educations.

Benton Hess, the founder and Artistic Director of “Si parla, si canta” also attended Eastman.

Oberlin College and Conservatory

Indiana University

Roosevelt University

Frédéric Antoun was originally cast as Romeo but due to unforeseen circumstances had to cancel. Romeo was played by Matthew White.

“Je veux vivre” is an Aria from Charles Gounod’s opera Roméo et Juliette and is Juliette’s first area.

La Traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave.

Marguerite is a character in Gounod’s opera Faust

“The Poison Aria” is an Aria from Charles Gounod’s opera Roméo et Juliette

“Je dis que rien ne ne m'épouvante” is an Aria sung by the character Micaëla in Carmen, an opera by French composer Georges Bizet.

Mirella Freni is an Italian soprano whose repertoire includes Verdi, Puccini, Mozart and Tchaikovsky.

Porgy and Bess is an opera by the American composer George Gershwin.

Rosalinda is a character in the opera Die Fledermaus

The Cunning Little Vixen

Fiordiligi is a character in the opera buffa Così fan tutte by Mozart

Rusalka is an opera ('lyric fairy tale') by Antonín Dvořák.

Falstaff is a comic opera in three acts by the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi

Simon Boccanegra is an opera by the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi

The Paris Opera

Nico Castel

Dame Joan Alston Sutherland was an Australian-born coloratura soprano noted for her contribution to the renaissance of the bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s through to the 1980s.

Stevie Nicks