First performed on December 26, 1830 at Teatro Carcano in Milan, Italy, the opera recounts the life of Anne Boleyn, the second wife of England's King Henry VIII. The duet "Sul suo capo aggravi un Dio" between Anna and Jane Seymour, who later became Henry VIII's third wife, is considered one of the finest in the entire operatic repertoire.
This opera is a new production at the Lyric, featuring Sondra Radvanovsky (Anne Boleyn), Jamie Barton (Jane Seymour), Bryan Humel (Percy), John Relyea (Henry VIII), and Kelley O'Connor (Smeton) It is being performed from December 6-January 16.
The opera was first performed in Rome, Italy in 1900. The heroine's boyfriend (Cavaradossi) is tortured in the second act at the hands of Scarpia, the villain. Scarpia then tries to force himself on Tosca, but she stabs him to death.
At the end of the story, heroine Tosca is supposed to leap to her death from the roof of the prison. Most productions equip the stage floor, behind the set, with a huge trampoline/mattress to cushion her fall. However more than one production miscalculates the bounciness of the trampoline. In 1960, at the Giacomo Puccini City Center in New York, a large American who landed not on a mattress, but on a trampoline bounced 15 times before the curtain fell - sometimes upside down, then the right way up - now laughing with glee - now screaming with rage.
Other disasters included the soldiers shooting Tosca instead of Cavaradossi and then leaping after her when she jumps at the San Francisco Opera in 1961. Also in 1950 at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, Maria Jeritza tripped up and fell flat on her face in front of Scarpia. She sang her entire aria 'Vissi d'art' lyring on her stomach.
Featured singers at the Lyric are Tatiana Serjan and Hui He (Tosca), Misha Didyk and Jorge de Leon (Cavaradossi), and Evgeny Nikitin and Mark Delavan (Scarpia). It is being performed from January 24- March 14.
The opera was first performed in Dresden, Germany in 1845. It involves lessons in Love, Forgiveness, and even meeting the Pope. It also opens with a full-blown orgy. After its disastrous Paris premiere because of The Jockey Club, Wagner withdrew it from performance for the nest 30 years.
Wagner's entire life seems to have been dominated by the number 13. The name Richard Wagner contains 13 letters. He was born in 1813. (Those digits also add up to 13.) He was exiled from German for 13 years. His opera Tannhauser was on the 13th of April and its disastrous Paris premiere was on March 13. Wagner wrote 13 opera and died on February 13 in the 13th year of the new German government.
The featured singers at the Lyric are Johan Botha (Tannhauser), Amber Wagner (ELisabeth), Michaela Schuster (Venus), Gerald Finley (Wolfram), and John Relyea (Landgraf). It is being performed from February 9-March 6)
This opera was suppressed for more than 40 years. It was first performed in Russian Passazhirka in 1968. The libretto is based on the Polish radio play Passenger from Cabin Number 45 (1959) by concentration camp survivor Zofia Posmysz.
The action moves between the white deck of an ocean liner in the early 1960s, where Liese and her husband Walter are bound for Brazil, along with Marta a former prisoner, and the dark horrors of the death camp below, where Liese served as a German SS officer in Auschwitz.
The featured singers are Amanda Majeski (Marta), Daveda Karanas (Liese), Brandon Jovanovich (Walter), Joshua Hopkins (Tadusz), Kelly Kaduce (Katya), and Judith Forst (Bronka). It is being performed from February 24-March 15.
All lectures will take place in the Multipurpose Room on Thursdays from 7:00-8:30 p.m.
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