Opern der Welt

Modest Mussorgsky's 'Boris Godunov', based on Pushkin's eponymous Demetrius drama, is one of the operas raising the question about their definitive version. After the 'first Boris' was rejected in 186...

'La Bohème' is Puccini's fourth opera and was premiered in Turin in 1896. The tale of the consumptive Mimi goes back to a story by Henri Murger, 'Scènes de la vie de Bohème'. Puccini set the topic to...

Puccini had hardly finished his work on 'Tosca' in 1900 and seen its first performances when a new potential opera subject attracted his attention during a theatre visit in London: the play staged was...

Puccini's opera 'Tosca' was based on a stage play by Victorien Sardou which the composer had seen in Milan with the famous actress Sarah Bernhardt. The story is partly about a historical event in the...

Glücklich, endlich den langgesuchten großen Opernstoff gefunden zu haben, begann Puccini seine Turandot. Es ist sein letztes Werk: Krankheit und Tod hinderten den Komponisten an der Vollendung, die ab...

This comprehensive introduction to Giuseppe Verdi's 'Don Carlos' contains the complete libretto with numerous music examples. Kurt Pahlen comments on the work with music-related references as well exp...

Having composed five operas in the 1850s, Verdi, while looking for a suitable libretto, came across a manuscript of Eugène Scribe which had already been the subject of works by other composers. Althou...

After the composition of his opera 'Aida' and of the Requiem, Verdi withdrew completely to the Villa Sant' Agata and considered this to be the end of his career as a composer. It took a bit of cunning...

Giuseppe Verdi's opera 'Rigoletto', the tragic story of the eponymous hunchbacked court jester, is now published with the complete Italian libretto as well as the translation used by most German opera...

'La Traviata' is 'the woman gone astray', 'the wayward one'. Verdi's opera is based on the story of the novel 'La dame aux camélias' by Alexandre Dumas fils about the life of a consumptive demimondain...

After the extraordinary success of 'Rigoletto', Verdi who was constantly looking for material for an opera came across 'El trobador', a play by the Spaniard Antonio Garcia Gutiérrez. The transformatio...

No less than 37 years, more than half of Wagner's life, passed from the first idea of the opera 'Parsifal' to its world premiere in Bayreuth in 1882, it being Wagner's last stage work before his death...

Giacomo Puccinis Zusammenarbeit mit den Librettisten Giuseppe Giacosa und Luigi Illica markiert zweifellos den Höhepunkt seines Opernschaffens. Nachdem Puccinis Verleger Ricordi die beiden hoch angese...

A tamburo battente, auf einen Streich, und in einem wahren Schaffensrausch in angeblich 40 Tagen schrieb Giuseppe Verdi den 'Rigoletto' nieder, die Premiere wurde ein Triumph. Mit gleichem Schwung mac...

'Twilight of the Gods', the Third Day, brings Wagner's Ring cycle with an evening and three days, all full-length performances lasting for hours, to an end. Everything that has happened in the parts b...

Based on the subject of the eponymous novella by Prosper Mérimée, 'Carmen' is George Bizet's last work. The composer died a few weeks after the unsuccessful world premiere in Paris on 3 March 1875. To...

Rossini had already composed 15 operas in just five years when he brought 'The Barber of Seville' to public attention. The libretto is based on a play by Caron de Beaumarchais - the very same Beaumarc...

Fidelio ist Beethovens einzige Oper. Die Handlung entspringt einer historischen Begebenheit, die sich - wie der französische Dichter J. N. Bouilly sagt - in Tours ereignet hat. Was Beethoven faszinier...

The first publication of a volume of Engelbert Humperdinck's fairy-tale opera 'Hänsel and Gretel' is a valuable addition to the successful series 'Operas of the World' for this work is the second most...

After the success of his third completed opera 'Rienzi', Wagner turned to putting a topic to music which he had come across in Heinrich Heine's 'Schnabelewopski' fragment a few years before. 'The Flyi...

'Twilight of the Gods', the Third Day, brings Wagner's Ring cycle with an evening and three days, all full-length performances lasting for hours, to an end. Everything that has happened in the parts b...

Wagner's 'Lohengrin' is described as a 'great romantic opera' in which Wagner opens up two completely different worlds for the listener. On the one hand, there is the mystical world of the Knight of t...

This comprehensive introduction to Wagner's opera 'The Mastersingers of Nuremberg' contains the complete libretto with numerous music examples. Kurt Pahlen comments on the work with music-related refe...

Although 'Rhinegold', like any of the following three parts, is a drama on its own, it reveals its entire meaning only as introduction to the complete work. In 'The Nibelung's Ring', Wagner used his o...

'Siegfried' is the Second Day in Wagner's tetralogy 'The Nibelung's Ring'; the world premiere took place in Bayreuth in 1876 as part of the opening ceremony of the festival theatre. In contrast to the...