The Verdi Project: La Traviata

Verdi breaks new ground and causes controversy.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

She's dying here: Angela Gheorgiu as Violetta Valéry in the Met's old La Traviata.
Photo by Ken Howard © The Metropolitan Opera.

There is so much to write about La Traviata that it's difficult to know where to begin. Verdi's 1853 adaptation of the play La Dame aux Camélias was like nothing that came beforee it: a contemporary story with a heart-rending ending that took a bold and unblinking look at a profession and a way of life that was simply not talked about in so-called "polite" society: especially not in Venice where the opera would have its premiere!

The Verdi Project: Il Trovatore

Sometimes too much popularity can be a bad thing.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The Metropolitan Opera does the Anvil Chorus in the David Macvicar production of Il Trovatore.
Image © 2017 The Metropolitan Opera.

There is no opera that needs defending more than Il Trovatore. Verdi's eighteenth opera burst upon thestage at the Teatro Apollo in Rome like a cannon shot in 1853. It was the second of the operas still referred to as Big Three, following Rigoletto and preceding La Traviata and it quickly earned a place as one of his most popular and reliable stage works. It has some of Verdi's best tunes. It was brilliant, terrifying and original. It played everywhere.

And then came the Marx Brothers.

The Richard Strauss Project: Der Rosenkavalier

Strauss' immortal comedy veers from the bedroom to the drawing-room.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Detail from Rafal Olbinski's poster for the Opera Pacific's production of Der Rosenkavalier.
Art © Rafal Olbinski Estate and Opera Pacific

Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hoffmannsthal are one of the most famous composer-librettist teams of the early 20th century. Der Rosenkavalier ("The Knight of the Silver Rose") which walks the line between raunchy sex farce and polite comedy of manners is the most famous example of their collaboration, matching Strauss' elaborate orchestra to a comic opera that would have made Lorenzo da Ponte proud.