Opera in one act. Running Time: 45 minutes. I needed something lite after all these heavy tragedies. This is a short work which premiered before Iris, almost three years before, but it was the opera immediately before it in the Mascagni ouvreur. It is based on a play by François Coppée entitled Le passant.  SETTING: The Tuscan Countryside, […]

Opera en cinq actes. Running Time: 2 hours 9 minutes. How about an opera in which the two primary female characters have to kill one another in order to save Rome because one of them is a seemingly air-headed vestal virgin? Well, you almost get that here! Also, do not be deceived, this is one […]

Opera bouffe en trois actes. Running Time: 2 hours. It is I, Phil, the ContraPoints of opera reviewers! I am always doing tragedies it seems! Why did no one tell me that it has been twenty-one months since my review of Maskarade! Well, here is something a little lighter for once, an Offenbach operetta on […]

Opera in due atti. Running Time: 2 hours 10 minutes. Another Italian historical costume drama set in early modern France. This one only has four soloist characters. Apparently a triumph in February, 1833, the score was revised for a new vocal distribution in 1836 (the version presented here, which is of a revival from 30 […]

Opera in five acts. Running Time: 2 hours 27 minutes. This is the last of my OdH birthday reviews as this would have been the 105th. NOW FIRST SOME BACKGROUND FROM HISTORIAN PHIL: Known as the Russian Meyerbeer (his maternal grandfather was a German-Jewish naturalist from Konigsburg), Serov is perhaps one of the most notorious […]