Opera Cheat Sheet | Houston Public Media

A fun intro to Rossini’s comic masterpiece, this Saturday’s noon opera broadcast. This week’s San Francisco Opera broadcast, Saturday at noon on Classical 91.7, is The Barber of Seville featuring American baritone Lucas Meachem as Figaro and mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard as Rosina. In this week’s Opera Cheat Sheet, Houston Public Media’s arts & culture director, St.John Flynn, and opera expert, Eric Skelly, introduce Rossini’s musical version of the story of the wily barber’s efforts to secure... Read More

In this week’s Opera Cheat Sheet, Houston Public Media’s St.John Flynn and Eric Skelly discuss Benjamin Britten’s epic tragedy Peter Grimes. Inspired by the story in George Crabbe’s The Borough, acollection of poems about life in a village on the east coast of England at the start of the 19th century, Britten’s opera tells of the demise of the outcast fisherman Peter Grimes, and the townsfolk who threaten him. Tune in for San Francisco Opera’s... Read More

In this week’s Opera Cheat Sheet, Houston Public Media’s St.John Flynn and Eric Skelly discuss Wagner’s early music drama Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman). Based on an old nautical legend, the opera tells the story of the ghostly Dutch sea captain and his ship, condemned by the Devil to sail the oceans forever unless he can find a woman who will redeem him through her love. Tune in for San Francisco Opera’s performance of... Read More

Performance of Tosca by Puccini in Sferisterio of Macerata, Italy (2008). Photo by Andrea Balducci In this week’s Opera Cheat Sheet, Houston Public Media’s St.John Flynn and Eric Skelly provide a quick intro to Puccini’s beloved Tosca. Set in Rome against a backdrop of national and political turmoil, this masterpiece tells the story of the beautiful singer Floria Tosca and her desperate attempts to save her revolutionary lover, Cavaradossi, from the deadly hands of Baron... Read More

In this week’s Opera Cheat Sheet, Houston Public Media’s St.John Flynn and Eric Skelly provide a quick, laugh-filled intro to Jules Massenet’s Thaïs, a tale full of religious eroticism! Set in the 4th century A.D. in North Africa, Thaïs tells the story of the monk Athanaël who attempts to convert to Christianity the Alexandrian courtesan Thaïs only to discover that he is in love with her. As she renounces her life of worldly pleasure and... Read More

In this week’s Opera Cheat Sheet Houston Public Media’s St.John Flynn and Eric Skelly give their humorous and light-hearted overview of what is considered Gaetano Donizetti’s greatest drama. Based on Sir Walter Scott's historical novel, The Bride of Lammermoor, Lucia di Lammermoor, might be described as a Scottish Romeo and Juliet.  Lucia, from the Ashton family, is in love with Edgardo from the rival Ravenswood family.  When her brother intervenes to force Lucia to marry another,... Read More

In this week’s Opera Cheat Sheet, Houston Public Media’s St.John Flynn and Eric Skelly give an overview of Britten’s Billy Budd, which debuted at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 1951 as part of the "Festival of Britain" celebrations. Based on Herman Melville’s posthumous novella, Billy Budd, Foretopman, and set on the British Navy ship HMS Indomitable in 1797, Britten’s opera is a psychological study of good and evil as Captain Vere and Master-At-Arms... Read More

In this week’s Opera Cheat Sheet, Houston Public Media’s St.John Flynn and Eric Skelly take a light-hearted look at Mozart's beloved "Singspiel," Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), an allegory of the education of humankind progressing from chaos to rational enlightenment to make "the Earth a heavenly kingdom, and mortals like the gods." You can hear LA Opera’s production of The Magic Flute, starring Lawrence Brownlee as Tamino, Saturday, July 26th, at noon on Houston Public... Read More

In this week’s Opera Cheat Sheet, Houston Public Media’s St.John Flynn and Eric Skelly discuss Bizet’s tour de force, Carmen, the story of the naïve and unstable young soldier Don José who is seduced but then discarded by the wild gypsy girl Carmen. You can hear LA Opera's production of Carmen Saturday at noon on Houston Public Media Classical 91.7 or online at houstonpublicmedia.org. [The opera excerpts in this OCS are taken from the London/Decca... Read More

In this week’s Opera Cheat Sheet, Houston Public Media’s St.John Flynn and Eric Skelly present a light-hearted overview of Verdi’s last opera. Only the second comedy Verdi ever wrote, Falstaff is based on the character from Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor. You can hear LA Opera’s production of Falstaff, Saturday at noon on Houston Public Media Classical 91.7.

In this Opera Cheat Sheet, Houston Public Media’s St.John Flynn and Eric Skelly give a light-hearted overview of Mozart’s penultimate opera. Written in a few short weeks in 1791, not long before Mozart died, La Clemenza di Tito (The Clemency of Titus) is a throw-back to the opera seria the composer wrote earlier in his career, works such as Mitridate and Idomeneo. La Clemenza di Tito tells the story of the Roman Emperor Titus and... Read More

Listen to our quick, lighthearted overview of Rusalka, Antonín DvoÅ™ák’s achingly beautiful paean to human love. In this Opera Cheat Sheet, Houston Public Media’s St.John Flynn and Eric Skelly, discuss DvoÅ™ák’s 1901 fairy tale drama. The beautiful water nymph Rusalka falls in love with a prince and is prepared to give up her life in order to gain a human soul and feel the emotion of love. You can listen to the Lyric Opera of... Read More

In this week’s Opera Cheat Sheet, Houston Public Media’s arts & culture director, St.John Flynn, and opera expert, Eric Skelly, introduce Rossini’s musical version of the story of the wily barber’s efforts to secure the lovely Rosina’s hand in marriage for the besotted, and disguised, Count Almaviva. Listen to our quick, laughter-inducing overview of this week's Lyric Opera of Chicago broadcast of Rossini's The Barber of Seville, Saturday at noon. [The excerpts heard in this... Read More

On this week’s OCS, Houston Public Media’s arts & culture director St.John Flynn and resident opera expert Eric Skelly discuss Johann Strauss Jr.’s Viennese romp Die Fledermaus, a paean to champagne and the enjoyment of the pleasures of the moment set in 19th-century Vienna. What happens when Gabriel von Eisenstein goes off to Prince Orlofsky's ball rather than to jail? Die Fledermaus is this week’s Lyric Opera of Chicago broadcast airing Saturday at noon on... Read More

Listen to our quick overview of Richard Wagner's final masterpiece, Parsifal, which is this week’s Metropolitan Opera broadcast airing on our station Saturday at 11AM. In this week’s Opera Cheat Sheet, Houston Public Media’s St.John Flynn and Eric Skelly discuss Wagner’s final opera. Set against the backdrop of the Grail Legend, Parsifal, which premiered in 1882, tells the story of the naïve and innocent youth on a quest for wisdom, compassion and reconciliation. You can... Read More

In this week’s Opera Cheat Sheet, Houston Public Media’s Arts & Culture director St.John Flynn and opera expert Eric Skelly discuss Puccini’s 1904 drama Madama Butterfly, based on the play “Madame Butterfly” by David Belasco. Set in Nagasaki, Japan, in the early years of the twentieth century, it’s the story of the young, innocent Japanese geisha, Cio-Cio-San, and her fateful love for the “faithless” American naval lieutenant B. F. Pinkerton. Tune in to hear Lyric... Read More

Here’s our quick, light-hearted overview of Gioacchino Rossini’s 1817 comic masterpiece La Cenerentola (Cinderella) which is this week’s Met Opera performance airing on Houston Public Media Classical 91.7 Saturday at noon. In this week’s Opera Cheat Sheet, Houston Public Media’s arts & culture director St.John Flynn and opera expert Eric Skelly discuss Rossini’s La Cenerentola. Based on the Perrault fairy tale of Cinderella, it’s the story of the kind-hearted young girl, abused by her step-sisters,... Read More

In this week’s OCS, Houston Public Media's St.John Flynn and opera expert Eric Skelly discuss Vincenzo Bellini’s bel canto standard, I Puritani.  Based on Sir Walter Scott’s novel Old Mortality, I Puritani is a story of love and madness set against the backdrop of the English Civil War. Listen to the Met Opera broadcast of I Puritani, Saturday at noon on Houston Public Media Classical 91.7.

Based on Sir Walter Scott’s novel Old Mortality, Vincenzo Bellini’s I Puritani is a story of love and madness set against the backdrop of the English Civil War. It’s this Saturday's noon Met Opera broadcast. Look for the complete Opera Cheat Sheet Friday on houstonpublicmedia.org, and on SoundCloud and iTunes.

Houston Public Media Arts & Culture director, St.John Flynn, with help from a couple of opera directors, discusses Mozart's 1790 opera about "fiancée-swapping," Così fan tutte. Subtitled The School for Lovers, Così was No. 2 on OPERA America’s list of the Most Produced Operas of 2011-12. Tune in for the Metropolitan Opera’s broadcast of Così fan tutte Saturday at noon on Houston Public Media Classical 91.7.