Latest Puccini Podcast Episodes
A Chorus in Brooklyn
Lost Music: Exploring Literary Opera - December 27, 2023 13:49 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 9 ratingsThere's nothing like singing in an opera chorus. Marc Eliot Stein and Ted Shulman talk about their participation in Regina Opera's production of Verdi's "Rigoletto" in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and the special ways a chorus can illuminate or enliven a classic opera. We chat about "Nabucco", "Turand...
Talking to an Influential Fairy
Lost Music: Exploring Literary Opera - May 12, 2023 03:30 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 9 ratingsIn Gilbert and Sullivan’s fairy opera “Iolanthe” empowered magical women crash into toxic privileged masculinity in 19th century London. Marc Eliot Stein interviews New York City singer and actress Casey Keeler about her role as the powerful Fairy Queen in a recent Village Light Opera Group "Iol...
Hoffmann and His Muse
Lost Music: Exploring Literary Opera - May 16, 2022 02:28 - 42 minutes ★★★★★ - 9 ratingsJacques Offenbach’s masterpiece “Les Contes d’Hoffmann” is an existential psychological comic opera, a morality tale about an aesthete who destroys himself over a fanciful love of three women. In the last episode of Season 3, Marc Eliot Stein talks about Jewish composers in Paris, “Faust”, drink...
Giovanni and Kierkegaard
Lost Music: Exploring Literary Opera - January 31, 2022 17:33 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 9 ratingsWhat should we do with Mozart’s problematic masterpiece “Don Giovanni” in the 21st century? Vicki Zunitch joins Marc Eliot Stein to talk about the moral situations portrayed in the famous story of a sociopathic charmer and rapist brought to justice by a stone statue, with a focus on all the char...
Canio and Corleone
Lost Music: Exploring Literary Opera - December 31, 2021 00:54 - 41 minutes ★★★★★ - 9 ratingsPietro Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana kicked off the verismo craze in Italian opera in 1890. Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci followed two years later. We talk about the ripple effects of the verismo movement in this wide-ranging episode, covering everything from Francis Ford Coppola and Martin ...
Manrico and Azucena
Lost Music: Exploring Literary Opera - November 10, 2021 01:47 - 55 minutes ★★★★★ - 9 ratingsVerdi’s “Il Trovatore” is one of the most popular operas of all time, and also one of the hardest to follow. What is going on with this crazy plot? There’s a lot under the surface, and it's all spelled out in this explainer by Marc Eliot Stein, who shows how a thrilling but nakedly horrible stor...
Beelzebub and Galileo
Lost Music: Exploring Literary Opera - July 18, 2021 14:48 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 9 ratingsSeason 3 kicks off with a visit from poet and professor Daniel Nester, librettist for "The Summer King" by Daniel Sonenberg and author of "God Save My Queen". We talk about slam poetry, karaoke and New York City's Bowery Poetry Club, and then attempt a deep dive into the operatic context of the ...
Nabucco and Ishmaele
Lost Music: Exploring Literary Opera - December 31, 2020 00:17 - 35 minutes ★★★★★ - 9 ratingsA discussion of Giuseppe Verdi's breakthrough opera "Nabucco" and its Biblical origin story of Nebuchadnezzar and the neo-Babylonian invasion of Jerusalem. We also talk about Boney M, the Melodians "By the Rivers of Babylon", the Broadway musical "Godspell", Herman Melville's "Moby Dick", and wh...
Mimi and Rodolfo
Lost Music: Exploring Literary Opera - October 23, 2020 12:26 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 9 ratingsVicki Zunitch joins Marc Eliot Stein for a fresh in-depth examination of Puccini's great opera "La Boheme". We talk about the existential choices the characters make, the original comic stories by Henri Murger, the lifestyle of starving artists in 19th Century Paris and today, morning music at t...
Don Quichotte and Dulcinee
Lost Music: Exploring Literary Opera - June 30, 2020 21:42 - 56 minutes ★★★★★ - 9 ratingsJules Massenet is best known for "Manon" and "Werther", and his "Don Quichotte" hasn't played at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City for nearly a hundred years. Why not, and was it actually killed in 1926 by a single bad review? Marc Eliot Stein rediscovers this forgotten classic and f...
Figaro and Cherubino
Lost Music: Exploring Literary Opera - April 30, 2020 20:54 - 47 minutes ★★★★★ - 9 ratingsWe continue our look at the two great Figaro operas with a deep dive into Mozart's dark sexual comedy "Le Nozze di Figaro". We talk about Soren Kierkegaard, "Either/Or", trouser roles, gender ambiguity, castratos, Peter Pan, Harpo Marx, Prince's "Purple Rain", Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarcha...
A Mermaid and a Baguette
Lost Music: Exploring Literary Opera - March 29, 2020 23:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 9 ratingsWe zoom into today’s literary scene with composer and librettist Rachel J. Peters, who turns short stories from authors like Sheila Heti and Arthur Phillips into contemporary operas. Her work spans from absurdist postmodernism back to the American tradition of Carl Sandburg, and her influences i...
Figaro and Rosina
Lost Music: Exploring Literary Opera - February 29, 2020 22:44 - 41 minutes ★★★★★ - 9 ratingsFigaro and Rosina are beloved characters in two masterpieces by two different composers: "Le Nozze di Figaro" by Mozart and "Il Barbieri di Siviglia" by Rossini. This episode is about Rossini's comic opera, and we also talk about commedia dell'arte, Pierre-Augustin Caron Pierre de Beaumarchais, ...
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth
Lost Music: Exploring Literary Opera - January 09, 2020 04:30 - 45 minutes ★★★★★ - 9 ratingsWhat happens when two lifelong Shakespeareans attend Verdi's "Macbeth" at the Met? Marc Eliot Stein examines Giuseppe Verdi's earliest Shakespeare opera with Meg Wise-Lawrence, who teaches English at Hunter College and City College in New York City. We talk about witches, prophecies, banquets, m...
Fidelio and Napoleon
Lost Music: Exploring Literary Opera - June 24, 2019 00:34 - 41 minutes ★★★★★ - 9 ratingsBeethoven's politically charged "Fidelio" is an opera for today, with messages of resistance, defiance, #MeToo and prisoner awareness. It premiered during the Napoleonic Wars that brought revolutionary tumult all over Europe, and Ludwig van Beethoven was deeply involved in progressive revolution...
Wotan and Brunnhilde
Lost Music: Exploring Literary Opera - May 18, 2019 01:52 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 9 ratingsMarc Eliot Stein and Bud Parr, two software developers and literary bloggers from New York City, sat through all 18.5 hours of Richard Wagner's "Ring des Nibuleng" cycle at the Metropolitan Opera this year, and lived to tell the tale. Actually, we were both very impressed. In our latest explorat...
Wotan and Brunhilde
Lost Music: Exploring Literary Opera - May 18, 2019 01:52 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 9 ratingsMarc Eliot Stein and Bud Parr, two software developers and literary bloggers from New York City, sat through all 18.5 hours of Richard Wagner's "Ring des Nibuleng" cycle at the Metropolitan Opera this year, and lived to tell the tale. Actually, we were both very impressed. In our latest explorat...
Orpheus and Eurydice
Lost Music: Exploring Literary Opera - March 29, 2019 21:20 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 9 ratingsOpera was born during the Renaissance as an attempt to recreate the experience of an ancient Greek play as it would have been performed in the Theater of Dionysus in Athens. In this episode, Marc Eliot Stein and Lisa Geraghty talk about the greatest of several operas about one particular Greek m...
Fiordiligi and Nicola
Lost Music: Exploring Literary Opera - February 07, 2019 21:54 - 54 minutes ★★★★★ - 9 ratingsAfter a lifetime of not understanding opera, I attempted to transform myself into an aficionado by pledging to listening to the same 100 arias repeatedly for months, hoping that musical "osmosis" would eventually take effect and that I would start enjoying myself. The experiment succeeded beyond...
Osmosis
Lost Music: Exploring Literary Opera - February 07, 2019 21:54 - 54 minutes ★★★★★ - 9 ratingsAfter a lifetime of not understanding opera, I decided three and a half years ago to try to transform myself into an aficionado by pledging to listening to the same 100 arias repeatedly for months, hoping that musical "osmosis" would eventually take effect and that I would start enjoying myself....
Otello
Lost Music: Exploring Literary Opera - January 04, 2019 00:15 - 37 minutes ★★★★★ - 9 ratingsAn exciting new podcast by Marc Eliot Stein of Literary Kicks. Why is opera relevant in 2019? This sometimes-lost art form hides a fascinating, vibrant world. In our first episode, we discuss whether Verdi's Otello is better than Shakespeare's Othello, whether Othello had PTSD, and what it means...
Otello and Desdemona
Lost Music: Exploring Literary Opera - January 04, 2019 00:15 - 37 minutes ★★★★★ - 9 ratingsAn exciting new podcast by Marc Eliot Stein of Literary Kicks. Why is opera relevant in 2019? This sometimes-lost art form hides a fascinating, vibrant world. In our first episode, we discuss whether Verdi's Otello is better than Shakespeare's Othello, whether Othello had PTSD, and what it means...
Suor Angelica - An introduction for iPhone/iPod
More Opera Productions for iPhone/iPod - June 13, 2012 15:54 - 11 minutes - Video ★★ - 3 ratingsMusic Director of The Royal Opera, Antonio Pappano, introduces the music from Suor Angelica, the second opera in Puccini's Il Trittico. With pianist Susanna Stranders and soprano Julie Unwin.
Il tabarro - An introduction for iPhone/iPod
More Opera Productions for iPhone/iPod - June 13, 2012 10:26 - 17 minutes - Video ★★ - 3 ratingsAntonio Pappano, Music Director for the Royal Opera House, introduces Il tabarro as part of Puccini's triptych.
Die Zauberflöte - The Creative Team for iPhone/iPod
More Opera Productions for iPhone/iPod - August 10, 2011 11:04 - 10 minutes - Video ★★ - 3 ratingsDavid McVicar, Director for Die Zauberflöte and others from the creative team behind the making and staging of the opera discuss their roles in the production.
Rigoletto - Excerpt for iPhone/iPod
More Opera Productions for iPhone/iPod - August 10, 2011 11:04 - 2 minutes - Video ★★ - 3 ratingsAn excerpt from Verdi's Rigoletto with subtitles.
Rigoletto - An Introduction for iPhone/iPod
More Opera Productions for iPhone/iPod - August 10, 2011 11:04 - 7 minutes - Video ★★ - 3 ratingsAn introduction to Verdi's popular opera Rigoletto, an important and regular production as part of the Royal Opera's repertoire.
Don Giovanni - An Introduction for iPhone/iPod
More Opera Productions for iPhone/iPod - August 10, 2011 11:04 - 2 minutes - Video ★★ - 3 ratingsBryn Terfel, bass-baritone and Simon Keenleyside, baritone with The Royal Opera, discuss their experience playing the role of Don Giovanni with other contributors such as Francesca Zambello who directed the production.
La Bohème - Singing Mimi for iPhone/iPod
More Opera Productions for iPhone/iPod - August 10, 2011 11:03 - 3 minutes - Video ★★ - 3 ratingsKatie Van Kooten, Soprano, talks about singing the role of Mimi in Puccini's opera La bohème.
La Fanciulla del West - An Introduction for iPhone/iPod
More Opera Productions for iPhone/iPod - August 10, 2011 11:03 - 4 minutes - Video ★★ - 3 ratingsWarwick Thompson, writer and broadcaster, talks through the story and characters of the 'spaghetti western' La Fanciulla del West.