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In one form or another, most of the great opera classics are about two things: love and death. While some explore these interlocking themes by looking at the lives of the gods and other mythic creatures, the Italian masters most often focused on the fates of ordinary human beings, even if many were royalty and aristocrats. And few did it as powerfu...

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Michael Mayer's 2013 production of Verdi's Rigoletto, set in a 1960s Las Vegas casino, returns to the Met on February 12, with conductor Nicola Luisotti leading an all-star cast. Initial performances star Nadine Sierra as Gilda, Vittorio Grigolo as the Duke, Roberto Frontali as Rigoletto, Štefan Kocán as Sparafucile, and Ramona Zaharia in her Met d...

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Sung in Italian with projected English translations, “La traviata” will be on stage at Chicago’s Lyric Opera from February 16-March 22, 2019. Verdi’s ambitious “La traviata” completes Verdi’s popular trilogy, the two preceding works being “Rigoletto” and “Il trovatore.” The opera also remains one of the most successful classical works in the repert...

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“Barezzi’s house, on the great market’s square, was one of the most important in Busseto; above the warehouses on the ground floor, the family had its home – which included a spacious room where the Philharmonic Society met to rehears, two or three times a week. Signor Barezzi […] indeed was not only a good businessman, but most importantly a great...

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While working on “Otello” and “Falstaff,” his final two operas, the composer Giuseppe Verdi tucked dozens of pages of musical drafts and sketches into folders, scribbling on their covers: “Burn these papers.” Fortunately, his heirs never carried out those orders. But for years, scholars have complained that for all the access they had to them, thos...

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Opera star Renée Fleming drew concern last year after a New York Times profile suggested the acclaimed soprano would be retiring. Luckily for fans, it turned out to be a false alarm. But if Fleming does ever start to ponder retirement, she might consider a move to Milan — where she'd likely be welcomed with open arms at Casa Verdi, a retirement hom...

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It was his first public performance in Salt Lake City, and Andrea Bocelli held nothing back. Donning a suit topped with a bright blue jacket and black bow tie, the 60-year-old Italian tenor took the stage and immediately illustrated one thing to his Utah fans: While his hair may be a dignified silver, the vocal prowess that popularized him more tha...

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The Lyric Opera House (20 N. Wacker Drive) continues its season with renowned Italian opera writer Giuseppe Verdi’s “Il trovatore.” The melodrama plot has elements suitable to every viewer’s preference. Debuted Nov. 17 for a sold-out performance, Verdi’s masterpiece combines curses, kidnapping, mistaken identities, revenge and love to create an ent...

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Celebrated Italian tenor Enrico Caruso once famously said that all that was needed for Giuseppe Verdi’s “Il trovatore” to excel were the four greatest singers in the world. Lyric Opera of Chicago might not have fully delivered on that near-impossible formula in the second revival of the company’s 2006-07 co-production of the beloved Italian melodra...

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For more than a decade, Tamara Wilson has sung leading soprano roles on the world's great opera stages. Yet Wilson, who grew up in Naperville, is only now making her Lyric Opera of Chicago debut this season in "Il trovatore" ("The Troubadour"). "A lot of my family and friends from the suburbs would go, 'Are you sure you're an opera singer? Because...

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