Scores for Orchestra

Italian composer Amilcare Ponchielli's (1834-1886) 4-act opera La Gioconda was first performed by La Scala in Milan on April 8, 1876, and was an immediate success, acting as a bridge between the Verdi...

LA BOHÈME (THE BOHEMIAN), one of the most beloved and commercially-successful operas, is based on the 1851 novel Scenes of Bohemian Life by Henri Murger. With a libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe G...

The comic operetta DIE FLEDERMAUS (THE BAT) by Johann Strauss II (1825-1899) is the composer's best-known operetta, though "The Waltz King" is perhaps better remembered yet for his contributions to th...

Charles Gounod (1818-1893) completed the five-act opera Roméo et Juliette (Romeo and Juliet) in 1867. With a libretto by Jules Barbier and Michael Carré, the opera tells the tragic story of Shakespear...

Charles Gounod (1818-1893) completed the five-act opera Roméo et Juliette (Romeo and Juliet) in 1867. With a libretto by Jules Barbier and Michael Carré, the opera tells the tragic story of Shakespear...

LA TRAVIATA (THE FALLEN WOMAN) is based on La Dame aux camélias (1852), a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas fils. The opera was originally titled Violetta, after the main character. Piave...

Perhaps the best-known music from Giuseppe Verdi's (1813-1901) 4 Act opera Il Trovatore, the Coro di Zingari (Chorus of the Gypsies), or "Anvil Chorus," from the beginning of the Act 2 depicts Spanish...

EUGENE ONEGIN, based on a verse-novel by Alexander Pushkin, is Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky's (1840-1893) best-known opera. The story depicts the life of the titular Onegin, a Russian dandy who does not...

Performed in the first act of Giuseppe Verdi's (1813-1901) opera, LA TRAVIATA, this famous duet is sung by the characters Violetta and Alfredo Germont, the young man who loves her, at a late-night par...

Performed in the first act of Giuseppe Verdi's (1813-1901) opera, LA TRAVIATA, this famous duet is sung by the characters Violetta and Alfredo Germont, the young man who loves her, at a late-night par...

Written for the Teatro della Pergola in Florence, and premiering on March 14 1847, MACBETH was Verdi's tenth opera and the first genuine masterpiece of his career. Adamant about creating an opera &quo...

Marking the onset of his middle period, LUISA MILLER gave Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) a great deal of trouble with the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. When the management rejected his initial proposal for...

Charles Gounod (1818-1893) completed the five-act opera Roméo et Juliette (Romeo and Juliet) in 1867. With a libretto by Jules Barbier and Michael Carré, the opera tells the tragic story of Shakespear...

Charles Gounod (1818-1893) completed the five-act opera ROMÉO ET JULIETTE (ROMEO AND JULIET) in 1867. With a libretto by Jules Barbier and Michael Carré, the opera tells the tragic story of Shakespear...

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's (1756-1791) singspiel Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), K. 620, was written in 1791 and premiered on September 30th of that same year at the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden,...

La Clemenza di Tito (The Clemency of Titus), K. 621 was written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) in 1791 after he had almost finished Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute). Commissioned to celebrate...

TANNHÄUSER, an 1845 opera in three acts by Richard Wagner (1813-1883), combines two German legends: the mythologized medieval German Minnesänger and poet, and the tale of the Wartburg Song Contest. Li...

Finished in 1848 and premiered in 1950 in Weimar, Germany, Richard Wagner's (1813-1883) LOHENGRIN tells a story of a tragic medieval German romance in the Knight of the Swan tradition. Elsa, a princes...

Based on Norse heroic legends, the sprawling operatic drama DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN took Richard Wagner (1813-1883) over twenty-five years to complete. Through a vast web of leitmotifs, melodic fragme...

In 1890, Engelbert Humperdinck (1854-1921) wrote an assortment of songs for a play written by Adelheid Wette, his sister, as a gift to her children. Spurred by his friend Richard Strauss, he took some...

Norma is a two-act lyric tragedy by Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835). A leading example of the bel canto genre, the opera premiered at La Scala in Milan on December 26th, 1831. The story tells of a love t...

MADAMA BUTTERFLY, one of the most popular operas of Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924), is the story of the conflicting expectations of Lieutenant Pinkerton, an American naval officer, and Madame Butterfly (...

IL MATRIMONIO SEGRETO (THE SECRET MARRIAGE) by Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801) is his only work still to be regularly performed today and arguably among the greatest 18th century opera buffa. The dramma...

Composed by Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835) in 1830, the two-act opera I CAPULETTI E I MONTECCHI (THE CAPULETS AND THE MONTAGUES) stands as one of only two successful opera adaptations of Shakespeare's R...

Composed by Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835) in 1830, the two-act opera I Capuletti e i Montecchi (The Capulets and the Mantagues) stands as one of only two successful opera adaptations of Shakespeare's R...