Based on Victorien Sardou’s 1887 French-language play, Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca of 1900, with a libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, not only occurs in a specific time and place, but on a precise date that can be linked to an historical event. All of the action takes place during the afternoon, evening and early morning of 17 and 18 June 1800, following the Battle of Marengo between Napoleon’s army and Austrian forces. The Austrians were initially...

Written in 1841, Nabucco is considered to be the opera that established Giuseppe Verdi’s reputation as a composer. The Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera is based on the biblical books of 2 Kings, Jeremiah, Lamentations and Daniel and the 1836 play by Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois and Francis Come, although Antonio Cortese’s 1836 ballet adaptation of the latter was a more important source for Solera than the play itself. The opera originally bore the title of Nabucodonosor,...

Giuseppe Verdi’s La traviata of 1853 is one of the most frequently performed operas in the world today. Based on Alexandre Dumas, fils’s play La Dame aux camélias, it tells of Violetta Valéry who is a famed Parisian courtesan. Beneath her apparently carefree exterior, however, she is suffering from tuberculosis and her world is shaken when she meets Alfredo with whom she falls in love. They run away together and live off the sale of her goods, but one day...

Andrea Chénier of 1896 is by far the best known opera by Umberto Giordano (1867-1948), an Italian composer whose profile might have been higher today had not his considerable talents been somewhat eclipsed by those of his contemporary Puccini. It is loosely based on the life of the eponymous poet (1762-1794), who was executed during the French Revolution, while the character Carlo Gérard was inspired by Jean-Lambert Tallien, a leading figure in the Revolution. Sondra...

Damiano Michieletto’s take on Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana and Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, which represents a co-production between Opera Australia, La Monnaie in Brussels, The Göteborg Operaand the Royal Opera House, was well received when it first appeared at the latter venue two years ago. With this first revival from Rodula Gaitanou proving just as strong, and hence confirming that its initial success was no fluke, it is reasonable to acclaim the...

Francesco Cilea is one of several Italian composers who might have been far better known today had they not lived at around the same time as Giacomo Puccini. As it is, their own considerable talents have tended to be eclipsed by those of the great composer to the extent that the only operas of Cilea’s that are performed with any regularity today are L’arlesiana and Adriana Lecouvreur. The latter was also the only one of the composer’s that was unequivocally acclaimed as a...