Lost Music: Exploring Literary Opera
Activity Overview
Episode publication activity over the past year
Episodes
About A Flute
16 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Gaby Kogut joins Marc Eliot Stein to take a deep psychological dive into the meaning of Mozart's masterpiece "The Magic Flute". We talk about many thi...
A Chorus in Brooklyn
27 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
There'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...
Talking to an Influential Fairy
12 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In Gilbert and Sullivan's fairy opera "Iolanthe" empowered magical women crash into toxic privileged masculinity in 19th century London. Marc Eliot St...
Hoffmann and His Muse
16 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jacques Offenbach's masterpiece "Les Contes d'Hoffmann" is an existential psychological comic opera, a morality tale about an aesthete who destroys hi...
Giovanni and Kierkegaard
31 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What should we do with Mozart's problematic masterpiece "Don Giovanni" in the 21st century? Vicki Zunitch joins Marc Eliot Stein to talk about the mor...
Canio and Corleone
31 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana kicked off the verismo craze in Italian opera in 1890. Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci followed two years later...
Manrico and Azucena
10 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Verdi'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? Th...
Beelzebub and Galileo
18 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Season 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...
Nabucco and Ishmaele
31 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A discussion of Giuseppe Verdi's breakthrough opera "Nabucco" and its Biblical origin story of Nebuchadnezzar and the neo-Babylonian invasion of Jerus...
Mimi and Rodolfo
23 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Vicki 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 ...
Don Quichotte and Dulcinee
30 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Jules 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 nea...
Figaro and Cherubino
30 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We 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 Kierke...
A Mermaid and a Baguette
29 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We zoom into today's literary scene with composer and librettist Rachel J. Peters, who turns short stories from authors like Sheila Heti and Arthur Ph...
Figaro and Rosina
29 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Figaro and Rosina are beloved characters in two masterpieces by two different composers: "Le Nozze di Figaro" by Mozart and "Il Barbieri di Siviglia" ...
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth
09 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What happens when two lifelong Shakespeareans attend Verdi's "Macbeth" at the Met? Marc Eliot Stein examines Giuseppe Verdi's earliest Shakespeare ope...
Fidelio and Napoleon
24 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Beethoven's politically charged "Fidelio" is an opera for today, with messages of resistance, defiance, #MeToo and prisoner awareness. It premiered du...
Wotan and Brunhilde
18 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Marc 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 ...
Orpheus and Eurydice
29 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Opera 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...
Fiordiligi and Nicola
07 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
After a lifetime of not understanding opera, I attempted to transform myself into an aficionado by pledging to listening to the same 100 arias repeate...
Otello and Desdemona
04 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
An exciting new podcast by Marc Eliot Stein of Literary Kicks. Why is opera relevant in 2019? This sometimes-lost art form hides a fascinating, vibran...