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Opera Performance Essays
Opera Guild of Rochester writes short articles about the operas and publishes them before local performances, such as MET HD Broadcasts. Click on the PDF icon link to read, download and print.
Puccini's La Rondine
By Carol Crocca
La forza del destino : Conception, Creation, and the Curse
By Jessica Moss
Gounod's Romeo et Juliette : Religious and Romantic Sensibility
By Carol Crocca
Florencia en el Amazonas
By Carol Crocca
X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X
By Jessica Moss
Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking
By Carol Crocca
Verdi's Aida
By Art Axelrod
Mozart's Magic
By Carol Crocca
Mozart's Don Giovanni
By Carol Crocca
Falstaff - Verdi
By Jessica Moss
Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, as reported, 1913
By Peter Dundas
Terence Blanchard's Champion
By Carol Crocca
The Debut of Wagner's Lohengrin in London
By Peter Dundas
Giordanos' Fedora
By Carol Crocca
The Hours
By Carol Crocca
Verdi's La Traviata
By Jessica Moss
Cherubini's Medea
By Carol Crocca
Hamlet
By Carol Crocca
The First Lucia and Edguard0
By Rachel Stuhlman
Puccini's Turandot, the Persecuted Servant Girl and the Opera that Didn't Get Finished
By Art Axelrod
Semiramide, the Culmination of an Italian Career
By Carol Crocca
Verdi's Don Carlos
By Rosalba Pisaturo
Ariadne auf Naxos, A Troublesome Creation
By Peter Dundas
Verdi's Rigoletto
By Carol Crocca
La Calisto: Francesco Cavalli and 17th Century Opera in Venice
By Carol Crocca
Verdi's La Traviata - The Original Traviata: The True Story of Marie Duplessis
By Art Axelrod
Heavenly Lunacy: La Bohème and Moonstruck
By Carol Crocca
Verdi's Aida
By Art Axelrod
Puccini's Madama Butterfly
By Art Axelrod
Surrealism at the Opera: Thomas Adès The Exterminating Angel
By Art Axelrod
DvoÅ™ák's Rusalka
By Art Axelrod
Puccini's Turandot - The Story of the Story
By Art Axelrod
Puccini's Girl of the Golden West (La Fanciulla del West)
By Art Axelrod
L'Elisir d'Amore - Mixing an Elixir: A Bubbly Cocktail of "Upper-Attic" Fun
By Rachel Stuhlman
Tosca - Tosca and Napoleon
By Carol Crocca
Die Zauberflöte - Mozart's Magic
By Carol Crocca
Bellini's Norma Words Set to Music: The Inspired Collaboration of Bellini & Romano
By Rachel Stuhlman
Pushkin, Tchaikovsky and Eugene Onegin
By Rachel Stuhlman
Mozart's Idomeneo - Idomeneo's Vow
By Carol Crocca
DvoÅ™ák's Rusalka
By Art Axelrod and Carol Crocca
Gounod's Roméo et Juliette - Religious and Romantic Sensibility
By Carol Crocca
Verdi's Nabucco
By Art Axelrod
Don Giovanni - Mozart: The Man and the Myth
By Carol Crocca
Tristan und Isolde
By Peter Dundas
Elektra - Richard Strauss, Hugo von Hofmannstahl, and a Change of Style
By Peter Dundas
Donizetti's Roberto Devereux - The Myth of Donizetti’s Three Queens
By Rachel Stuhlman
Puccini's Madama Butterfly
By Carol Crocca
Giacomo Puccini and Giulio Ricordi: An Opera Partnership
By Carol Crocca
Puccini’s Turandot - The Persecuted Servant Girl & the Opera That Didn’t Get Finished By Art Axelrod
The Pearl Fishers - Georges Bizet - Independent But Troubled Spirit
By Carol Crocca
Alban Berg's Lulu
By Carol Crocca
Wagner's Tannhäuser
By Peter Dundas
Verdi's Il Trovatore
By Art Axelrod
Verdi's Otello - Iago: Portrait of Deception
By Carol Crocca
Rossini's La Donna del Lago - Isabella Colbran: Rossini's Muse
By Rachel Stuhlman
Tchaikovsky's Iolanta and Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle
By Carol Crocca
Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann
By Peter Dundas
Lehar's The Merry Widow - A Night at the Operetta
La Mogador - Was “La Mogador” Carmen?
By Carol Crocca
Verdi's Macbeth - Verdi Sets Shakespeare’s Play
By Carol Crocca
Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg - Background to the Composition of the Opera By Peter Dundas,
Rossini's The Barber of Seville - Evviva l’opera buffa! (Hurray for buffa!)
By Carol Crocca
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