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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 Madama Butterfly
By Carol Crocca

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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