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1. Music Drama ('dramma per musica')

Librettist and producer Emma Jenkins on the nature of the opera libretto and on those who have shaped it. In the first of three programmes, Emma looks at putting drama to music.

Librettist and opera producer, Emma Jenkins, reflects on the nature of the opera libretto and on those, who over four centuries, have shaped it. In the first of three programmes, Emma looks at how librettists and composers have created ways for drama and music to most effcetively work together. She looks back on the work of some of the great pioneering operatic wordsmiths, such as Alessandro Striggio, Pietro Trapassi - better known as 'Metastasio', Antonio Slavi, Ranieri Calzabigi, Francesco Piave and Luigi Illica, and she foregrounds some of great moments from opera through recordings of music by Monteverdi, Pergolesi, Mozart, Handel, Gluck, Verdi, Puccini and Benjamin Britten. Why is that the libretto became a distinctive literary artefact in its own right? Not a play, not a poem, but a distinctive "literature for singers and musicians".

59 minutes

Last on

Sun 7 May 2023 23:00
大象传媒 Radio 3

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2. Which comes first..? ('Prima le parole')

See all episodes from The Story of the Little Book

Music Played

  • Giacomo Puccini

    Tosca, Act1: Prelude

    Orchestra: Hungarian State Radio and Television Orchestra. Conductor: Michael Tilson Thomas.
    • Tosca.
    • Sony.
    • 1.

  • Judith Weir

    Blond Eckbert, Act I: Walther has Arrived

    Performer: English National Opera. Singer: Nicholas Folwell. Conductor: Sian Edwards. Singer: Christopher Ventris. Singer: Anne-Marie Owens.
    • Weir: Blond Eckbert.
    • NMC.
    • 3.

  • Claudio Monteverdi

    L'Orfeo, Act 3: Possente Spirto

    Performer: Anthony Rolfe Johnson. Performer: English Baroque Soloists. Conductor: Sir John Eliot Gardiner.
    • ARCHIV.

  • Claudio Monteverdi

    L'Orfeo, Act 5

    Performer: Christopher Maltman. Ensemble: Le Concert d鈥橝str茅e. Conductor: Emmanuelle Ha茂m.
    • ERATO.

  • Claudio Monteverdi

    L'Orfeo: Sinfonia

    Performer: Stylus Phantasticus.

  • Benjamin Britten

    The Rape of Lucretia Act 2: Lucretia!...What Do You Want?

    Performer: English Chamber Orchestra. Singer: Heather Harper. Singer: John Shirley鈥怮uirk. Conductor: Benjamin Britten.
    • DECCA.

  • Giovanni Battista Pergolesi

    Adriano in Siria, Act1 Sc 5 Recit: Principe, quelle sono le sembianze che adori?

    Performer: Capella Cracoviensis. Singer: 挟褉i泄 袦懈薪械薪泻芯. Singer: Franco Fagioli. Singer: Romina Basso. Conductor: Jan Tomasz Adamus.
    • Pergolesi: Adriano in Siria.
    • DECCA.
    • 8.

  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

    La Clemenza di Tito, Act 2 Finale: Sesto, de' tuoi delitti

    Performer: Rainer Trost. Performer: Magdalena Ko啪en谩. Performer: John Relyea. Performer: Hillevi Martinpelto. Performer: Lisa Milne. Performer: Christine Rice. Choir: Scottish Chamber Orchestra Chorus. Orchestra: Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Conductor: Charles Mackerras.
    • Mozart: La clemenza di Tito, K621.
    • Deutsche Grammophon.
    • 41.

  • George Frideric Handel

    Rodelinda, Act 1: Confuse si miri

    Performer: Berlin Akademie for Alte Musik. Singer: Andreas Scholl.
    • Ombra Mai F霉.
    • Harmonia Mundi.
    • 19.

  • George Frideric Handel

    Serse, Act 3 : Troppo oltraggi la mia fede

    Performer: Vivica Genaux. Performer: Inga Kalna. Performer: Il Pomodoro. Conductor: Maxim Emelyanychev.
    • Handel: Serse.
    • Deutsche Grammophon.
    • 84.

  • Christoph Willibald Gluck

    Orfeo ed Euridice (1774 Naples version)

    Performer: Philippe Jaroussky. Performer: Coro della Radiotelevisione Svizzera. Performer: I Barocchisti. Conductor: Diego Fasolis.
    • Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice.
    • ERATO.
    • 12.

  • Giuseppe Verdi

    Macbeth, Act 1 Finale: Schiudi, Inferno

    Performer: Ambrosian Singers. Orchestra: New Philharmonic Orchestra. Conductor: Riccardo Muti.
    • Macbeth.
    • EMI Classics.
    • 18.

  • Giuseppe Verdi

    Rigoletto, Act 1: Zitti Zitti

    Orchestra: Orchestra of the Welsh National Opera. Choir: Chorus of the Welsh National Opera. Conductor: Carlo Rizzi. Orchestra: Berliner Philharmoniker. Conductor: Herbert von Karajan.
    • Verdi : Rigoletto.
    • TELDEC.
    • 17.

  • Giacomo Puccini

    La Boheme, Act 3 finale

    Singer: Mirella Freni. Singer: Luciano Pavarotti. Singer: Elizabeth Harwood. Singer: Rolando Panerai.
    • DECCA.
    • 4210492.
    • 20.

Broadcast

  • Sun 7 May 2023 23:00
    大象传媒 Radio 3