“Either I’m wrong, or The Queen of Spades is really a masterpiece,” Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky remarked in a letter to Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich. Unfortunately, I have no idea what he answered the composer. But if I were in his…
When somebody asks me, “What should I start with if I want to try listening to opera?” I usually answer, “Listen to Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas.” It is incredibly beautiful, relatively short, and surprisingly understandable. We can easily understand Dido…
“La ra, la ra, la la, la ra, la ra,” – is it possible to express deep feelings with the aid of such primitive words? Read my article about the opera Rigoletto and listen to its key fragments. Perhaps, you’ll…
What do we do when the first act of an opera ends, the curtain falls, and the entr’acte begins? We rush off to the buffet, of course. Relaxation with a glass of good sparkling wine – that’s what entr’actes are…