WCPE Features: Opera

 

WCPE offers 2 wonderful opportunities each week to hear the best in opera... Thursday nights at 7pm, and Saturday afternoons at 1:30 (when the Met is in season.) The WCPE Opera House has been a regular Thursday night feature at WCPE since April of 1980. On Saturday afternoons during the Met season, tune in for live broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera.

On December 4th, 2008, Bob Chapman became only the third host in the history of the WCPE Opera House, succeeding Robert Galbraith. Bob is an experienced opera singer himself, and continues to use his wealth of experience and talents to bring the very best works of opera to our listeners with his show.

If you wish to email Bob Chapman, please click here!

WCPE Opera House Schedule for Spring 2013:

Thursdays at 7pm with host Bob Chapman

March 7, 2013 — Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas; King Arthur
Misled by the Sorceress (Tucker) and her witches, Aeneas (Braun) abandons Dido (Maultsby). King Arthur centers on Arthur’s efforts to recover his fiancée, the blind Cornish princess Emmeline, abducted by the Saxon King Oswald.

March 14 & 21, 2013 — Pledge your support for the WCPE Opera House in our Spring Membership Drive. You’ll hear selections from the Twilight of the Gods CD set, which includes highlights from the Met’s new Ring cycle. Our thank-you DVD of Glyndebourne’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg features Gerald Finley as Hans Sachs. Bob Chapman is your host for two delightful evenings of opera highlights.

March 28, 2013 — Rossini’s Messa di Gloria & Stabat Mater; Verdi’s Messa da Requiem
Operas disguised as liturgical works by Italy’s greatest 19th-century masters of the genre. Soloists include Jo, Murray, Araiza, Giménez, and Ramey; Malfitano, Baltsa, Gambill, and Howell; Dunn, Curry, Hadley, and Plishka.

April 4, 2013 — Suppé’s Boccaccio
Libertine Florentine poet Boccaccio (Prey) wins the hand of Fiametta (Rothenberger) after finding favor with her father, the Duke (Böhme).

April 11, 2013 — Gluck’s Alceste
Queen Alceste (Ringholz) volunteers to sacrifice herself to the god Apollo in order to save the life of King Admetus (Lavender).

April 18, 2013 — Rossini’s Il Viaggio a Reims
European aristocrats on the way to the coronation of Charles X in Rheims are stranded in a hotel. Various romances and rivalries transpire while they try to sort out the dilemma, which they eventually resolve by pooling their resources and having a big party. (From the Ruocchio Archives.)

April 25, 2013 — Van de Vate’s Hamlet
American-born Austrian composer takes on Shakespeare’s masterpiece about indecision, patricide, and revenge in Denmark.

May 2, 2013 — Massenet’s Le Roi de Lahore
Priestess Sitâ (Sutherland) is caught in a love triangle with King Alim (Lima) and his minister Scindia (Milnes), and the only solution is suicide.

May 9, 2013 — Bellini’s Bianca e Fernando
Fernando (Kunde), son of the imprisoned Duke Carlo (Tomicich), returns from exile in disguise and becomes a confidante of the usurper Filippo (Fu), who wants to legally inherit the dukedom by marrying Fernando’s sister Bianca (Shin).

May 16, 2013 — Handel’s Semele
Semele (Battle), daughter of Theban King Cadmus, is engaged to a mortal prince but allows herself to be spirited away by the god Jupiter (Aler). In return for granting her sole wish, Semele agrees to sleep with him. (From the Ruocchio Archives.)

May 23, 2013 — Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde
Cornish knight Tristan (Windgassen) brings home captured Irish princess Isolde (Nilsson) to his king, Marke (Talvela). But they’ve fallen in love— an urge they resist until both accidentally drink a magic potion.

May 30, 2013 — Donizetti’s La Favorita
An ill-fated love affair between the king’s mistress, Leonora (Cossotto), and a young monk, Fernando (Pavarotti), who, not knowing her true identity, betrays his vows to pursue her.

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