Thursday Night Opera House Archive

2021 Listings

January 21, 2021
Jacques Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann

January 28, 2021
Mozart et al.’s Der Stein der Weisen & Der wohltätige Derwisch

February 4, 2021
Gioachino Rossini’s Otello

February 11, 2021
Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story & On the Town

February 25, 2021
Claude Debussy’s Pelleas et Melisane

March 11, 2021
Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida

March 18, 2021
Robert Ward’s The Crucible

April 1, 2021
Richard Wagner’s Parsifal

April 8, 2021
George Frideric Handel’s Agrippina

April 15, 2021
Georges Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs de Perles

April 22, 2021
Sigmund Romberg’s The Student Prince and
Meredith Willson’s The Music Man

April 29, 2021
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s  Così fan Tutte

May 6, 2021
Bedrich Smetana’s  The Bartered Bride

May 13, 2021
Sir Arthur Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore and  The Rose of Persia

May 20, 2021
Carl Maria von Weber’s  Euryanthe

May 27, 2021
Jules Massenet’s  Werther

June 3, 2021
Giuseppe Verdi’s  Un Ballo in Maschera

June 10, 2021
Johann Strauss Jr’s  Der Zigeunerbaron (The Gypsy Baron)

June 17, 2021
Charles Gounod’s  Mireille

June 24, 2021
Gioachino Rossini’s  Il Barbiere di Siviglia

July 1, 2021
Carlisle Floyd’s  Susannah,
Mark Scearce‘s  Kitty Hawk, and
Daniel Thomas Davis’ Family Scenes: Kith and Kin

Fall 2020 Listings

September 3
Jerome Kern: Show Boat
Magnolia (Von Stade) marries river boat gambler Gaylord (Hadley) and moves with him to Chicago, where he deserts her and their daughter. Julie (Stratas) and her mixed-race husband Steve (Barton) are charged with miscegenation, while dock worker Joe (Hubbard) praises “Ol’ Man River.”

September 10
Gaetano Donizetti: La Favorita
An ill-fated love affair between the king’s mistress, Léonor de Guzman (Kasarova), and a young monk, Fernand (Vargas), who, not knowing her true identity, betrays his vows to pursue her.

September 17
Giuseppe Verdi: Simon Boccanegra
Genoese nobleman Fiesco (Ghiaurov) hates the doge, Boccanegra (Cappuccilli), for seducing his daughter. Boccanegra wants his long-lost daughter Amelia (Freni) to marry Paolo (Van Dam), but she loves Adorno (Carreras). (From the Ruocchio Archives.)

September 24
Vincenzo Bellini: Il Pirata
Deprived of his estates, Gualtiero (Marti) turns to piracy. Learning that his beloved Imogene (Caballé) has married his enemy Ernesto (Cappuccilli), he kills the latter—and Imogene goes mad.

October 1
Richard Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier
This comic opera involves the aristocratic Marschallin (Te Kanawa), her lover Octavian (Von Otter), her cousin Baron Ochs (Rydl), and Sophie (Hendricks).

October 8
Fromental Halévy: La Juive
Rachel (Várady), daughter of the goldsmith Eléazar (Carreras), discovers her lover “Samuel” is a Christian prince, Léopold (Gonzales), who’s married to Eudoxie (Anderson).

October 15
Gaetano Donizetti: Lucrezia Borgia
Orsini (Horne) tells how Alfonso (Wixell) suspects the infamous Lucrezia (Sutherland) of an affair with her own son Gennaro (Aragall). (From the Ruocchio Archives.)

October 22
Erich Korngold: Die Tote Stadt
In the Belgian city of Bruges, Paul (Kollo) is seduced by the dancer Marietta (Neblett), who reminds him of his late wife Marie, in this fantasy opera.

October 29
Fall Membership Drive
Bob Chapman and Rob Kennedy play arias, ensembles, and choruses as you pledge your support for the Thursday Night Opera House.

November 5
Jacques Offenbach: La Vie Parisienne
This tangled tale of flirtatious masquerading and romantic intriguing has irresponsible men-about-town, fashionable courtesans, aristocratic visitors looking for a good time, and a motley assortment of flamboyant characters.

November 12
Alexander Borodin: Prince Igor
Igor (Kit) and his son Vladimir (Grigorian) are captured by the Polovtsians, led by Konchak (Minjelkiev). Igor escapes and rejoins his wife Yaroslavna (Gorchakova), but Vladimir marries Konchak’s daughter Konchakovna (Borodina).

November 19
Giuseppe Verdi: Rigoletto
After Gilda (Sutherland), daughter of court jester Rigoletto (Milnes), is seduced by the Duke of Mantua (Pavarotti), the aggrieved father puts out a contract on the duke’s life. (From the Ruocchio Archives.)

November 26
Richard Rodgers: Oklahoma & South Pacific
Frederick Loewe: Gigi
Alfred Drake lends his operatic voice to Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma and Lerner and Loewe’s Gigi, while former Met star Ezio Pinza turns to Broadway in South Pacific.

Summer 2020 Listings

June 4
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Die Zauberflöte
In this fairy tale masking a Masonic allegory, Tamino (Wunderlich) falls in love with Pamina (Lear), aided by the birdcatcher Papageno (Fischer-Dieskau). Sarastro (Crass) foils the Queen of the Night (Peters).

June 11
Mikhail Glinka: Ruslan and Lyudmila
Lyudmila (Rudenko) is wooed by the poet-prince Ratmir (Sinyavskaya), the cowardly warrior Farlaf (Morozov), and the knight Ruslan (Nesterenko) in this sprawling Russian fairy tale.

June 18
Vincenzo Bellini: I Puritani
Elvira (Sutherland) is promised to Sir Riccardo Forth (Cappuccilli), who loves her, though she loves Lord Arturo Talbo (Pavarotti) instead. (From the Ruocchio Archives.)

June 25
Gustave Charpentier: Louise
Louise (Cotrubaș), a working-class young woman, escapes to Paris to avoid an arranged marriage and to be with her lover Julien (Domingo).

July 2
Irving Berlin: Annie, Get Your Gun
Cole Porter: Kiss Me, Kate
A fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley (Criswell) and her romance with fellow sharpshooter Frank Butler (Hampson). Divorced Broadway stars Fred Graham (Drake) and Lilli Vanessi (Morison) star in a musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew.

July 9
Giacomo Puccini: Manon Lescaut
On her way to a convent, Manon Lescaut (Freni) falls in love with Des Grieux (Domingo). Seduced by the wealth of the elderly Geronte (Rydl), she leaves Des Grieux, but they are eventually reunited and deported.

July 16
Richard Wagner: Der Fliegende Holländer
Condemned to sail the seas forever, the Dutchman (Bailey) comes ashore once every seven years to find a faithful woman (Martin). (From the Ruocchio Archives.)

July 23
George Frederic Handel: Ariodante
Loosely based on Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, Polinesso (Podleś) falsely accuses Ginevra (Dawson) out of envy for Ariodante (Von Otter).

July 30
Gaetano Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia (Rost) is in love with Edgardo (Ford), but her brother Enrico (Moore) wants her to marry Arturo (Clarke) instead, and she goes mad.

August 6
Christoph Willibald Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice & Orfée et Euridice
Original 1762 Vienna version stars Forrester (Orfeo) and Stich-Randall (Euridice); 1774 Paris version features Fouchécourt (Orfée) and Dubosc (Euridice).

August 13
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin
Sophisticated Onegin (Hvorostovsky) rebuffs country girl Tatyana (Focile); jealous Lensky (Shicoff) is killed in a duel with Onegin, who’s flirted with his fiancée Olga (Borodina).

August 20
Giuseppe Verdi: Luisa Miller
The doomed love between Luisa (Moffo), daughter of the old soldier Miller (MacNeil), and Rodolfo (Bergonzi), son of Count Walter (Tozzi). (From the Ruocchio Archives.)

August 27
Georges Bizet: La Jolie Fille de Perth
In a Scottish town, the Queen of the Gypsies (Zimmermann) foils a plot by the Duke of Rothsay (G. Quilico) to abduct Catherine Glover (Anderson), who wants to marry the armorer Henry Smith (Kraus).

Spring 2020 Listings

March 5
Jules Massenet: Don Quichotte
Mitch Leigh: Man of La Mancha
Aging knight Quichotte (Ghiaurov) and his squire Sancho (Bacquier) woo the lovely Dulcinée (Crespin) in Massenet’s 1895 opera. The 1965 Broadway version of Cervantes’s classic novel features Domingo, Patinkin, and Migenes.

March 12
Marc Blitzstein: Regina
A bleak picture of upper-class American life at the turn of the last century in a small Southern town, Regina exposes how greed can destroy a family. Ciesinski, Ramey, Rieux, and Greenawald sing principal roles.

March 19
Charles Gounod: Faust
Faust (Domingo) sells his soul to the devilish Méphistophélès (Ghiaurov) in return for a love affair with Marguerite (Freni). (From the Ruocchio Archives.)

March 26
Spring Membership Drive
Bob Chapman and Rob Kennedy play arias, ensembles, and choruses as you pledge your support for Opera House.

April 2
Léo Delibes’s Lakmé
Indian Brahmin priest Nilakantha (Van Dam) kills British officer Gérald (Kunde), who’s been having an affair with the priest’s daughter Lakmé (Dessay).

April 9
Richard Wagner: Parsifal
A foolish young man, Parsifal (Hofmann), gains wisdom through compassion and brings healing to Amfortas (Van Dam), leader of the Grail Knights.

April 16
Giochino Rossini: Semiramide
Assur (Rouleau), who helps Semiramide (Sutherland) murder her husband, wants to marry the queen, but she’s attracted to Arsace (Horne)—who turns out to be her own son. (From the Ruocchio Archives.)

April 23
Francis Poulenc: Dialogues des Carmélites
An emotionally unstable Blanche de la Force (Dubosc) enters a Carmelite convent seeking peace. Against the background of the French Revolution, she and other nuns willingly go to the guillotine.

April 30
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Belmonte (Schreier) rescues Konstanze (Auger), Blondchen (Grist), and Pedrillo (Neukirch) from a Turkish harem despite roadblocks of Osmin (Moll).

May 7
Umberto Giordano: Andrea Chénier
During the French Revolution, the poet Chénier (Del Monaco) rebukes Maddalena (Tebaldi) for scorning love. Later, they fall in love, but her former boyfriend Gérard (Bastianini) denounces Chénier.

May 14
Giacomo Puccini: Il Trittico
Scotto, Domingo, and Wixell star in Il Tabarro; Scotto is Suor Angelica; and Gobbi, Cotrubaș, and Domingo head the cast in Gianni Schicchi.

May 21
Gaetano Donizetti: Don Pasquale
Pasquale (Bruscantini) wants to marry to prevent nephew Ernesto (Winbergh) from inheriting his estate. Malatesta (Nucci) suggests his sister Norina (Freni), who’s in love with Ernesto. (From the Ruocchio Archives.)

May 28
Kurt Weill: Street Scene
A story of everyday life in a New York City tenement, culminating in murder and the decision of the heroine (Barstow) to seek a better life elsewhere.

Masthead photo of La Bohème by Cory Weaver and the Metropolitan Opera