Opera After Dark

After much anticipation.........Opera After Dark is back with a second season! Today's episode features a fantasy opera casting of Outlander, which is TV show based off of the book series by Diana Gabaldon. If you aren't one of the seven people in this world that follow both opera and Outlander, you can enjoy hearing us gush about our favorite opera stars and shaming each other's casting decisions. Be sure to subscribe so you can catch new episodes as they come out each week!

The moment you have been waiting for....(since last week)....PART 2 of our Game of Thrones Opera fantasy casting!! Since we made it through most of the primary characters in Part 1, things get increasingly random and often ridiculous in Part 2. Kyle gets publicly shamed and Naomi casts grown men as little boys, so what else could you ask for? This is, in fact, the last episode of season 1 of Opera After Dark but don't fret because we'll be back with more ridiculous stories from music history in the fall. Look for us on social media in the meantime and make sure you subscribe so you don't miss the second coming!

We have been waiting to share this epic episode with you for a long time... FANTASY CASTING GAME OF THRONES - THE OPERA!!!! We did not reveal our castings to each other until recording, so you get our raw reactions, our raw disagreements, and raw excitement. Also, there are so many characters, we split this into two parts. So as a way of ending our first season of Opera After Dark, this is Part 1, most of the main characters, and next week we will release Part 2! (And don't worry, we are not going anywhere - we will be back after the summer with Opera After Dark - Season 2!)

We are super jazzed to talk about one of Naomi and Elspeth's favorite operas - BLUEBEARD'S CASTLE by Béla Bartók! Based on fairy tale sources, this is a seriously awesome stage work, and one could debate themes and layers of meaning all day long. Bluebeard has been rumored to have killed his former wives. He has now married Judith, and told her she can go and do anything in his castle EXCEPT look behind a set of 7 doors. You can begin to imagine how well this goes... listen to the episode for more - you won't regret it!

Today we have a special guest with us, and we are diving into the life and times of Niccolò Paganini, violin virtuoso and composer! Although we learn all about the incredible things he contributed to violin technique in this episode, we also discuss a whole bunch of weird and wacky things about him. He was a character. For most of his adult life, had no teeth, HUGE hands, an extremely strong attachment to his guitar, and people thought he made a pact with the devil. Curious? Give it a listen, you won't regret it!

Inspired by a bonkers but beloved production from the 2006 Salzburg Festival (which, of course, Naomi and Elspeth are super in to), this episode delves into LA FINTA GIARDINIERA, an opera Mozart brought into existence at the age of 18. The episode also includes a fight between Kyle and Elspeth about the harpsichord that is not to be missed!

For today's episode, we are excited to introduce you to a composer that you have probably never heard of: Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges - a.k.a. Le Mozart Noir! A contemporary to W.A. Mozart, he was born a slave in Guadeloupe, eventually ended up in Paris, France, established himself as a fencing master and genius composer, became friends with Marie Antoinette, and made contributions to the abolitionist movement, among many other successes. He is an AMAZING guy with an amazing life story... so sit back, relax, and join us as we explore the life, times, and music of the Chevalier!

In this episode, we explore the life, times, music, and romantic conquests of pianist and composing rock star Franz Liszt - A man so hot, that women were throwing petticoats at him from the audience. Probably. WE LOVE YOU FRANZ!!!

We have been waiting for this episode for a long time, because we all LOVE this wacky, weird and wonderful work! What better way to celebrate the fact that we made it to episode 25, than delving into the world of Jacques Offenbach and "Les Contes d'Hoffmann"?! This opera is amazing. You should see it. We'll tell you why.

Taking the opposite tack of last week's episode, today we delve into operas that we hate. And before you write us off as a bunch of "negative nancys," we actually go above and beyond (in our opinion) to highlight the best and most beautiful moments in the works that we tend stay away from as a whole. We also try to explain solid reasons for our dislikes. And we do end on a fantastic happy note, with a sneak peak of what we plan to talk about next week!

Today, we tasked ourselves with choosing one opera each that we absolutely love, and explaining why we love it. We hope that our gushing inspires you to either check out a work you've never heard, or revisit one that you know, to fall in love with it for the first time (or all over again)! As you can imagine, this episode also involves some glorious random tangents.

In this episode, we delve into the incredibly sad and tumultuous life of Tchaikovsky, and get very emotional about the incredibly beautiful music he gave the world.

In today's episode we talk about Carlo Gesualdo: Renaissance composer and prince and count of the seemingly made up Italian locals of Venosa and Conza. However, in addition to composing beautiful and progressive church music, Gesualdo was a MURDERER!

In the world of classical-music composers there is never a shortage of weirdness, and Erik Satie certainly gives us a lot to work with. Today we're talking about his quirky behaviors which extended to every aspect of his daily life.

On today's episode, we talk about Mozart's scatological obsessions, introducing you a very human side of this exalted classical music genius!

With Valentine's day just around the corner, we thought we would get all lovey-dovey for today's episode... so we indulged in some beautiful music and romantic chit chat all about Beethoven and the mystery of the Immortal Beloved!

Today we decided to extend our badass women series so that we could talk about one of the ORIGINAL lady badasses of classical music history - Hildegard von Bingen! Also known as "Gertrude," which became our code name for this episode because Kyle could never remember her real name.

In this episode, we explore the life of Alma Mahler... who was not a nice person. But her life was very interesting!

In our second installment of the Badass Women series, we talk about some of opera's most difficult divas!

In the first episode of our Badass Women series we discuss Julie d'Aubigny, known as La Maupin. She made opera singing her profession, but she also was a 17th century pants wearing fencing expert who liked to duel, drink, and seduce men and women across France.