About
An exploration of opera in unconventional ways attempting to attract not just existing opera fans, but also those less familiar with the art form. The host guides the viewer to the places of origin of each opera, and explores the culture, history—and modern and current trends and how they apply to opera.
Cast
Episodes
Season 1
Carmen
In the first episode, Ramón Gener talks of the cultural setting of "Carmen" by Georges Bizet-the most frequently staged and the most popular French opera of all time. In relation to the opera, filming takes place in locations such as Seville and Paris where the viewer is "transported" back to 1875 at Paris's National Theatre for Comic Opera, and the scandal it caused at the time.
Turandot
In this episode which is based out of two European cities, Milan and Munich, Gener looks into the opera of Turandot- a love story set in Imperial China. The host then explores the idea of how this opera represents much more than a simple love story. It's the story of an absolute success, but also a failure.
The Barber of Seville
"The Barber of Seville" is the quintessential comic opera and irrefutable proof that opera is not just drama and tragedy, but also pure entertainment. In this episode, Ramón Gener explains the essential "ingredients" in Rossini's music: staccato, crescendo, patter song, the fifth interval and coloratura.
La Bohème
At the height of his career, Puccini wrote this song to life, friendship and love. To illustrate it, Gener travels to bohemian Paris and enters some of its most characteristic locales such as the century-old book shop Shakespeare & Co. and Au Lapin Agile Cabaret, along with visiting a rehearsal of La Bohème at the Paris Opera House.
Parsifal
"Parsifal" was Richard Wagner's last opera. Its story centers on the search for the Holy Grail, although it's actually a spiritual voyage into the protagonist. To learn more about the Holy Grail, Gener travels to three different locations: Montségur, Valencia, and Montserrat Monastery.
Pelléas et Mélisande
Beauty for beauty's sake. That is how Gener defines this opera by Debussy, an impressionist work with a simple argument, but one capable of giving rise to intense emotions in whoever succumbs to its magic. To talk about love, impressionism and Debussy himself, Gener visits two pivotal French cities: Rouen and Paris.
Bel Canto
Gener explains why Bel Canto awakens so many emotions and why it is a favorite for lovers of opera. Despite bel canto being born in Italy and all its composers being Italian, the viewer discovers why many of its operas are written in French and why so many of its authors moved to France to premiere them.
The Ring of Nibelung
Gener heads to Bayreuth, the hometown of Richard Wagner, the composer of the most ambitious operatic saga in all of musical history, "The Ring of the Nibelung". This tetralogy is made up of four operas: The Rhine Gold, The Valkyrie, Siegfried and Twilight of the Gods. Gener touches on all of them as he visits the Autostad automotive plant, walks the stage at the Bayreuther Festspielhaus (the theatre designed by Wagner himself), and converses with one of the most renowned experts on the composer.
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