Opera For Everyone

Opera For Everyone

Author: Opera for Everyone Language: English Episodes: 139
There’s a particular kind of magic that happens when the curtain rises, but you don’t need a ticket to experience it. Opera For Everyone is a conversation that pulls back the velvet rope, hosted by Pat Wright. It grew from her lively talks with Keely Herron after seeing performances together, sparking a mission to make this grand art form feel like a shared discovery rather than a distant spectacle. Each episode invites a guest co-host into the mix, where the focus is on connection-breaking down stories, history, and the sheer power of the human voice without relying on jargon or pretense. You’ll hear the music itself, of course, those moments where everything soars, but you’ll also find plenty of epiphanies and genuine hilarity along the way. It’s a reminder that opera is about raw emotion and dramatic storytelling, elements that resonate with anyone. Originally broadcast on 89.1 KHOL in Jackson, Wyoming, this radio show found its second life as a podcast, allowing these accessible and enjoyable discussions to reach listeners anywhere, anytime. Tune in and you might just find yourself swept up in a world you thought was meant for someone else.
Episodes
Ep. 47 La Traviata By Verdi Take Two [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:58:25
In describing La Traviata, Verdi called it “a subject for our time.” Though the pressures and expectations of the mid-19th century opera world required setting it in the previous century, La Traviata is a timeless and tu…
Ep. 46 Handel's Messiah, Holiday Special 2018 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:58:17
In this second annual Holiday Special, host Pat Wright is joined by frequent guest co-host Grant Wright to take a close look and listen to that long-standing Christmas favorite, Handel’s Messiah. Neither an opera, nor Ch…
Ep. 45 Girl Of The Golden West By Puccini [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:58:23
La Fanciulla Del West, The Girl of the Golden West, is a three-act opera by Giacomo Puccini that premiered at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 1910. Set in gold rush California, this is the story of a saloon owner, the d…
Ep. 44 Roberto Devereux By Donizetti [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:58:18
Roberto Devereaux, from 1837, is a Bel Canto opera by Gaetano Donizetti set at the end of the end of the reign of Elizabeth I of England. The opera is the third of Donizetti’s “Tudor Queen Operas,” preceded by Anna Bolen…
Ep. 43 Samson et Dalila by Saint-Saëns [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:58:18
Samson et Dalila is Camille Saint-Saëns’ magnificent three-act opera based on the biblical story of Samson and Delilah, with a French libretto by Ferdinand Lemaire. It premiered in 1877 and remains the sole opera in the…
Ep. 42 Cavalleria Rusticana & I Pagliacci [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:58:09
Cavalleria Rusticana by Pietro Mascagni & I Pagliacci by Ruggero Leoncavallo are arguably Opera’s most well-known double-bill. Two verismo operas, they each present an unvarnished “slice of life” in small-town Italy of t…
Ep. 41 Aida By Verdi [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:58:15
Aida premiered in Cairo in December 1871. Giuseppe Verdi’s four-act opera, Aida, was commissioned for the newly constructed opera house in Cairo, following the celebrations for the opening of the Suez Canal. Taking inspi…
Ep. 40 Rodelinda By Handel [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:58:10
A Baroque-style opera by George Frideric Handel, Rodelinda premiered in 1725 in London. Considered by Beethoven to be “the greatest composer who ever lived,” Handel created operas which tug at our emotions and fill our s…
Ep. 39 La Rondine By Puccini [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:58:03
La Rondine, “The Swallow,” is an opera in three acts by the famed Italian composer Giacomo Puccini and librettist Giuseppe Adami which had its premiere in 1917 in Monte Carlo. Originally commissioned to write an operetta…
Ep. 38 Il Trittico By Puccini [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:57:48
Il Trittico is a set of three one-act operas by Giacomo Puccini that premiered in 1918. The first opera, IlTabarro, centers on an evening in the life of river workers on a barge in Paris’s Seine of the early 20th century…