Opera Explained – Die Fledermaus (EN) - Thomson Smillie (mp3 audiokniha)

Opera Explained – Die Fledermaus (EN) - Thomson Smillie (mp3 audiokniha)

Die Fledermaus is one of the few operatic works to which the phrase ‘never a dull moment’ can be truthfully applied. From the explosive opening of the famous overture – reminiscent of a volley of champagne corks – through the surging energy of the ‘Fledermaus Waltz’ and the many comic

Opera Explained – Carmen (EN) - Thomson Smillie (mp3 audiokniha)

Opera Explained – Don Giovanni (EN) - Thomson Smillie (mp3 audiokniha)

Opera Explained – La Traviata (EN) - Thomson Smillie (mp3 audiokniha)

Opera Explained – The Flying Dutchman (EN) - Thomson Smillie (mp3 audiokniha)

Opera Explained – The Barber of Seville (EN) - Thomson Smillie (mp3 audiokniha)

Opera Explained – Aida (EN) - Thomson Smillie (mp3 audiokniha)

Ancient Egypt and the war with Ethiopia is the setting for Verdi’s grandest opera. It is the story of the love between Rhadames, the Egyptian general and Aida, an Ethiopian slave, and the jealousy of Amneris, daughter of the King of Egypt. It was written in 1871 to a commission from the Khedive

Opera Explained – Orfeo ed Euridice (EN) - Thomson Smillie (mp3 audiokniha)

Based on the simple yet deeply moving legendary tale of Orpheus, who loses his beloved wife to death but is able to restore her through the power of his music, Orfeo ed Euridice is among the earliest operas to hold a secure place in the repertory. Gluck lavishes a wealth of beautiful melody on

Opera Explained – The Ring of the Nibelung (EN) - Stephen Johnson (mp3 audiokniha)

Wagner’s Ring cycle is the most ambitious work in the history of music: four operas that combine to tell a single epic story. Based in legend, it has become a legend in its own right: a supreme challenge for conductors, singers, opera producers, and indeed for audiences. But for all its

The History of Opera (EN) - Richard Fawkes (mp3 audiokniha)

Since its origins in the sixteenth century, opera has been an extravagant, costly affair, arousing great passions. It has also produced some of the most sublime works of art, from Monteverdi to Wagner. Following the widely acclaimed History of Classical Music, Richard Fawkes traces the history of

The Phantom of the Opera (EN) - Gaston Leroux (mp3 audiokniha)

This nineteenth-century French thriller tells of the mysterious Erik, grotesque and elusive ‘phantom’, who hides himself from the world in the labyrinthine bowels of the Paris Opera and entices with his angelic voice the beautiful opera singer Christine. Her abduction prompts a dramatic search

Njál's saga (EN) - N/A (mp3 audiokniha)

Annals (EN) - Tacitus (mp3 audiokniha)

The Histories (EN) - Tacitus (mp3 audiokniha)

My Ántonia (EN) - Willa Cather (mp3 audiokniha)

Hamlet (EN) - William Shakespeare (mp3 audiokniha)

Aesop’s Fables (EN) - Aesop (mp3 audiokniha)

Othello (EN) - William Shakespeare (mp3 audiokniha)

Paradise (EN) - Dante Alighieri (mp3 audiokniha)

My Childhood (EN) - Maxim Gorkij (mp3 audiokniha)

Hunger (EN) - Knut Hamsun (mp3 audiokniha)

A Laodicean (EN) - Thomas Hardy (mp3 audiokniha)

South (EN) - Ernest Shackleton (mp3 audiokniha)

Justine (EN) - Lawrence Durrell (mp3 audiokniha)