Inside Opera

Birgit Nillson was a 20th-century Swedish dramatic soprano famous for her renditions of the works of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss.

Rudolph Bing was an Austrian opera impresario (producer) who worked around the world. He notably served as the General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.

The first (old) Metropolitan Opera House in New York was located on Broadway but was demolished in 1967. The current (new) Metropolitan Opera House is located in Lincoln Center in the Upper West Side.

La fanciulla del West (1910) is an opera by Italian composer Giacomo Puccini.

Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg (Hamburg College for Music and Theatre) is a large public university of music in Hamburg, Germany.

Rolf Liebermann was a Swiss composer and music administrator who served as the Artistic Director of the Hamburg State Opera and Paris Opera.

Judith Blegen is an American operatic soprano.

La voix humaine (1959) is a one-act opera by 20th-century French composer Francis Poulenc.

In July 1980, a 30-year-old violinist named Helen Mintiks was murdered during the intermission of a performance at the Metropolitan Opera. Read more here.

Guarino refers to “Jimmy,” or James Levine, a Cincinnati-born opera conductor who became the Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera. He was notably terminated from this position in 2018 over sexual assault allegations that he denies.

John Dexter was an English theatre, opera, and film director. Guarino mentions his production of French composer Francis Poulenc’s opera Dialogues des Carmélites (1956).

Franco Zeffirelli was an Italian director and producer of opera, films, and television. Many of his opera productions are still in use today around the world.

Margarete Wallmann was a German ballerina, choreographer, set designer, and opera director.

Rhoda Levine is an American opera director, choreographer, and professor.

Francesca Zambello is an American opera and theatre director who currently serves as director of the Glimmerglass Festival and Washington National Opera.

Ricky Ian Gordon is a contemporary American composer.

Fiora Contino was an American opera conductor and teacher.

Jean-Pierre Ponnelle was a 20th-century French opera director and scenic designer.

Dawn Upshaw is an American operatic soprano.

Robert Wilson is an American experimental theatre director and playwright.

The 19th-century Viennese composer W.A. Mozart frequently collaborated with librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, such as for their opera The Marriage of Figaro (1786).

Blind Injustice was an opera by composer *** and librettist *** which premiered at Cincinnati Opera in 2019.

Patricia (“Patty”) K. Beggs was the General Director of Cincinnati Opera from 1997 to 2019.

Opera Fusion: New Works (OF:NW) is a partnership between Cincinnati Opera and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music focused on fostering contemporary American opera.

In 2011, Doubt by composer Douglas J Cuomo and librettist John Patrick Shirley became the first project workshopped by OF:NW. The opera premiered at Minnesota Opera in 2013.

Fellow Travelers by composer Gregory Spears and librettist Gregory Pierce is another opera that participated in OF:NW in 2013. Cincinnati Opera premiered the work in 2015. Hear Fellow Travelers composer Gregory Spears talk about the work on a previous episode of Inside Opera.

Castor and Patience by composer Gregory Spears and librettist Tracy K. Smith participated in OF:NW in 2019. Cincinnati Opera will premiere the work as part of its 2021 Summer Festival. Hear Castor and Patience composer Gregory Spears talk about the work on a previous episode of Inside Opera.

Rachel Maddow is an American television program host and political commentator, known for the nightly Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC.

Joni Mitchell is a critically acclaimed Canadian singer-songwriter.

Bob Dylan is a Nobel Prize-winning American singer-songwriter.

The American Opera Project is an opera company in Brooklyn, New York dedicated to developing new operatic and musical theatre works.

Fugues are a musical composition technique in which a melody is blended with other melodies, usually in complex ways. German Baroque composer J.S. Bach is notable for having written many collections of fugues.

Early in his life, Spears studied music theory and composition with prolific American composer and educator Adolphus Hailstork.

Pietà (Pity) is a statue by Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo Buonarroti currently housed in St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City.

Anton Webern was an Austrian avant-garde composer of the early 20th century.

Tracy K. Smith is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet and former Poet Laureate of the U.S.

Charles Jarden was the former General Director of The American Opera Project.

Troubadours were composers and singers of lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages (12th to 14th centuries).

The Requiem in D Minor is an unfinished work by W.A. Mozart who passed away before it was completed.

Plainchant (sometimes called “Gregorian chant”) is a liturgical musical style used historically in the Western Church (and now mainly in the Catholic Church) for singing texts to a congregation. In this style, the text is sung on one unaccompanied melody.

Hot yoga is a modern yoga-inspired exercise where typical yoga sequences are performed under hot and humid conditions.

Joan Panetti is a pianist, composer, and Professor of Music at the Yale School of Music.

Ta-Nehesi Coates is an American author and essayist who generally focuses on the subject of race relations in the United States. One of his best-known essays is The Case for Reparations.

Seeing the Body is a book by poet and photographer Rachel Eliza Griffiths.

Revolutions is a podcast which explores political revolutions throughout history.

The Criterion Collection is an American video distribution company focusing on “important classic and contemporary films.”

Stevie Wonder is a 25 Grammy Award-winning American singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer known for tracks such as his 1970 “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours” and his 1972 “Superstition.”

Brian Eno is an English musician and visual artist known for his ambient musical style and collaborations to rock, pop, and electronic music as well.

Arthur Russell was an American avant-garde cellist and composer.

Liz Wright is an American jazz and gospel singer.

The Damnation of Faust (La damnation de Faust) is a work by 19th-century French composer Hector Berlioz for four solo voices, chorus, children’s chorus, and orchestra based on German Romantic poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust.

Santiago del Estero is a province and city in northern Argentina.

Lima is the capital and largest city of Peru.

Carlos Gardel was a French Argentine singer notable for his tango compositions and hundreds of recordings of tango pieces.

Loons are aquatic birds found in North America and northern Eurasia.

The Peruvian panpipe (Andean panpipe or siku) is a traditional flute-like instrument associated with music from the Qullasuyu region of the Andean Mountains of South America.

Ella Fitzgerald was one of the best-known American jazz singers of the 20th century.

Frank Sinatra was an American singer and actor who is one of the best-selling musicians of all time.

Fred Astaire was an American dancer, singer, actor, and choreographer most noted for work in film and television.

Gene Kelly was an American actor, dancer, and director known for his lead roles in Singin’ in the Rain and An American in Paris.

Located near Lincoln Center in New York City, LaGuardia High School is a public magnet high school focusing in the visual and performing arts.

Marilyn Horne is an American mezzo-soprano and music pedagogue.

Matthew Epstein is a prominent artistic advisor and artist manager within the opera community.

Der Rosenkavalier is a frequently performed comic opera by German composer Richard Strauss.

A pants role (or trouser role) is a character which is performed by a woman in traditionally masculine clothing. Some examples of these roles include Cherubino from W.A. Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro and Count Ottavio from Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier.

Dorabella is a principle soprano role from W.A. Mozart’s comic opera Così fan tutte.

Marnie is an opera by contemporary American composer Nico Muhly based on Winston Graham’s 1961 novel by the same name. Notably, Alfred Hitchcock directed a film adaptation of the same novel. Leonard performed the title role in the U.S. premiere of the operatic adaptation at the Metropolitan Opera in 2018.

Coal Mountain is an opera by contemporary American composer Jennifer Higdon surrounding the American Civil War.

The Fach system is a method of categorizing singers’ voices into specific “types.” Not all musicians agree with every aspect of the system, however it is a commonly used tool for understanding the range, weight, and color of a singer’s voice.

Rosina is a principle soprano role in Gioachino Rossini’s comic opera The Barber of Seville. Leonard will perform this role in Cincinnati Opera’s 2021 Summer Festival.

Edith Bers was a member of the voice faculty at The Julliard School.

White Fragility is a book by Robin DiAngelo about systemic racism in the United States.

Trevor Noah is a South African comedian and political commentator known for being the current host of the satirical The Daily Show.

The Hardy Boys is a series of mystery novels for children written under the name Franklin W. Dixon.

Schitt’s Creek is an acclaimed Canadian television sitcom.

Conductor Mark Gibson, the current Director of Orchestral Studies at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), invited Lefebvre to participate in a CCM summer program in Luca, Italy.

Gustav Meier was a Swiss conductor and professor of orchestral conducting at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University.

Elisabeth Schwartzkopf was a German-born soprano and is considered one of the top singers of the 20th century. In her performing career, she specialized in German-language art song (lieder) and Viennese operetta; later in life, she became an international renowned voice teacher.

Nana Mouskouri is a popular Greek singer whose extensive discography includes over 200 albums in at least twelve different languages.

English-Italian conductor Annuzio Mantovani led his own orchestra (the Mantovani Orchestra) in the mid-20th century and became famous in the “light music” style.

Mario Bernardi was a Canadian conductor and pianist.

Dale Bartlett was a Canadian pianist, educator, and collaborative pianist.

Vladimir Horowitz was a renowned Russian-born classical pianist who spent most of his life in the U.S.

“Il mio tesoro” is a famous tenor aria from W.A. Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni.

Beverly Sills was one of the most notable sopranos of the 20th century and, after retiring from singing, became the General Manager of the New York City Opera and later the Metropolitan Opera.

Renée Fleming is an actively performing American operatic soprano and the current Creative Consultant at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

Franco Zeffirelli was an Italian director and producer of opera, films, and television. Many of his opera productions are still in use today around the world.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin is a Canadian conductor and pianist. Currently, he is the Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Orchestre Métropolitain in Montréal.

Hungarian pianist Franz Liszt set three sonnets by Italian Renaissance poet Petrarch to music in the collection “Tre sonetti di Petrarch” (“Three Petrarch Sonnets”).

The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) is a performing arts center based in Brooklyn, New York.

Françoise Frenkel’s memoir A Bookshop in Berlin follows her escape from the rise of fascism in Germany and, later, her evasion from Nazi occupation in war-torn France.

Grey’s Anatomy is an American medical drama television series.

Kanopy is an online film streaming service specializing in classic, independent, and foreign films.

Duolingo is a Google-owned mobile application and website for studying foreign languages.

WhatsApp is a Facebook-owned mobile application for messaging and calling over the Internet.

Lefebvre enjoys eating at restaurant Red Feather Kitchen in Cincinnati.

Nico Castel was a tenor and notable language and diction coach.

Oscar Peterson was a famous Canadian jazz pianist and composer.

Marie Kondo, an organizing consultant and author most famous for her Netflix series Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, uses a methodical approach to help people clean and organize their spaces. She is most known for asking people if an item “sparks joy” in their life.

Martha Graham was a choreographer and American modern dancer whose technique is still taught around the world.

Soprano Adele Addison was an early voice teacher for Trevigne at the Manhattan School of Music.

Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer Ned Rorem occasionally observed Trevigne’s lessons with Adele Addison.

Tenor George Shirley and mezzo-soprano Hilda Harris were other early mentors for Trevigne.

Choral conductor Robert Shaw is notable for bringing black vocalists, like soprano Adele Addison and tenor Seth McCoy, to the spotlight from the 1940s through the 1970s.

During her senior year of high school, Trevigne sang the soprano solo in one of Gabriel Fauré’s most notable works Requiem.

James Gandre, the former Dean of Admissions at the Manhattan School of Music, is now the President of the School.

Early in her career, Trevigne sang under notable American conductor Julius Rudel.

Adele Addison gave Trevigne original manuscripts of the French composer, conductor, and pedagogue Nadia Boulanger.

George Szell, the former Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra once famously noted: “The Cleveland Orchestra plays seven concerts a week, and admits the public to the final two. We do some of our best playing in rehearsals.”

Trevigne has worked closely with contemporary American composer Jake Heggie. She starred as Pip in Heggie’s operatic rendition of Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby-Dick.

A sitzprobe (German for “seated rehearsal”) is an opera or musical theatre rehearsal in which the vocalists sing with the orchestra—usually for the first time.

concert:nova is a contemporary music ensemble based in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Trevigne will perform the role of Patience in Cincinnati Opera’s world premiere production of Castor and Patience in the summer of 2021.

Trevigne frequently watches the English television dramas Grantchester and Father Brown.

Trevigne finds the following mobile applications useful: Gamechanger (for keeping tabs on her son’s baseball games), Beachbody (for exercising), and Stash (for investing).

Trevigne enjoys eating at Conscious Kitchen in Cincinnati because they accommodate her alkaline vegan diet—a diet which does not allow any animal products, processed foods, coffee, and most grains.

Outside of classical music, Trevigne listens to hip-hop (she mentions the artist Drake) and country music.

Cincinnati Opera, at the time known as Cincinnati Summer Opera, performed at the Cincinnati Zoo for its first 51 seasons (1920-1972).

Effron recalls a memory of seeing Giacomo Puccini’s grand opera La bohème with Licia Albanese at the Cincinnati Zoo.

Italian-born American conductor Fausto Cleva was the Musical Director of the Cincinnati Summer Opera from 1934 until 1963. He was also Effron’s “first hero.”

Sigmund Effron, David Effron’s father, was the concertmaster of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra from 1946 to 1973.

George Szell, Music Director and Conductor of the The Cleveland Orchestra, tried to recruit Sigmund Effron to join his symphony.

After a performance of Charles Gonoud’s Faust at Cincinnati Summer Opera, American tenor Eugene Conley honored Sigmund Effron by allowing him to bow by himself (a “solo bow”) due to the skill with which he played the work’s notable violin solo.

Sigmund Effron studied with Robert Perutz, a renowned Polish violinist who was based in Cincinnati.

James Levine is a conductor and accompanist from Cincinnati. He served as the Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera until he was notably terminated in 2018 over sexual assault allegations that he denies.

Josef Blatt was a professor of conducting at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance.

Famed conductor Tibor Kozma allowed David Effron to conduct operas during his graduate study at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.

Effron tells the story of one unfortunate performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto at New York City Opera featuring soprano Gianna Rolandi, mezzo-soprano Jane Shalos, baritone Richard Fredricks, and an unnamed tenor.

A Hochschule is an institution of higher education within German-speaking countries.

Effron served as the assistant to German conductor Wolfgang Sawallisch at Cologne Opera.

Hugh Thompson and Tito Capobianco were both notable opera directors, though Thompson was better known as a lyric baritone with 238 performances at the Metropolitan Opera.

Beverly Sills, Plácido Domingo, and Norman Treigle all performed in a production of Jacques Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffman at New York City Opera.

Hamilton: An American Musical is a Pulitzer Prize-winning musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda about the life, career, and death of American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton. Musically, it pulls from genres as varied as hip hop, R&B, pop, soul, and traditional show tunes.

Benita Valente is a renowned American soprano from California.

WhatsApp is a mobile application popularly used for text messaging and calling in countries outside of the US.

Tzykun designed the set for Cincinnati Opera’s world premiere of Fellow Travelers by Gregory Spears in 2016. That production was directed by Kevin Newberry.

Dramaturgy is the research involved to better understand a theatrical work before it is produced. While dramaturgy may be practiced by a professional dramaturg, often directors, designers, and performers participate in their own research to better inform their artistic decisions.

Tzykun designed a production of Franz Schubert’s Winterreise (Winter Journey, 1828), a set of German art songs for voice and piano. The singer in this production was baritone David Adam Moore, Tzykun’s partner. The two are set to record a film version of this production at Austin Opera in the coming weeks.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Tzykun had designed the world premiere production of Edward Tulane at Minnesota Opera. Moore was performing in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking at the Hungarian State Opera at this time. However, like many live performing arts, these productions were cancelled in order to promote social distancing and reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

Tzykun and Moore founded an New York City-based art collective called GLMMR.

Tzykun will design the set for Cincinnati Opera’s 2021 premiere of Castor and Patience.

Tzykun often reads Israeli author and “macro-historian” Yuval Noah Harari who wrote Sapiens, Homo Deus, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century.

Recently, Tzykun has watched the television miniseries Unorthodox on Netflix which revolves around a Hasidic Jewish community in New York City. She listens to the podcast Artificial Intelligence by Lex Fridman about the connections between technology and humanity.

Tzykun notes that the following non-Classical artists are influential to her: film composer Nina Rota, Brazilian folk artist Cesária Évora, American singer-songwriter Erykah Badu, American hip-hop artist Lauryn Hill, Swedish electronic group iamamiwhoami, Canadian pop artist Grimes, Icelandic art pop artist Björk, and Early Music composers Claudio Monteverdi, Hildegard von Bingen, and Johannes Ockeghem.

The Prototype Festival is a contemporary opera festival in New York City

The New Opera Showcase is a contemporary opera showcase sponsored by Opera America and Trinity Wall Street Cathedral

Candillari studied piano in Graz, Austria

Olivier Messiaen is a 20th-century French composer

Candillari’s grandmother performed the titular role in Georges Bizet’s Carmen at the Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad, former Yugoslavia. Candillari was also born in this city, which is the second-largest city in present-day Serbia.

La Traviata is a grand opera by Giuseppe Verdi

Candillari studied jazz at Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN

A Hochschule is an institution of higher education within German-speaking countries

At age six, she became “obsessed” with the operetta Die Csárdásfürstin by Hungarian composer Emmerich Kálmán

Franz Lehár’s operetta The Merry Widow takes place in the fictional state of Pontevedro, a thinly veiled reference to the real-life principality of Montenegro.

David Baker was the Director of Jazz Studies at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music

Evans references a concert he saw at Symphony Hall Boston with jazz vibraphonist Gary Burton & Handel and Hayden Society

Carnegie Hall (New York) and Wigmore Hall (London) are two well-known classical music venues

Candillari became the Head Coach at the Slovene National Theatre in Maribor, Slovenia

Così fan tutte is an opera buffa (a kind of comedic opera) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Recitative is a musical style primarily used in baroque and classical vocal music (namely opera and oratorio) that highlights narrative storytelling.

Candillari’s husband, Nick Schwartz, is the bass trombonist of the New York City Ballet.

Rusalka is an opera by Antonín Dvořák and was programmed as part of Cincinnati Opera’s 2020 season. Evans also references his Symphony No. 7 which was inspired by composer Johannes Brahms.

Contemporary opera Fellow Travelers by Gregory Spears references the music of French troubadours of the Middle Ages

Musical Composition: Craft and Art is a book by Alan Belkin

Mind Over Finger is a podcast about music performance.

W1A is a British comedy TV show

Arthur Rubinstein once famously noted, “Don’t practice too much.”

Seth MacFarlane, the creator of the adult animated TV series Family Guy, is also a jazz singer.

Abell was raised in the Philadelphia and Chicago areas.

David sang in the 1971 world premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Mass at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts with the Berkshire Boy Choir.

Abell enrolled at Yale University, where his teachers included John Mauceri and Rob Kapilow. He studied with Nadia Boulanger and Robert D. Levin at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau before returning to Yale to complete his B.A. in 1981.

Abell made his professional debut conducting Bernstein's Mass at Berlin's Deutschlandhalle in 1982.

Abell mentions the following three operas by Gaetano Donizetti that were his introduction to opera: La Favorite, Lucia di Lammermoor, and Lucie de Lammermoor.

Lyric Opera of Chicago

The Makropulos Affair is a Czech opera with music and libretto by Leoš Janáček.

Don Giovanni is an opera by Mozart.

Mefistofele is the only completed opera with music by the Italian composer-librettist Arrigo Boito

The Symphony No. 2 in D-flat major was written by Howard Hanson on commission from Serge Koussevitsky for the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1930.

Interlochen Center for the Arts

The Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. Members were: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.

Abbey Road Studios

Washington National Opera

Giacomo Puccini was an Italian opera composer who has been called "the greatest composer of Italian opera after Verdi".

Oscar Hammerstein was an American librettist, theatrical producer, and (usually uncredited) theatre director of musicals for almost 40 years.

The Marriage of Figaro is an opera buffa (comic opera) composed in 1786 by Mozart, with an Italian libretto written by Lorenzo Da Ponte.

Evans mentions the following schools as notable music schools: Juilliard School, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, University of Michigan School of Music.

The American Bach Society

Yale Whiffenpoofs

Washington National Opera

Abell continued his postgraduate training from 1983 to 1985 at the Juilliard School, under Jorge Mester and Sixten Ehrling.

Eroica Symphony, byname of Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, is a symphony by Ludwig van Beethoven, known as the Eroica Symphony for its supposed heroic nature.

Natalia Makarova is a Soviet-Russian-born prima ballerina and choreographer.

Abell deputized at short notice for John Mauceri conducting Britten's The Turn of the Screw at Washington National Opera.

On Your Toes is a musical with a book by Richard Rodgers, George Abbott, and Lorenz Hart.

Gian Carlo Menotti gave David the advice to “never conduct Broadway. Never do it you will regret it.”

Les Misérables, colloquially known in English-speaking countries as Les Mis is a musical adapted from French poet and novelist Victor Hugo's 1862 novel of the same name by Claude Schönberg.

Porgy and Bess is an English-language opera by the American composer George Gershwin, with a libretto written by author DuBose Heyward and lyricist Ira Gershwin.

Miss Saigon is a musical by Schönberg.

Abell subsequently conducted the 25th anniversary concert of Les Misérables at the O2 Arena.

The Philly Pops

Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor.

Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music.

Rhapsody in Blue is a musical composed by George Gershwin.

Trevor Nunn is an English theatre director.

Harold Prince was an American theatrical producer and director associated with many of the best-known Broadway musical productions of the 20th century.

Ariadne auf Naxos is an opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by

Palm Beach Opera Vocal Competition

Renata Scotto is an Italian soprano and opera director.

Don Pasquale is an opera buffa, or comic opera, in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti

València is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-largest city in Spain.

Montserrat Caballé was a Spanish operatic soprano.

Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a prolific and influential composer of the classical era.

Robert Schumann a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic.

The Spoleto Festival (Festival dei Due Mondi) is an annual summer music and opera festival held each June to early July in Spoleto, Italy, since its founding by composer Gian Carlo Menotti in 1958.

Opera Idol was an annual opera competition for amateur singers run by Cincinnati Opera.

Ainadamar is the first opera by Argentinian composer Osval do Golijov.

Carmen is an opera by French composer Georges Bizet.

The Marriage of Figaro is an opera buffa (comic opera) composed in 1786 by Mozart.

Don Carlos is a grand opera composed by Giuseppe Verdi.

Diego Velázquez was a Spanish painter, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV, and one of the most important painters of the Spanish Golden Age.

Manuel de Falla was a Spanish composer.

Francisco Albéniz was a Spanish virtuoso pianist, composer, and conductor.

Reynaldo Hahn was a Venezuelan, naturalized French, composer, conductor, music critic, diarist, theatre director, and salon singer.

Enrique Granados was a Spanish pianist and composer of classical music.

Franz Joseph Haydn was an Austrian composer of the Classical period.

Tomás Luis de Victoria was the most famous composer in 16th-century Spain, and was one of the most important composers of the Counter-Reformation, along with Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Orlando di Lasso.

Antonio de Cabezón was a Spanish Renaissance composer and organist.

Martín y Soler was a Spanish composer of opera and ballet. Although relatively obscure now, in his own day he was compared favorably with his contemporary, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as a composer of opera buffa.

Luigi Boccherini was an Italian composer and cellist of the Classical era whose music retained a courtly and galante style even while he matured somewhat apart from the major European musical centers.

Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti was an Italian composer.

Farinelli was the stage name of Carlo Maria Michelangelo Nicola Broschi, a celebrated Italian castrato singer of the 18th century and one of the greatest singers in the history of opera.

The Vienna State Opera is an Austrian opera house and opera company based in Vienna, Austria.

Otto Klemperer was a Jewish German-born conductor and composer, described as "the last of the few really great conductors of his generation."

Bruno Walter was a German-born conductor, pianist and composer.

Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian conductor. He was principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic for 35 years.

The Spanish National Youth Orchestra is a Spanish youth orchestra.

Teresa Berganza is a Spanish mezzo-soprano.

Sir Georg Solti was a Hungarian-born orchestral and operatic conductor, best known for his appearances with opera companies in Munich, Frankfurt and London, and as a long-serving music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Luisa Miller is an opera by Giuseppe Verdi.

Lorin Maazel was an American conductor, violinist, and composer.

Zubin Mehta is an Indian conductor of Western and Eastern classical music. He is currently music director of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) and Conductor Emeritus of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Carlo Maria Giulini was an Italian conductor.

The Symphony No. 5 is Beethoven’s 5th symphony and is one of the best-known compositions in classical music and one of the most frequently played symphonies.

The Goldberg Variations is a musical composition for harpsichord by Johann Sebastian Bach, consisting of an aria and a set of 30 variations.

La Traviata is an opera composed by Giuseppe Verdi.

Roméo et Juliette (Romeo and Juliet) is an opera by Charles Gounod.

Giacomo Puccini was an Italian opera composer who has been called "the greatest composer of Italian opera after Verdi."(Ravenni & Girardi n.d., Introduction.)