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'American Dream, American Dream', sings Anna Nicole in Mark-Anthony Turnage's opera, 'I'm gonna rape that goddamn American dream, I'm gonna tear it open and lap up the cream'. It's one of many operas that question the American Dream, in which anyone with ambition, talent and a strong work ethic can achieve fame and fortune – and ask how desirable or attainable that dream really is:
Giacomo Puccini's La fanciulla del West examines American ways of life both good and bad. The corrupt sheriff Jack Rance and the homesick miners trapped in California by their desire to make a quick fortune demonstrate the dangers of a society that places great value on money and social status. But Puccini's heroine Minnie has typically 'American' virtues: bravery, honesty and a sense of adventure. Ultimately, Minnie's integrity gives her the courage to reject conventional dreams of financial and social success and leave California for a new life with her lover Dick Johnson.
Benjamin Britten and W.H. Auden created an optimistic vision of American society in Paul Bunyan, which celebrates the same pioneering spirit that makes Puccini's Minnie so likeable. The gentle giant Paul Bunyan brings together a community of lumberjacks to tame the 'virgin forest' of America, and later helps them to find work as farmers, manual labourers and businessmen. In this cheerful operetta, America is seen as a land of exciting opportunities (one or two satirical snipes from Auden aside).
Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht on the other hand, took a far darker view, making America a byword for greed and corruption. In 1931's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, three criminals found a city in the American desert devoted to hedonism and financial profit. The consumerist paradise soon becomes a hotbed of corruption and inhumanity. The hero Jimmy is condemned to death for being unable to pay a bar bill. When he appeals to God the people tell him that God cannot punish them – they are already in Hell.
Other operas show how America's opportunities are not available to everyone. Rose Maurrant, the blue-collar heroine of Weill's Street Scene, knows that her boss's promises to help her 'sing on Broadway' will come to nothing. She and her poet boyfriend Sam Kaplan nourish ambitions to escape their humdrum existence, but even this dream is denied when Rose's father murders her mother. In George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, the African-American community of Catfish Row is condemned to perpetual poverty due to racial prejudice. Love can flourish (like the tender passion between Porgy and Bess), but the only character to profit financially in this ghetto is the drug-dealer Sportin' Life, who eventually lures Bess away with the promise of a glamorous life in New York.
Later in the 20th century, composers questioned whether the American Dream is desirable even if achieved. Leonard Bernstein portrayed the boredom of comfortable American suburbia and the claustrophobia of the prosperous middle-class family in Trouble in Tahiti and A Quiet Place– having explored racial prejudice and gang warfare in his hit Romeo and Juliet-inspired musical West Side Story. Stewart Wallace's Harvey Milk tells the true story of a politician who longs for 'an American Dream without prejudice' but is assassinated for his beliefs. And the title character of Nixon in China and J. Robert Oppenheimer in Doctor Atomic, at one point seen as icons of the American success story, are depicted by John Adams as tormented souls plagued with self-doubt.
Even the ambitious Anna Nicole realizes that the American Dream isn't all it's cracked up to be. Hounded by the press, she finally turns on her country: 'O America, you dirty whore, I gave you everything but you wanted more. I wanted more'. For some, the American Dream can turn out to be more like a nightmare.
Anna Nicole runs from 11–24 September 2014. Tickets are still available. The first performance is open to students only, with tickets priced £1–£25. Find out more about ROH Students. ROH Students is generously made possible by the Bunting Family and Simon Robey.
Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny runs 10 March–4 April 2015. Tickets will go on general sale 27 January 2015. The production is given with generous philanthropic support from Richard and Ginny Salter, The Kurt Foundation for Music in New York, NY and The Royal Opera Circle.]]>
In the mid-1840s Henry Murger (1822–61) was living in poverty in the Latin Quarter of Paris. No one wanted his verses or dramas, and his only earnings came from hack journalism. His friend Jules Fleury told him that there was a market for contemporary stories about the lives and loves of struggling young artists. Murger therefore decided to write about his own experiences and between 1847 and 1849 published some twenty-three tales of bohemian life.
Murger might have been surprised to see his fiction become the inspiration for Puccini's La bohème, often termed 'the most romantic of all operas'. Murger's stories are far from romantic – the dominant tone is cheerful satire. He has great fun mocking the appearances and artistic aspirations of his four bohemians.
The poet Rodolphe, based on Murger himself, is 'a young man whose face could hardly be seen for a huge… many-coloured beard' with a 'premature baldness that had stripped his temples as bare as a knee'. The burly painter Marcel has submitted his Crossing of the Red Sea to the Louvre so often that 'if it had been put on wheels it could have gone by itself'; it ends up as a grocer's shop sign. The musician and painter Schaunard has a voice 'like a hunting horn', a nose 'aquiline in profile and snub in full face' and is endlessly revising a symphony named On the Influence of Blue in the Arts. The bibliophile philosopher Colline has a mouth that 'looked as if it had been drawn by an elementary art student whose elbow had been jogged', and is perpetually in quest of a publisher but never getting published.
For all their dreams, none of the men work particularly hard, and they are singularly useless with money. Whenever one of them earns anything, all four down tools to enjoy Pantagruelian banquets until they are poor again. In one story, 'The Waters of Pactolus', Rodolphe earns 500 francs and declares that he and Marcel will practise 'strict economy'. This includes dining out lavishly (to save the cost of supper) and hiring a manservant (to give them more time to work). Needless to say, the money has gone within a month.
None of Murger's four friends are particularly successful as lovers. Marcel and Musette are genuinely devoted to each other, but Musette's love of luxury leads her regularly to leave Marcel for wealthier men. Rodolphe has several lovers. His relationship with Mimi (based on Murger's own mistress Lucile Louvet) is largely unhappy. Mimi, whose face 'could assume an appearance of savage brutality', feels only 'the lukewarm attraction of habit' for Rodolphe. She drives him to distraction with her temper and coquetry, and eventually leaves him for a viscount.
Only rarely does Murger strike a note of romantic tragedy. A story seemingly unrelated to the others, 'Francine's Muff', describes the love affair between a talented sculptor, Jacques, and a seamstress, Francine. Jacques and Francine meet by chance one evening. They live blissfully together for several months, but Francine suffers from consumption and dies at the end of the autumn. Her final wish, granted by Jacques, is for a muff for her cold hands. Jacques subsequently dies of grief. Puccini and his librettists Giacosa and Illica drew as heavily on Murger's Francine as on his Mimi when creating the character of Mimì in La bohème.
Jerrold Seigel describes Henry Murger as 'a mediocre writer and in some ways a not very admirable person'. This is perhaps unfair. Murger was sometimes observant, and could be very funny, but he was uneasy outside the realm of satire. Puccini and his librettists, all skilled men of the theatre, realized that for La bohème to be a success the audience must sympathize with the main characters. They gave the two couples in the opera, particularly Rodolfo and Mimì, articulacy, enthusiasm and a capacity for strong feeling. While maintaining some of Murger's wry humour and sharp portrayals of Paris life, they added an element lacking in his stories and plays: tenderness.
This is an extract from Kate Hopkins's article 'From Satire to Romantic Tragedy', which can be found in full in the red programme that accompanies The Royal Opera's production, available from Front of House staff during the performances and from the ROH Shop.
La bohème runs 9–19 July 2014. Tickets are still available.
The performance on 15 July 2014 will be streamed live to free, outdoor venues around the UK as part of BP Big Screens. Find a screening near you.
The production is given with generous philanthropic support from The Royal Opera House Endowment Fund. Original Production (1974) supported by The Linbury Trust.
Our' How to Stage an Opera' series offers different perspectives on the practicalities of staging an opera, from the initial research through to the final performance. Here we see how Jonathan Kent's controversial production draws on the sordid reality within Puccini's great drama.
For many, Puccini embodies the romantic operatic composer. He is probably the most widely recognized operatic composer full stop, with individual arias ('Nessun dorma') and full works (Madama Butterfly) penetrating public consciousness. It's easy to see why. His melodies are memorable. Their lyrical lines flatter opera singers worth their salt. His orchestra, built on modern symphonic lines, allows for thrillingly rich textures. His stories of an all-consuming, desperate love, crushed by a cruel world, have become an operatic cliché. Puccini's operas offer pure escapist entertainment.
But did Puccini want more than that? Do the lushness of his music and the dramatic immediacy of his storytelling represent a honey-trap? It's easy, for example, to forget that for Puccini and the audiences of his day almost all of his heroines were women 'of dubious virtue', with Edgar's Fidelia, the princess Turandot and Madama Butterfly's Cio-Cio-San (though she's a borderline case) rare exceptions. There is much in the operas that is horrible: the appalling loss of Mimì's death in La bohème, the injustice of Cio-Cio-San's suicide, the filthy bargain Scarpia offers Tosca, the cruelty of Suor Angelica's family. Is all this just spice for the drama?
Antonio Pappano has said of Puccini's music that it 'is often done with great splashes of passion… but it's more than that. It has to be balanced by refinement; the passion has to be true, the tragedy has to be true'. This balance must also be maintained in the visual aspects of a production. Directors and designers, too, have a tightrope walk between soaring passion and emotional truth.
The story of Manon Lescaut is nasty. In Act I a brother pimps his sister. In Act II the sister's greed has compelled her to demean herself with an old man she neither loves nor respects. That old man is able to exact revenge for her cruelty to him because of her greed. In Act III a crowd gathers to take entertainment from the grief of others. And in Act IV a young man, who has sacrificed everything to save the woman he loves, fails, and is left helplessly alone with her corpse. If we want a simple tragic love story one is there – love at first sight, he tries to rescue her, she dies in his arms – and the loveliness of Puccini's music allows us to enjoy that. But his music also has the complexity and precision to support a more troubling presentation.
In their 2014 production for The Royal Opera, director Jonathan Kent and designer Paul Brown take a 2014 setting, non-naturalistic and theatrical. Their decision to discard the opera's original 18th-century setting makes explicit its subtext.
Take Act II, which seems to have been genuinely upsetting for many audience members. In a more traditional setting we might have seen an elegant lady in an elegant drawing room, watching a concert and then having a dancing lesson. Kent and Brown's production makes the subtext of such a setting unavoidable. The Barbie-pink cage tells us immediately of Geronte's wealth, of Manon's love of tasteless acquisition, of her naivety that she could think of these possessions as 'hers'. We see that she is a toy for Geronte to play with, a beautiful possession to display before his friends. We understand that Manon does not understand that this is a terrible place for her to be. By making this act so horrible, Kent and Brown not only anticipate our anxiety at the end of the act as Manon stays to gather her treasures rather than flee with Des Grieux, but heighten it. Many have found this act upsetting; and it is meant to be so.
Is it wrong for Puccini to be upsetting? Or is it wrong that such a story should ever not be upsetting?
Read other posts in our 'How to Stage an Opera' series.
Manon Lescaut runs until 7 July 2014. A small number of tickets are still available.
The opera will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 on 1 July.
This production of Manon Lescaut is generously supported by Rolex, with generous philanthropic support from Mrs Susan A Olde OBE, Lord and Lady Laidlaw, Mrs Philip Kan, Marina Kulishova, Mrs Trevor Swete, Quentin Holland, Mercedes T. Bass, Bruce Kovner, the American Friends of Covent Garden and The Manon Lescaut Production Syndicate.]]>
Year after year, in opera houses around the world, audiences are reduced to tears by the story of a young woman torn between the pleasures of material wealth and her love for an impoverished student.
Manon Lescaut – whose tragedy has been retold countless times in at least two operas (Massenet's, Puccini's), a ballet (MacMillan's) and a clutch of films – is, in some tellings, a prostitute, and in others a foolish young woman. However, in all versions, Manon leaves the Chevalier des Grieux, the man she loves, to become the mistress of a wealthier older man. When she finally has (another) change of heart and returns to Des Grieux, she is arrested on prostitution charges and, in most versions, deported to America.
But if Manon's story is familiar, that of the man behind the tale is anything but. L'Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut, first published in 1731, was the work of the Abbé Prévost – or, to give him his full name, Antoine François Prévost d'Exiles. So who was he, this priest who created Manon's heart-breaking story of human weakness?
Prévost was born in Hesdin in northern France on 1 April 1697 and spent his early years deliberating between careers in the church and in the military. By the time he finally decided to join the Benedictine order in 1721, he had twice enlisted in the army, after an education with the Jesuits. In 1726 he was ordained a priest and remained with the Benedictines until 1728, when a falling-out with the abbot sent him fleeing to England.
In an introduction to his 1841 translation of Manon Lescaut, D.C. Moylon suggested a reason behind Prévost's apparent inability to stay put: 'The sanctity of the cloister was no protection to our young novice against the rebellious senses; with a heart too open to vain and illusory impressions, and a naturally fiery temperament, he panted for liberty'.
Once in England, Prévost converted to Protestantism and worked as a tutor – a job from which he was sacked in 1730, apparently because of a love affair. He fled to Holland but came running back to London just a few years later to escape creditors, only to be briefly imprisoned for forgery. Prévost finally returned to Paris and the Catholic faith in 1735.
In between fleeing creditors and zigzagging between doctrines, Prévost had somehow found the time to publish the first two volumes of his Mémoires et aventures d'un homme de qualité qui s'est retiré du monde, ostensibly the work of one Marquis de Renoncour. He continued to produce books fairly regularly until his death in Courteuil, Picardy, in 1763.
On a side note, Prévost's death – probably a fairly prosaic end – has been the source of lurid stories, including one that suggested his death was a result of an on-the-spot autopsy. Prévost is supposed to have woken up just as the scalpel was plunged in, and died from the wound.
It was only the seventh and final volume of Prévost's Mémoires – featuring the story of Des Grieux and Manon Lescaut – which captured the imagination of later generations. Perhaps the reason for this is that the story deals with experiences and weaknesses that Prévost himself knew only too well, as the influential French critic Jules Janin recognized:
'Must he not in some quarter or other study the passions he is about to portray – that particular section of the world of which he is going to write the history – those very vices even that he was afterwards to dramatise? and you surely could not expect that he should acquire all that kind of knowledge in a convent!'
Manon Lescaut runs 17 June–7 July 2014. Tickets are still available.
The production is generously supported by Rolex, with generous philanthropic support from Mrs Susan A. Olde OBE, Lord and Lady Laidlaw, Mrs Philip Kan, Marina Kulishova, Mrs Trevor Swete, Quentin Holland, Mercedes T. Bass, Bruce Kovner, the American Friends of Covent Garden and The Manon Lescaut Production Syndicate.
Manon runs 26 September–1 November 2014. Tickets go on general sale 15 July 2014.
The production is given with generous philanthropic support from Celia Blakey, Peter Lloyd and The Royal Opera House Endowment Fund. Original Production (1974) made possible by The Linbury Trust.
Manon Lescaut will be relayed live to cinemas around the world on 24 June 2014, and Manon on 16 October 2014. Find your nearest cinema and sign up to our mailing list.]]>
Louisiana, early 18th century. A few kilometres outside New Orleans: Manon and her lover, Des Grieux, have escaped the city on foot, hoping to reach an English settlement. What lies ahead of them seems insurmountable: plains so vast and mountains so high they would daunt the roughest and hardiest of men and women.
As night falls, Manon can walk no further and succumbs to the unavoidable. She collapses from thirst and weariness, and dies in 'the depths of the desert'.
The inhospitable land the two lovers describe in the last act of Puccini's Manon Lescaut has more than puzzled contemporary audiences and directors alike. The original poster of the opera's 1893 premiere showed sun-baked arid hills and what appears to be like an agave plant (more commonly found 2,000km away in the accurately arid desert of Arizona, not in Louisiana). To put it mildly, the setting is a largely inaccurate description of the outskirts of New Orleans, even some three centuries ago.
Devastating hurricanes aside, the southern city is used to a healthy amount of rainfall. And water also abounds in lakes, streams and other watercourses that dissect this meandering delta region of the Mississippi River. It's an area alive with mammals, birds and reptiles. In fact, rather than thirst, it's likely that hungry coyotes or alligators would have led to Puccini heroine's untimely demise.
So why did the composer and his librettists get it so apparently wrong? The original source of the opera and later adaptations offer a few possible clues.
In his 1731 novel L'Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut, French writer Abbé Prévost gives some details about what was then predominantly uncharted territory to European colonizers. Apart from a mention of 'barren and uninhabited plains', the author describes Manon's resting ground only briefly:
'We sat down in the middle of a vast plain, unable to find a single tree to give us shelter.'
One of the last scenes of the 1830 ballet-pantomime Manon, by dramatist Eugène Scribe, is also set in the 'vast desert of New Orleans.' But his 1856 opera Manon Lescaut, with music by Daniel François Esprit Auber, takes place in the 'plains, and forests of North America.' Both Prévost and Scribe seemed to have portrayed a settlers' misconception about much of America west of the Appalachian Mountains.
When US President Thomas Jefferson bought Louisiana from the French in 1803, he regarded this huge territory – which extended all the way to present-day Canada and encompassed all or part of 15 modern US states – as 'wasteland'. As John Herschel Barnhill writes in The Louisiana Purchase: A Historical and Geographical Encyclopedia, the belief in the area's desolation was so commonplace among 'nineteenth-century Americans coming out of the Eastern woodlands and the fertile prairies' that they named it the 'Great American Desert'.
The term was also used to describe uninhabited lands (by European settlers, that is, as Native Americans had long before populated Jefferson's 'wasteland'). And, the historian continues, it further served to create 'a natural limit to the expansionist urge of Americans', thus preventing their exodus from an already sparsely-populated US.
These 19th-century accounts seem to defend, at least in part, Prévost's apparent belief in the existence of a desert in Louisiana. But they were certainly outdated when Puccini began to ponder writing the opera. By the late 1880s, more than 200,000 people lived in New Orleans and the city was a bustling American port.
As Angela Scholar noted in her Oxford World's Classics translation of the original novel, 'Prévost's account of the environs of New Orleans […] is shaped more by the psychological and emotional requirements of his story than by any strict realism.' Her argument is reinforced by Puccini expert Michele Girardi. He argues that, despite being aware of the geography of Louisiana, the composer and his librettists retained the original setting on purpose, 'with disregard to the obvious inaccuracy.'
'The desert provides the kind of atmosphere that is needed by a woman who has fallen from luxury to destitution and near death,' the Italian musicologist explains. 'It is much better for Manon to die from hardship in the desert – a symbol of abandonment and desperation [than in the swamps with their abundance of life].'
Since Manon Lescaut had its premiere in 1893, theatre directors have traditionally retained Puccini's desert setting. They have adhered to the libretto and Prévost's well-established convention. But they also seem to concur that the geographical inaccuracy conveniently and brilliantly serves to heighten the dramatic power of Manon's tragic end.
Manon Lescaut runs from 17 June–7 July 2014. Tickets are still available.
The production is generously supported by Rolex, with generous philanthropic support from Mrs Susan A. Olde OBE, Lord and Lady Laidlaw, Mrs Philip Kan, Marina Kulishova, Mrs Trevor Swete, Quentin Holland, Mercedes T. Bass, Bruce Kovner, the American Friends of Covent Garden and The Manon Lescaut Production Syndicate.
The production will be relayed live to cinemas around the world on 24 June. Find your nearest cinema and sign up to our mailing list.]]>
Any Italian opera composer who dared to peek out from behind a music score in the 1880s had to face head on opera's éminence grise, Giuseppe Verdi. Verdi was a national hero, a warrior against both foreign occupation and artistic corruption. But there was another equally imposing figure lurking just beyond: Richard Wagner, who, in his own lifetime and well beyond, cast a long shadow over the theory and practice of opera. How then, was Puccini to carve out a niche while cowering in the face of two operatic giants? The fact that he was able to achieve so much seems nothing short of miraculous, but he most surely paid a price for it.
As a novice composer barely out of conservatory in the early 1880s, Puccini had been introduced to the young poet Ferdinando Fontana. Fontana's suggested source for Puccini's first opera was Alphonse Karr's 1852 short story Les Willis (which had already been told in Adolphe Adam's ballet Giselle). The favourable reception of Le villi (1883) led Puccini back to Fontana for his next work, Edgar (1889), which did not generate the same enthusiasm – in part because their chosen source material, Alfred de Musset's 1831 dramatic poem La Coupe et les lèvres (The Cup and the Lips), was never intended for the stage.
By 1893, one can imagine Puccini's publisher, the deeply vexed Giulio Ricordi, wringing his hands over a talented but pathologically insecure composer of growing popularity. The failure of Edgar had forced Puccini into silence; he couldn't find the right subject and rejected numerous scenarios proposed by Ricordi and a number of colleagues. As it gradually became clear, Puccini was searching for something with 'colour'. He needed a particular kind of subject that would allow him to match sound with image.
It may be that the genesis of no other of Puccini's operas was more fraught than that of Manon Lescaut. Ricordi discouraged Puccini from undertaking to adapt Prévost's novel, which had already inspired operas by Massenet and Auber – but the composer seems not to have been able to resist another opportunity to ride the current of proven success. It didn't turn out to be easy, however.
Probably still feeling the negative consequences of his work with the kind but inexperienced Fontana, Puccini set out to craft his own libretto for Manon Lescaut. What follows is a sometimes dizzying tangle of events. Ricordi had approached the playwright Marco Praga. Praga, however, crafted only a scenario, which was then entrusted to Domenico Oliva, a theatre critic and journalist. But Oliva did not exactly fit the bill, and Ricordi wanted Puccini to collaborate with a professional librettist. He suggested Giuseppe Giacosa, whom Puccini then rejected because he had not liked a scenario that Giacosa had proposed earlier. Puccini then approached his old friend Ruggero Leoncavallo (who would later feud openly with Puccini over rights to the subject of La bohème). Praga and Oliva crafted a libretto in four acts, the second of which was eventually dropped because it followed Massenet's opera too closely. Subsequently, Giacosa was called back, along with Luigi Illica, who would make corrections, eliminate the second act and also refine a new Act III. In the end even Ricordi himself would write some verses for Act III. It thus took a veritable village of librettists – Puccini, Giacosa, Illica, Praga, Oliva, Leoncavallo and Ricordi – to lift Manon Lescaut off the ground. In the end, none of them took credit for the job.
The score was finished by October 1892, and the opera had its premiere in Turin on 1 February 1893. It was something of a Frankenstein's monster, as it consisted of bits and pieces gleaned from other Puccini works. The opera was a huge success, however, with special praise reserved for the music – especially its symphonic quality, which critics interpreted as Puccini's response to Wagner. But others saw Puccini's new opera as the product of a different lineage - playwright George Bernard Shaw remarked, 'On that [referring to melody] and other counts, Puccini looks to me more like the heir of Verdi than any of his rivals.'
This is an extract from Helen Greenwald's article 'Puccini: New Kid on the Block', which you can find in full in the programme book for Manon Lescaut. This is available in the theatre at performance times and from the ROH Shop.
Manon Lescaut runs from 17 June–7 July 2014. Tickets are still available.
The production is generously supported by Rolex, with generous philanthropic support from Mrs Susan A. Olde OBE, Lord and Lady Laidlaw, Mrs Philip Kan, Marina Kulishova, Mrs Trevor Swete, Quentin Holland, Mercedes T. Bass, Bruce Kovner, the American Friends of Covent Garden and The Manon Lescaut Production Syndicate.
The production will be relayed live to cinemas around the world on 24 June. Find your nearest cinema and sign up to our mailing list.]]>
The Story Begins…
The young Chevalier des Grieux and the beautiful Manon Lescaut elope to Paris. There, Manon soon abandons Des Grieux for a rich elderly protector. It's not long before she feels nostalgic for her former lover; but could she give up her life of luxury for him?
A Story for Our Times
Jonathan Kent's production draws parallels between Manon's story and aspects of our own age, including voyeurism and the commercialization of sex. Paul Brown's designs set Manon's story in a modern world, but with references to the often misleading glamour of the 18th century.
Puccini's First Big Success
Manon Lescaut had a tortuous genesis, from its beginnings (when Puccini's publisher Ricordi tried to persuade him not to write an opera on the same subject as Massenet's Manon) through countless arguments between Puccini and his librettists, one of whom quit the project. However, the premiere on 1 February 1893 at the Teatro Regio, Turin, was a triumph, and the opera's subsequent success at theatres round Europe made Puccini a rich man.
Desperate Passion
Puccini's Manon Lescaut, like Massenet's Manon, was inspired by the Abbé Prévost's L'Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut. Puccini structured his opera very differently from Massenet's, omitting the lovers' initial happy idyll in Paris, and concentrating in Acts III and IV on Manon's deportation to America and her agonizing death in the Louisiana desert. Generally the mood is darker in Puccini's opera; Puccini wrote that he would treat the story 'like an Italian, with desperate passion'.
Puccini's Most Wagnerian Opera
Puccini much admired Wagner, whose influence is clear in Manon Lescaut in the melodies that weave between the voices and orchestra, the rich orchestral textures, chromatic harmony and use of recurrent motifs. However, Puccini always maintained his originality. Many of the opera's arias, including Des Grieux's 'Donna non vidi mai' and Manon's 'In quelle trine morbide', contain a lyricism distinctive from Wagner.
Manon Lescaut runs 17 June–7 July 2014. Tickets are still available.
The production is generously supported by Rolex, with generous philanthropic support from Mrs Susan A. Olde OBE, Lord and Lady Laidlaw, Mrs Philip Kan, Marina Kulishova, Mrs Trevor Swete, Quentin Holland, Mercedes T. Bass, Bruce Kovner, the American Friends of Covent Garden and The Manon Lescaut Production Syndicate.
One of the defining features of Puccini's musical settings is how he portrays the geographical settings for the stories of his operas. He was not the first to do this, nor the last, but Puccini's works are notably well-travelled. The scores' set descriptions themselves make the point – for example:
Puccini's aim was to create a realistic world on stage that included the specific locale of the drama, so he included in his music sounds that give this sense of a real place. One of the most famous is the opening of Act III of Tosca. The final part of the story takes place on top of the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome, just before dawn. The points of starlight in a black sky provoke condemned hero Cavaradossi to recall a romantic night spent with Tosca – this is the famous aria 'E lucevan le stelle'. Paul Brown's designs for Jonathan Kent's Royal Opera production re-create the scene beautifully, but Puccini provided the lead through the music.
The opening creates the sense of quiet over a sleeping city: a shepherd leads his flock out to graze – we don't see him, but hear his song and the ringing of the sheep's bells, and then the church bells start to chime the call to matins. It is a lovely evocation of peace and calm, a world on the brink of awakening. This was one of the first sections of the opera that Puccini began composing, and indicates his desire to get an accurate sense of place right at the start of his work on the music. He had visited Rome and had local help to notate the sound of the Roman bells so that he could include the pitch and rhythm of their tolling into the music with some precision. It's detail like this that makes the atmosphere so convincing.
It was harder to draw on such literal sounds for the landscape of the American West of the Gold Rush. But Puccini's ear for colour and texture brilliantly conjure up that sense of the sublime that was captured in the art of the American Hudson River School, with painters such as Thomas Cole, Frederic Church and Albert Bierstadt: the majestic power and scale of nature untamed in a barely explored New World.
The short orchestral prelude that begins La fanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West) uses sweeping chords, tremolo strings and big changes of dynamics to evoke with the orchestra the idea of huge spaces subject to the elements, the wind through great redwoods, the swaying of their branches (a wind machine is used later in the opera to convey such a soundscape literally).
The last act of Manon Lescaut opens with an equally haunting, if more contracted, effect of expansive chords to represent the wide barren expanse outside New Orleans (geographical licence is part of opera!) in which Manon will perish.
Puccini's time allowed him to bring the pictorial quality of 19th-century Romantic music into opera with a purpose beyond the decorative. Puccini wanted to make you feel as though you were there, alongside the characters in the story. His music evokes the power of their emotions, but it also brings alive the landscapes in which they live and die.
Manon Lescaut runs from 17 June to 7 July 2014. A limited number of tickets are still available.
There will be a live cinema relay of the production on 24 June 2014. Find a showing near you.
Find out more about Puccini's use of local colour in John Snelson's article in the Manon Lescaut Digital Guide
Tosca runs from 10 May to 26 June 2014. Tickets are still available.]]>
'O Isis und Osiris' from Act II of Die Zauberflöte by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
The High Priest Sarastro prays to the Egyptian gods that Tamino and Pamina will learn wisdom and virtue, and triumph in their trials. The noble simplicity of the melody, the lyrical writing for the bass voice and the lulling accompaniment of strings show that Sarastro, far from being the evil sorcerer the Queen of the Night had claimed, is both impressive and benign.
'Deh! Tu di un'umile preghiera' from Act II of Maria Stuarda by Gaetano Donizetti
Maria has been condemned to death by Elisabetta. She has confessed her fear of death and her guilt about her past actions to her advisor Talbot. Now calm, she asks the crowd to join her in praying for God's mercy. Donizetti depicts Maria's new-found humility through her flowing, virtually unembellished vocal line, and her hopes of heaven through the predominance of rising phrases. The prayer begins with delicate harp accompaniment, but as the chorus joins Maria the full orchestra enters and the mood becomes impassioned and almost exultant.
'Tu al cui sguardo onnipossente' from Act I of I due Foscari by Giuseppe Verdi
Lucrezia Contarini prays that God may save her husband Jacopo, unfairly condemned by the Council of Ten. In contrast to her angry recitative at the start of the scene her prayer is gentle and lyrical – a long, flowing vocal line, of the kind that Verdi admired in Bellini's arias, over an ostinato in the harp and soft woodwind chords. Lucrezia's vocal line grows more ornate as she becomes more ardent, and the aria culminates in an elaborate cadenza. Lucrezia's mood darkens in the ensuing fiery cabaletta – a short passage of recitative following her prayer when she has learnt that her husband will be condemned to exile, and she swears that God will strike down the corrupt Council.
'Allmächt'ge Jungfrau' from Act III of Tannhäuser by Richard Wagner
Tannhäuser has travelled with a group of pilgrims to Rome to seek the Pope's forgiveness for his transgressions with the goddess Venus. Elisabeth is in love with Tannhäuser and has waited eagerly for him. When he does not return with the other pilgrims, Elisabeth prays in anguish to the Virgin to let her die. The almost chorale-like simplicity of the music, with its delicate textures and lyrical soprano line, conveys Elisabeth's dignity and earnestness. Wagner also makes us aware of her pain through effective use of chromaticism. The aria culminates in Elisabeth's heart-rending plea, set at a higher pitch than much of the rest of the aria, that through her death she may redeem Tannhäuser.
'Ave Maria' from Act IV of Otello by Verdi
Desdemona has had a premonition of her death. Alone, waiting for her husband Otello to arrive, she says her evening prayers. Her initial chanting of the words of the 'Ave Maria' evolves into a beautiful soprano melody, cradled in warm string harmonies, as Desdemona asks for the Virgin's blessing on the sinner and the innocent. The aria closes in a soaring soprano phrase to the word 'Hail', sung pianissimo, before a final murmured Amen. The tenderness of this prayer gives the audience a certainty of Desdemona's goodness and innocence – making the ensuing tragedy all the more terrible.
'Vissi d'arte' from Act II of Tosca by Giacomo Puccini
Scarpia, Rome's Chief of Police, has condemned Tosca's lover Cavaradossi to death, and suggested a terrible bargain: he will spare Cavaradossi if Tosca will accept him as a lover. In agony, Tosca turns to God. She recalls her devotion to the Catholic Church, and how she has lived 'for art and love'. Puccini makes the aria particularly poignant by bringing back the theme that introduced Tosca in Act I, as if she is remembering happier times. Her initial melancholy, illustrated in falling vocal phrases, evolves into ardour and urgency as she repeatedly asks God why he has rewarded her devotion with such bitterness.
'Salve regina' ('Zdrávas královno') from Act II of Jenůfa by Leoš Janáček
Jenůfa's stepmother the Kostelnička has given Jenůfa a sleeping draught. Meanwhile she takes Jenůfa's illegitimate baby to the millstream, to drown it – worried that the child may prevent Jenůfa's marriage to the kindly Laca. Jenůfa wakes up, bleary from the drug. She frantically searches for her child, and comes to the conclusion that her mother has taken the baby to show him to his father, Števa. She offers up a prayer to the Virgin, in a meditative mood that contrasts with her earlier agitation. It is a rare section of extended melody in an opera where much of the dialogue imitates speech. Shimmering strings and harp give the music an ethereal air, while the soaring soprano line and simple melody convey Jenůfa's sincere faith. It is one of the most moving examples of Janáček's writing for the soprano voice.
'Und ist kein Betrug' from Act III of Wozzeck by Alban Berg
Marie feels remorse at her affair with the Drum Major and her behaviour towards her lover Wozzeck. She reads the Bible and prays. Berg contrasts Marie's reading of Bible texts (all referring to Christ's mercy and to women taken in adultery), intoned in Sprechstimme (sung speech used extensively in the opera) with her increasingly anguished sung pleas for God's mercy. He sets the scene as a series of variations on a delicate opening theme, conveying Marie's growing distress. By the end of the scene, speech gives way entirely to song, as Marie reads the story of Mary Magdalene, and implores God, her line rising to a top C: 'Lord, you had mercy on her, have mercy also on me!'
'Hagios! Hagios!' from Act I of Król Roger by Karol Szymanowski
Long before Arvo Pärt and John Tavener attempted to capture the spirit of the Orthodox Church in their music, Szymanowski brought an Orthodox Church service on stage in the opening of his great opera Król Roger. The first act of the opera is known as the 'Byzantine' act, for the clear influence in it of Byzantine music and architecture. It opens very quietly, with an unaccompanied choir singing the words of the Byzantine Liturgy. Gradually the textures become more complex, with slow, hypnotic phrases in the bass voices answered antiphonally by more rapid passages in the high voices. The religious text is set syllabically, with every word declaimed. The texture becomes richer as strings join the voices and the bass voice of the Archbishop leads the congregation in chanted prayer.
'Ave Maria' from Act II of Dialogues des Carmélites by Francis Poulenc
Although he never lost his roguish humour, religion became increasingly important to Poulenc. This is reflected both in his beautiful religious choral works and in Dialogues des Carmélites, his only full-length opera. In Act II, new Prioress Madame Lidoine has warned her sister nuns of the adversity ahead of them. She leads the Carmelites in the 'Ave Maria', one of the most important prayers of the Catholic Church. The prayer is unaccompanied, with simple choral textures and rich harmonies. Poulenc gives particularly expressive harmonies to significant words and phrases, such as 'Jésus' and 'mortis nostrae'. The mood is both tranquil and ardent, making this one of the most exquisite of operatic prayers.
Tosca runs from 10 May to 26 June 2014. Tickets are still available.
Dialogues des Carmélites runs from 29 May to 11 June 2014. Tickets are still available.
Maria Stuarda runs from 5 to 8 July 2014. Tickets are still available.
I due Foscari runs from 14 October to 2 November 2014. Tickets go on general sale 15 July 2014.
Die Zauberflöte runs from 23 February to 11 March 2015. Tickets go on general sale 21 October 2014.
Król Roger runs from 1 to 19 May 2015. Tickets go on general sale 27 January 2015.
Walter Scott's The Bride of Lammermoor and Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor
With its story of family feuds and romantic rivalry, The Bride of Lammermoor is particularly appropriate for opera. Donizetti and his librettist Cammarano streamlined the drama, omitting complicated subplots, political references and many of the characters (such as Lucy's tyrannical mother) to focus on the lovers Lucia and Edgardo. Donizetti heightened Lucia's plight by writing her an extended mad scene in Act III (not included in Scott's version), and provided Edgardo with a suitably operatic suicide, rather than Scott's ignominious fall into quicksand.
Abbé Prévost's L'Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut and Jules Massenet's Manon/Giacomo Puccini's Manon Lescaut, among others
Abbé Prévost's tale of a young man who sacrifices everything for love hasn't been out of print since its first publication in 1731. The novel has inspired several operatic adaptations – all markedly different from Prévost's original. Massenet focussed not on the hero Des Grieux but on the hedonistic, tender Manon, depicting her volatile character in arias ranging from the mournful 'Adieu, notre petite table' to the flamboyant 'Obéissons'. Puccini concentrated on the 'desperate passion' of the lovers, giving them music of Wagnerian intensity that makes their love seem far nobler than that of Prévost's ill-matched couple.
Alexandre Dumas fils's La Dame aux camélias and Giuseppe Verdi's La traviata
Alexandre Dumas fils's first 'hit', the novel and subsequent (1852) play La Dame aux camélias, have gained lasting fame in Verdi's operatic setting. Verdi makes his heroine Violetta more impressive than Dumas' Marguerite, minimizing the character's vulgar aspects to concentrate on her moral dignity and tenderness. His hero Alfredo is far more likeable than Dumas' rather priggish hero Armand, and his one act of cruelty to Violetta is impetuous rather than calculated. His, and his father's, reconciliation with Violetta in Act III is one of Verdi's most moving scenes. Small wonder the opera is now far more popular than Dumas' novel.
Prosper Mérimée's Carmen and Georges Bizet's Carmen
Mérimée was inspired to write his popular novella after his 1830 visit to Spain, where he studied gypsy culture. Bizet and his librettists set Part III, detailing the tragic love affair of the soldier Don José and the seductive gypsy Carmen. They slightly softened the story, enhancing its romantic elements by adding the dashing torero Escamillo (based on a minor character in Mérimée) and the innocent young Micaëla; so creating two love triangles. Bizet brilliantly conveys the Iberian atmosphere of Mérimée's novella through his music, particularly Carmen's sensual Habanera, Séguidille and Danse bohemienne.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Die Leiden des jungen Werthers and Massenet's Werther
Goethe's epistolary novel about a young man who falls hopelessly in love with a woman betrothed (later married) to another was a runaway success – so much so that the book later embarrassed him. Massenet turns Goethe's examination of obsessive passion into a romantic tragedy. He gives his heroine Charlotte two arias in Act III that reveal her genuine love (never confirmed in the novel) for Werther, and provides his hero with an ecstatic death scene in which he is united with Charlotte – in stark contrast to the literary Werther's lonely, botched suicide.
Aleksandr Pushkin's Eugene Onegin and Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin
Tchaikovsky loved Pushkin's verse-novel, which was already a literary classic when he began his great opera. To some degree he stuck close to Pushkin when constructing his libretto, sometimes barely altering the original text. However, he avoided the dry, witty tone that predominates in the verse-novel and instead sympathized wholeheartedly with the romantic passion of Tatyana (expressed movingly in her Letter Scene) and the melancholy of Lensky (in his aria 'Kuda, Kuda').
Henri (Henry) Murger's Scènes de la vie de bohème and Giacomo Puccini's La bohème/Ruggero Leoncavallo's La bohème
Henri Murger's satirical autobiographical tales of bohemian life in 1840s Paris brought the struggling writer to public attention and international acclaim. Puccini's opera is only loosely based on Murger. He concentrated on the few genuinely romantic and tragic elements in the novel to create a work often called 'opera's greatest love story'. Leoncavallo tried to stick closer to the episodic, black-comic tone of Murger's novel. The result was a more fragmented drama that vacillates between farce and tragedy, and which has never gained a firm hold in the repertory.
Nikolai Leskov's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District and Dmitri Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk
Nicolai Leskov's chilling novel explores the boredom of provincial life and the suppression of women. Shostakovich focussed on the second theme in his operatic masterpiece. He depicts his heroine Katerina as an intelligent, lonely, passionate woman surrounded by brutes: the cowardly Zinovy, the macho Sergey and the bullying Boris. He made Katerina a warmer, more sympathetic and less vicious woman than in the novel, and gave her some of the opera's most beautiful music, such as the aria 'Zherebyonok k kobïlke toropitsya'.
Henry James's The Turn of the Screw and Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw
Henry James's ghost story has fascinated readers and critics for generations –not least for the ambiguity of whether the ghosts seen by the Governess really exist. By giving his ghosts voices and having them participate on stage, Britten seems to imply that they are 'real' – though a degree of uncertainty remains. But certainly his ghosts have more definite personalities than in James, particularly Peter Quint, with his eerie celeste accompaniment and seductive speech. The scene in which the ghosts summon the children at night is particularly spine chilling.
Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and Poul Ruders's The Handmaid's Tale
Margaret Atwood had worried about how her award-winning dystopian novel, with its internal monologues, multiple locations and fragmented chronology, could be turned into an opera – but she was very impressed when she saw the premiere of Poul Ruders's opera. Although Ruders and his librettist Paul Bentley cut some of the characters and reduced the number of flashbacks, they remained remarkably faithful to the novel's plot and tone. Many critics saw the opera's message as particularly relevant to the conflict-ridden early 21st century.
We recently asked what books you'd love to turn into an opera or ballet, with suggestions offered as diverse as Winnie The Pooh and The Bell Jar.
La traviata runs from 19 April–20 May 2014. Tickets are still available. Manon Lescaut runs from 17 June–7 July 2014. A small number of tickets are available, and there will be 67 tickets available on the day of each performance. The production will be broadcast live around the world on 24 June 2014. Find your nearest cinema here. La bohème runs from 9–19 July 2014. Tickets are still available.
**Update: The broadcast date for Ariadne auf Naxos has changed. It will now be broadcast on 16 July.
A total of seven Royal Opera performances are to be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 across spring and summer, five of which will be relayed live.
The broadcasts include the Company's 'musically exceptional' production of Richard Strauss's Die Frau ohne Schatten, conducted by Semyon Bychkov; and Gounod's Faust, starring Joseph Calleja, Simon Keenlyside, Bryn Terfel and Sonya Yoncheva.
Full listings are as follows:
All broadcasts will be available afterwards on BBC iPlayer for seven days. In addition to full performances, BBC Radio 3 will broadcast a number of interviews and features through the rest of the 2013/14 Season. For details of these, follow us on Twitter or Facebook.
Please note, details of broadcast are subject to change.]]>
Jonathan Kent's production of Puccini's Tosca returns to the Royal Opera House later this Season.
'Audiences leaving Tosca should feel a sense of waste,' says the director of the passionate and political thriller. 'It's impossible not to feel sympathy for Tosca, and a sense of admiration, as we watch what appears to be a fairly superficial woman become a woman of real distinction and real courage.
'Tosca has a wonderful narrative with three great and fascinating characters at its heart.'
Puccini's music is intensely dramatic and brings to mind some of Rome's most iconic sights - a quality not lost on the Olivier award-winning director:
'I think Puccini's music is some of the most evocative and emotional of the operatic repertoire. Of course the music is the thing that draws you in but his genius is that the music and the drama of the piece are integrated. The way he advances narrative through music is fascinating.'
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Tosca runs from 10 May-26 June 2014. Tickets are still available.
The production is generously sponsored by RLM Finsbury.
Giacomo Puccini is one of the most popular opera composers of all time. Of his 12 operas, four – La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly and Turandot – are among the most performed operas worldwide. They're also regularly recorded: you can buy more than twenty DVD recordings of La bohème alone. Here are just a few of the reasons why we think Puccini is such an appealing composer:
First, there are his marvellous plots, full of attention-grabbing action and interesting character development. Puccini's sense of dramatic pacing is always immaculate (his operas never feel too long or too short) and he was a master of stagecraft. There's plenty of variety to enjoy as well: Puccini took a different dramatic approach with each opera. Tosca has all the elements of a thriller. Manon Lescaut is an iconic drama of doomed romance and La fanciulla del West has a cinematic grandeur. La bohème is a realistic, sometimes witty, sometimes very moving depiction of the life and loves of a group of poverty-stricken young artists. Madama Butterfly explores the dark side of colonialism through the story of an exploited Japanese girl, while Turandot transports us to a dark fairytale world where a mysterious stranger teaches the meaning of love to a cruel princess.
There are also Puccini's wonderful characters. Each of the bohemians in La bohème is a true individual, from the romantic dreamer Rodolfo to the bookish and taciturn Colline. Tosca's Scarpia is one of the greatest of operatic villains – while Tosca herself, with her jealousy, courage and passionate love for Cavaradossi, is one of the most complex of operatic heroines. In Madama Butterfly we watch Cio-Cio-San mature from an innocent young girl to a dignified, tragic woman. The cunning hero of Gianni Schicchi is one of opera's great comic creations. And in his final opera Puccini explores the nature of power and the survival instinct through the characters of Calaf, who knows no fear, Liù, who dies for love, and Turandot, the 'ice princess' who swears that no man will possess her.
Puccini had a knack for picking a good setting for his operas – Paris, Rome, Nagasaki, California, ancient Peking. And how well he brought these places to life! Even Debussy – not a Puccini fan – claimed no one had depicted 1830s Paris as vividly as Puccini in Act II of La bohème. For Tosca, Puccini went to great lengths to create a grand and – to some extent – historically accurate church service to end Act I, and he stood at dawn on the battlements of the Castel Sant'Angelo to find inspiration for the tolling bells that open Act III. Madama Butterfly transports us to Japan through the use of traditional Japanese songs. Puccini also studied Chinese music to create the oriental flavour of Turandot. And in every Puccini opera there's also a host of wonderful evocations of stage action, such as the 18th-century pastiche dances in Act II of Manon Lescaut, the out-of-tune barrel organ in Il tabarro and the falling snow at the opening of Act III of La bohème.
Finally, there's Puccini's glorious tunes. Not only are his arias and duets beautiful to listen to, but they also capture perfectly his characters' emotional states. What could more powerfully represent falling in love than Rodolfo's 'Che gelid manina'? Or sexual magnatism than Pinkerton's seduction of Cio-Cio-San in the duet 'Vieni la sera'? Or despair and desperate appeal than Tosca's 'Vissi d'arte'? And in Turandot there's a host of marvellous arias, including Turandot's fiery 'In questa reggia' and Calaf's heroic 'Nessun dorma'.
Do you enjoy Puccini's operas or are you immune to their charm? Let us know what you think.
The Royal Opera's production of Turandot runs from 17 February–10 March 2014. A limited number of tickets is available. Tosca runs from 10 May-26 June 2014. Tickets are available.
Manon Lescaut runs 17 June-7 July 2014. La boheme runs from 9-19 July 2014. General booking for both productions opens 8 April.]]>
On Tuesday 17 September, Puccini's Turandot will be relayed live to cinemas around the world.
Andrei Serban's production of Puccini's dark fairytale is one of The Royal Opera's most spectacular productions and since its premiere at the Cultural Olympiad in Los Angeles in 1984, has been performed almost 100 times.
Dionysios Sourbis as Ping, David Butt Philip as Pang and Doug Jones as Pong © ROH/Tristram Kenton, 2013
Turandot was Puccini's final opera. He died before its completion and it was left to Franco Alfano to complete the final act. The finished work was staged for the first time in 1926 at La Scala in Milan; during the performance, conductor Arturo Toscanini famously lay down his baton in Act III before declaring, 'at this point, the Maestro died'. Find out more about the piece with our Opera Essentials guide.
The Story
The opera follows the story of Prince Calaf and his attempts to win the heart of the beautiful but defiant Princess Turandot. A Chinese fable about gambling with life and love, Turandot was inspired by Puccini's fascination with the Far East. Sally Jacob's designs, a pageant of theatricality and colour, bring all the exoticism of China to Covent Garden. Find out more about how such fantastical sets and scenery are kept fresh.
The Music
In his final days Puccini wrote some of his most famous and passionate arias. Romantic and compelling, Turandot owes much of its enduring appeal to the power of the music. It includes one of the biggest show-stoppers in all opera, 'Nessun Dorma', as well as some highly charged numbers for the chorus. Read more about a shiver-down-the-spine musical moment in Turandot.
The Cast
Star soprano Lise Lindstrom makes her Royal Opera House debut in this year's production of Turandot, singing the fiendishly difficult title role, while acclaimed Italian tenor Marco Berti sings the role of Calaf. Henrik Nánási conducts.
Read audience reactionsto the opening night of Turandot. Following the cinema screening, we will publish a round-up of tweets so let us know your thoughts with the hashtag #ROHturandot.
Over the course of the 2013/14 Season, Royal Opera House productions will be screened live in over 1,000 cinemas in 38 countries. Find out more about this Season's programme and find a screening near you.
The Story Begins...
Princess Turandot of China has sworn that any man who wishes to marry her must answer correctly three riddles – if he fails he will be executed. Can the exiled Prince Calaf triumph and make the ice princess love him?
An Eastern Fantasy
Andrei Serban's classic production of Turandot (first performed by The Royal Opera in 1984) highlights the violence and beauty of ancient China. Spectacular effects include the arrival of dancers riding on a painted Chinese dragon and waving bloody daggers for the Act I execution, and the entrance of Emperor Altoum, who descends from the sky on a golden throne, in Act II. In Act III Turandot symbolically discards her sinister mask to show that she is conquered by love.
Puccini's Last Work
Puccini began work on Turandot in 1920. As always, he played a key role in shaping the opera's libretto. He worked with great enthusiasm on the score and by March 1924 it was all but complete – apart from the final love duet. This duet caused Puccini much grief and he was still struggling with it when he died in November 1924. The opera was completed by Franco Alfano and received its premiere on 25 April 1926 at La Scala, Milan.
From Satirical Fable to Heroic Romance
Puccini's principal source for Turandot was Carlo Gozzi's 1762 play of the same name. Gozzi took a rather satirical view of the story (echoed in Busoni's 1917 opera Turandot). Puccini followed Schiller's adaptation of Gozzi's play in making Calaf a heroic figure, and in having Calaf and Turandot genuinely come to love each other.
Memorable Melodies, Exotic Sounds
Puccini was keen to include authentic Chinese material in his score for Turandot. The opera makes use of several Chinese folk melodies, including an 'ancient Imperial Hymn' that Puccini first heard played on a Chinese musical box owned by an Italian aristocrat. Puccini's talents as a melodist are very clear in his final opera and Turandot contains some of his most memorable arias, including Calaf's 'Nessun dorma', Liù's 'Signore, ascolta' and 'Tu, che di gel sei cinta' and Turandot's dramatic 'In questa reggia'.
Turandot runs from 9 September 2013 – 10 March 2014, and will be screened live in cinemas on 17 September.
The production is staged with generous philanthropic support from The Royal Opera House Endowment Fund.
Giacomo Puccini's Turandot was the composer's final opera - he died in 1924 before it could be completed. The opera eventually had its premiere in 1926, one year and five months after Puccini's death, completed by Franco Alfano. Halfway through the third act the orchestra rested and conductor Arturo Toscanini turned to the audience announcing, 'Here the opera ends, because at this point the maestro died', before the performance segued into Alfano's ending.
Prior to the return to Covent Garden of Andrei Serban's Royal Opera production we asked our Twitter following what opera endings they would amend given the chance, and what they would add or take away:
@RoyalOperaHouse Captain Vere and Billy Budd desert, row to Jersey and open a nice B&B.
— Alex Fleetwood (@ammonite) August 27, 2013
@RoyalOperaHouse Evgeni Onegin! Tanya doesn't get married to Gremin. I want to make a happy end with Onegin and Tatiana together, — Essie♫ (@SopEssie) August 27, 2013
@RoyalOperaHouse Rigoletto...the Duke ends up in the sack, Gilda falls for Sparafucile, Rigoletto for his sister & they all take over Mantua — Paul Parsons (@PGFParsons) August 27, 2013
@RoyalOperaHouse Grimes takes Balstrode's advice, proposes to Ellen, is accepted and they get the hell out of the Borough. — Sarah Noble (@primalamusica) August 27, 2013
@RoyalOperaHouse I'd have to save Manon at the end of Massenet's opera. Her death was traumatisingly emotional! — Alice Goodwin (@TheRhubarbTart) August 27, 2013
@RoyalOperaHouse @_paullay @ammonite: "Cosi" The lovers stay with their new partners, seize Alfonso and throw him into the ornamental lake. — Historylecturer (@Historylecturer) August 27, 2013
@RoyalOperaHouse an addition to the repertory, Rigoletto 2: A Father's Revenge. A Sweeney Todd -esque vendetta story. — Chris Curcuruto (@ChrisCurcuruto) August 27, 2013
The Royal Opera's Turandot runs from 9 - 28 September 2013 and 17 February - 10 March 2014. Tickets are still available.
Turandot will be relayed live to cinemas around the world on 17 September 2013.
The production is staged with generous philanthropic support from The Royal Opera House Endowment Fund.]]>
'Nessun dorma' must have a claim to be the most famous opera aria ever – thanks to a certain World Cup and the Three Tenors. No doubt some of the millions encountered Turandot through 'Nessun dorma' then listened to more music from the opera. And there are other wonderfully smooth and tuneful solos in the opera, such as Liù's 'Signore ascolta'. However, it is just as much an opera of big crowds. They can have their lyrical moments too, and sometimes in the most unexpected places.
In Act I there is a beautiful number for the people of Peking, 'Perché tarde la luna'. The sound sweeps the audience away into an exotic world suffused with a romantic musical glow. First the women and then the men sing a repeated note as the violins climb slowly higher and higher in long, sustained notes. Gradually short phrases emerge that float around, rising and falling, and then sustained. The volume pulses in waves, from soft to loud, then dying again, and between each little set of phrases there is a pause, as though the men and women are waiting for something to happen. The orchestra decorates this sumptuous vocal quality with a range of rising and falling phrases of their own: sliding strings, wafting woodwind, little punctuating points of percussion. The combination is strange, hypnotic and downright magical.
But there's something darker lurking beneath. Eventually the musical elements coalesce into a single, loud repeated statement chanted by all the voices at the climax of the chorus. What the people of Peking are chanting at the end is 'Pu-Tin-Pao', the name of the executioner. (He is described in the stage directions as 'enormous, gigantic, tragic… carrying his immense sword on his shoulder'). The crowd sing their suspenseful chorus as they keenly wait for the rising of the moon. When the moon rises it is time for the executioner to do his work, for another head to roll. The beautiful vision of the natural world in their words is related to a severed head, a lover of the dead. We can find the same verbal and musical imagery in Richard Strauss's Salome – with another executioner and another severed head. Opera can be a bloody business!
This Turandot crowd are in thrall to an erotically charged bloodlust. What throws the chorus into even starker relief is what immediately follows. We hear the angelic voices of boy trebles singing a little processional tune that represents the beautiful and vengeful Princess Turandot – a genuine Chinese melody to suit the ancient Chinese setting of the opera. Temple gongs are heard lightly striking under their voices, and there is the steady intoning quality of a formal procession. It is mesmerizing and seductive and fades to nothing. They are accompanying the young Prince of Persia who has failed to answer correctly the three riddles posed by the Princess. The penalty for failure is death – so he is about to be beheaded by Pu-Tin-Pao. Gorgeous music, violent passions. It's exactly the sort of shiver-down-the spine moment that opera does so well.
Turandot runs from 9 September 2013 – 10 March 2014, and will be screened live in cinemas on 17 September.
The production is staged with generous philanthropic support from The Royal Opera House Endowment Fund.
Tosca runs until 20 July. There is limited availability. On 18 July it will be shown LIVE (and for free) on outdoor screens across the UK as part of BP Big Screens.
The production is generously sponsored by Xstrata and generously supported by Roland and Sophie Rudd and the Royal Opera House Endowment Fund.]]>
Puccini's opera La rondine is full of waltzes. There are delicate toe-tapping ones with a solo voice, and full-blown whirling ones with dramatic pauses in the Viennese fashion and the entire company singing and dancing. What is it about a waltz that is so captivating?
The elegant, respectable and restrained gliding we associate with 'Strictly Come Dancing' is not how it was first viewed. The waltz grew popular in Vienna in the late 1700s and began to appear in continental dance halls. But it was a suggestive and dangerous dance in comparison to the propriety of the main shared dances in formal groups. Think of those Jane Austen period dramas with everyone in long lines – men on one side, women on the other, changing partners and everyone watching and listening to everyone else. But with the waltz the couple dancing were together, alone, and their bodies were even pressed against each other. There was suggestive physical contact and the couple could have private conversations.
Clearly, the waltz was not thought respectable and decent. On the occasion of her 18th birthday party, Princess Victoria – later Queen – wrote in her diary that 'Count Waldstein looks remarkably well in his pretty uniform'. She wanted to dance with him, but 'He could not dance the quadrille and, as in my station I unfortunately cannot waltz and gallop, I could not dance with him!' This romantic and even erotic air has contributed to the mystique of the waltz. Through the 19th century it became the soundtrack for love.
The waltz also finds its way into musical comedy, where Rodgers with Hart and then with Hammerstein gave it a particular American, 20th-century twist ('Falling in Love with Love' and 'Wonderful Guy' are just two of many examples). The use of the waltz to signify romance allowed Sondheim to write the lyrics of the show title song 'Do I Hear a Waltz?'. In other words, if you hear a waltz, then you know it must be love.
When Johann Strauss II – the 'Waltz King' – began writing operettas, he naturally put waltzes in them as the perfect means of combining lilting music with romance and drama. In fact, the waltz is now intrinsically associated with operetta. In Lehár's Die lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow) the tensions and final resolution of the love affair between Hanna Glawari and Count Danilo are developed through a shared melody, the famous 'Merry Widow Waltz'. Puccini wrote La rondine as an opera – he as very clear from the start that it was not an operetta. But something about that original commission he had from Vienna put the possibility of using the waltz into his mind. From the music Puccini wrote, it's clear that this was an opportunity he wanted to indulge.
The appeal of the waltz has much to do with its three beats in a bar. We have two feet, so anything in threes immediately makes us move differently with more continuity, which thus leads to turning. The energy of this whirling propels dance into what feels like perpetual motion. And the music responds to this too. To listen to the main waltz section in Act II of La rondine is to experience this uplifting feeling, and be drawn into it, as are the dancers in the drama.
La rondine runs from 5 – 21 July. Tickets are on sale now.
The production is sponsored by Coutts. Generous philanthropic support was given by Mr and Mrs Christopher W.T. Johnston and The American Friends of Covent Garden.
The Story Begins…
When the elegant courtesan Magda de Civry meets the young and innocent Ruggero Lastouc, she is smitten, and begins to imagine the life they might live together. But can she forget her past and make her dream reality?
1920s Elegance
Nicolas Joël's naturalistic production pays homage to the final years of the era of the great courtesans. Art Deco is evoked in the elegant salon of Act I – with sumptuous furniture, beautiful frescoes and a white grand piano – and in the mosaic tiles of the hotel in Act III. Magda's glamorous costume in Act I contrasts with the simple print dress she wears in Act II's brilliant evocation of Paris café life.
Operetta Origins
La rondine was originally commissioned for the Carltheater in Vienna as an operetta; a German libretto was supplied. Puccini insisted on writing a through-composed work in Italian, and employed the librettist Giuseppe Adami to adapt the text. In 1915 Italy entered World War I, fighting against the Austrians. Writing an opera for Vienna was now impossible and La rondine had its premiere in neutral Monte Carlo in 1917. By then it had been transformed from its operetta origins, not least in terms of the story, which has a more melancholy ending than most operettas.
Dances and Beautiful Melodies
One operetta quality that does remain in La rondine is the use of popular dances, particularly the waltz. This is most prominent in Act II, when two waltz themes are combined. In the same act, Puccini experimented with the tango, one-step and foxtrot. Along with this dance-inspired music, La rondine contains some exquisite arias, particularly Magda's dreamy 'Chi il bel sogno di Doretta' in Act I.
Growing Success
La rondine was slow to become successful, in part because of its 'mixed' genre: neither a comedy nor a tragedy. However, in recent years it has had regular performances worldwide, and become hailed, as Puccini himself called it, as a 'jewel' in the repertory.
La rondine runs from 5 – 21 July. Tickets are on sale now. The production is sponsored by Coutts. Generous philanthropic support was given by Mr and Mrs Christopher W.T. Johnston and The American Friends of Covent Garden.]]>
It's a familiar cliché: as death approaches, your life flashes before your eyes. If you live in the world of opera, you could be mistaken for thinking this isn't a cliché but a simple matter of fact. In a significant number of operas, including La bohème, the death of a heroine is accompanied by a musical montage of key moments from her life. Consider just a few of these memorable, operatic death scenes:
In the final act of Verdi's La traviata, the dying heroine, Violetta, sings a long and haunting duet ('Parigi, o cara') with Alfredo, the lover with whom she has – only just in time – been reunited. The brass go on to announce her imminent death in funeral-like rhythms, but Violetta finally expires after a few sentences spoken over the sounds of an ethereal solo violin. It is playing the major-key tune of her Act I showstopper 'Ah! fors'è lui' (Ah, perhaps he is the one), the point when she realized she loved Alfredo, Her dying musical memory is a beautiful tune, poignant because the theme recalls the start of her love affair.
Wagner adopted the same approach as Verdi. Isolde dies singing a solo version of her love duet with Tristan in Act II of Tristan und Isolde. He has just died, and she is about to follow him. As with Violetta, it is the return of music from
a great love scene earlier in the piece that generates the emotional charge: past elation meets grim present. If the big event in your life was that one great passion, then maybe it is exactly to that your last conscious thoughts turn. Although revisiting one event is not quite the same as a whole life flashing before one's eyes.
We get much nearer the 'flashing life' cliché at the end of Wagner's Ring cycle with Brünnhilde. As she prepares for death she recalls not just her own life but runs back through the story, motivation and music of all four of the Ring's operas. It is one very big flashback indeed for her as she contemplates what has brought her to the point of sacrificial suicide – it's also the culmination of a theatrical marathon for the audience!
Puccini does something similar in his first major opera success, Manon Lescaut. There are only two characters in Act IV: Manon and her lover Des Grieux. The title of Manon's famous Act IV aria says it all: 'Sola, perduta, abbandonata' (Alone, lost, abandoned). Stuck in a desert outside New Orleans – it's opera, the geography isn't always perfect! – the end is nigh for Manon. The act is full of musical themes from the previous three, which have shown us Manon's life from her meeting as a naive young girl with Des Grieux, through to her time as a Paris courtesan and her deportation to New Orleans for theft and prostitution – taking the besotted Des Grieux with her. In effect, the act compares the innocent girl of the start of the story with the dying figure at the end of an unhappy, unfulfilled life. The use of familiar music literally plays out elements of the story for the audience as Manon's life gradually seeps from her worn-out frame.
For the death of Mimì in La bohème, Puccini takes the idea further. The first and last acts both take place in the same cold, poorly furnished student garret, and Act IV is a montage of earlier melodies, mostly taken from Act I. However, Act I is the bright optimistic, joyous start of the story: the introduction of the lively bohemians, their carefree and colourful life and the beginnings of the romance of Mimì and Rodolfo. The music describes this atmosphere. So in Act IV, these optimistic and melodious sounds seem on first impression out of step with the darkening drama as Mimì succumbs to the final stages of tuberculosis. But Puccini intends to create this tension. The lightness of the sounds throws into relief the darkness of what is fast becoming inevitable, and it is the friction between the two that creates the tension and hence the emotion. Act I and Act IV are two sides of the same coin: one ends with lovers united, the other with lovers parted. It is the flashback of memory and its reminder of a happier past that heightens in Act IV the tragedy of a life dramatically – and operatically – cut short.
Do you have a favourite operatic final moment?
La bohème runs from 16 February - 12 March 2013.]]>
Gianni Schicchi – the third and final installment of Puccini's Il trittico – is to be broadcast tonight (Friday 29 June) on BBC Four at 8pm.
The one-act comedy tells the tale of the eponymous Gianni Schicchi who attempts to profit from the will of the recently deceased Buoso. The libretto is based on an incident in Dante's The Divine Comedy and, among other musical highlights, contains Lauretta's gorgeous aria 'O mio babbino caro', sung in Richard Jones's production by Ekaterina Siurina.
In the run up to opening night, ROH News contributor Gavin Plumley wrote an introduction to Gianni Schicchi on his blog, Entartete Musik. Find out how Puccini wrote the opera as well as about its influences.
This broadcast follows earlier broadcasts of Il tabarro and Suor Angelica, the latter of which is still available to watch for a limited time on BBC iPlayer. The trio have also recently been released on DVD.
View photos of Gianni Schicchi:
Ekaterina Siurina as Lauretta and Lucio Gallo as Gianni Schicchi in Gianni Schicchi © ROH / Bill Cooper 2011
Rebecca Evans as Nella, Alan Oke as Gherardo, Francesco Demuro as Rinuccio, Robert Poulton as Marco, Elena Zilio as Zita, Gwynne Howell as Simone, Marie McLaughlin as La Ciesca and Jeremy White as Betto Di Signa in Gianni Schicchi © ROH / Bill Cooper 2011
Francesco Demuro as Rinuccio, Alan Oke as Gherardo, Robert Poulton as Marco, Gwynne Howell as Simone, Lucio Gallo as Gianni Schicchi in Gianni Schicchi © ROH / Bill Cooper 2011
Rebecca Evans as Nella, Lucio Gallo as Gianni Schicchi and Marie McLaughlin as La Ciesca in Gianni Schicci © ROH / Bill Cooper 2011
With performances of La bohème well underway on the Royal Opera House main stage, we're now looking ahead to the BP Summer Big Screens relay on 17 May. The event will see the production beamed live from Covent Garden to 22 screens around the UK where thousands will be able to see the opera for free in squares and piazzas from Aberdeen to Plymouth.
If the weather's good, why not pack a picnic basket and enjoy an early summer's evening in the company of Puccini's masterpiece?
The relay will showcase one of The Royal Opera's best-loved productions to a national audience and ROH Insights recently interviewed John Copley about his production, in the company's repertoire since 1974. Listen to an extract featuring amusing anecdotes from the seasoned director.
The role of Mimi is one of the most famous in opera, and this production of La bohème has seen some of the world's greatest singers in the role - including Angela Gheorghiu who returns to the part in June. We recently caught up with Italian soprano Carmen Giannatassio and asked her about stepping in. Watch our interview with Carmen.
Kasper Holten, Director of The Royal Opera, recently told us why he loves the piece, and why it deserves its tag as a classic:
There's also the opportunity to take a look behind the scenes with our gallery of rehearsal pictures, taken by Yuri Vorobiev who will sing the role of Colline for the relay performance. Alternatively, if since watching BBC Two's series of Maestro at the Opera you're after a conductor's view of preparations, Entartete Musik's Gavin Plumley followed Semyon Bychkov for his enlightening six week 'Stalking Semyon' series.
If you're a Twitter user and will be watching one of the big screen relays, tweet us your thoughts and pictures during the event by using the hashtag #ROHboheme.
La bohème is followed on BP Summer Big Screens by Falstaff (30 May) and Metamorphosis: Titian 2012 (16 July).]]>
Showing on BBC Two at 1.35pm on Christmas Eve, Pappano's Essential Tosca follows the acclaimed Opera Italia series, shown on BBC Four last year.
In Essential Tosca, Antonio Pappano explores the ravishing and gut-wrenching music of Puccini's Tosca and the importance of Rome in the opera. Antonio takes us through the work, both at the piano and in rehearsal with the stars of the Royal Opera House's recent production of Tosca, which is shown on BBC Two immediately after the documentary. The ROH cast includes Angela Gheorghiu as Floria Tosca, Bryn Terfel as Baron Scarpia and tenor Jonas Kaufmann as Cavaradossi.
Pappano's Essential Tosca is the perfect introduction to the opera for those who haven't seen it but should also offer new insights to those familiar with the great work. You can watch an extended preview here:
If this gives you a taste for Maestro Pappano's work you can watch a recent Insights event he recorded about Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg earlier this month, filmed in front of an audience at the Royal Opera House
Antonio Pappano is conducting Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at the Royal Opera House until 8 January 2012. Find details of forthcoming Insights events on the ROH website.]]>


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We are excited that you are interested in our Christian preschool!
Registration for the 2014-2015 school year is complete, but we encourage you to submit an application to be put on our waitlist. You will not be charged a registration fee to be put on a waitlist. Click here for details regarding How to Register Online.
On Saturday, May 24th, 2014, Riverbend Christian Nursery School celebrated our 20th Anniversary with a Family Fun Event!
Upwards of 350 people attended the event and enjoyed entertainment by Dan the Balloon Man, The Joe Show Illusions and Laughs, Caricaturist Robert Woodbury, Face Painter P'Wan and an obstacle course and bouncer from Jiant Jumpers. The sanctuary was transformed into The Smart Cookie Café where guests were served specialty coffees and cookies while reminiscing and viewing photo albums and all twenty years of class photos. To view a video montage of the photos taken by Avonlea Photography of the days' activities, please click this link.
Thank you to all who came out to help us celebrate, to the members of our congregation of Riverbend Lutheran Church for their support and assistance, and also to those who couldn't attend, but sent messages about their fond memories of their experience with RCNS! Thanks be to God for blessing us with a beautiful day to celebrate what He has done at RCNS for the past 20 years!

subset: commoncrawl


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Libertarian/Constitutional Conservative who loves God, Family, Country, Freedom, Free Enterprise, Capitalism, and helping people self direct their investments.


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Caring, professional individual treatment I receive keeps my family and me coming back each year. I am a Type 2 diabetic and I am glad they have top notch technology tools.
August is National Eye Exam Month. Book Today!
Med West Eyecare is your one-stop-shop for prescription glasses, sunglasses, contacts and designer shades. We are located in Westerville, Ohio. Individuals, families, children and seniors are all welcome. When it comes to your eyesight, visit the office you can trust.


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Business Full service insurance agency specializing in health insurance, business insurance, small group insurance, long term care insurance, disability insurance, life insurance, legal insurance, insurance consulting (for an independent opinion), identity theft insurance and consulting, speaking on private versus universal health insurance and finding space and balance in one's life Find other people like this - View the top key words on Ecademy - Clubs like this Profile Robert Slayton, CDHC, CITRMS is an experienced professional who provides exceptional service in the areas of benefits (health, life, disability, long term care, key man life and disability), voluntary benefits (such as AFLAC, Colonial, Critical Care, Legal Protection, Identity Theft insurance, gap insurance, and limited benefit packages), and commercial and business insurance. We handle a full line of products for both the small and medium sized business along with products for individuals. Robert is one of AskLizRyan's experts when it comes to health insurance questions on her yahoo group. He has also spoken to the Illinois Employment Training Center on COBRA versus Individual/Family insurance and has spoken to the Management Association of Illinois. He has been featured in Yahoo!'s Hotjobs series, Investment News, been interviewed by a variety of trade magazines for his expertise and knowledge in health insurance and health legislation. He is the Vice President of the Illinois State Association of Health Underwriters, Legislative Chair of the DuPage Association of Health Underwriters, and an Elder at his local church. He has written a number of articles for local newspapers, is part of the President's Council of the Leading Producers' Roundtable for outstanding performance, and follows the four pillars of his organization, Understanding, Education, Honesty, and Service. His insurance agency operates in a variety of state


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Different Types of Coconut Oil
Coconut oils have many uses, but not all coconut oils are the same. Different types of coconut oil are better suited for ingredients in health & beauty products, foods, or even as biofuels.
Virgin coconut oil is the purest, most natural, least processed (chemically-changed) form that should look nearly as clear as water. Virgin Coconut oil is unrefined (has not been changed with heat processes. It is sometimes also known as fractionated coconut oil because the long-chain fatty acids in the heavier part of the oil are filtered away to leave behind the medium-chain fatty acids that are able to penetrate skin layers to be absorbed in the body but not stored.
The main types of coconut oil are outlined in the table below.
|Refined coconut oil
|Extracted from dried coconut meat, refined, bleached & deodorized (RBD) to make it tasteless, odorless & colorless
|Cooking, baking
|Unrefined virgin coconut oil
|Extracted from fresh coconut meat, no chemical processing leaving it colorless with a mild natural mild taste & odor
|Smoothies, syrups, dietary supplementBody and hair treatments, massage oil, lotion & soap ingredient
|Hydrogenated coconut oil
|Hydrogen gas added with high pressure to prolong shelf life. Converts good fatty acids to trans-fatty acids that contribute to heart disease.
|Food additive*Any type of hydrogenated oil in should be avoided.


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Kennett Brewfest 9/29/12
We will need to get tickets early as they sell out fast.
John usually heads this up, but i got an email today so I figured I will start the thread.
We can figure out the meeting places for guys coming from jersey and pa later.
I will be ordering my tix soon.
1. Joe


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Steve Jobs Lives on at the Patent Office
Years after his death, the former Apple CEO still wins patents.
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Interested in bringing MIT Technology Review to your local market?
Years after his death, the former Apple CEO still wins patents.
Startup Keyssa wants to replace cords and connectors with speedy wireless transfer technology.
Even though Google's head-worn computer is going nowhere, the technology is sure to march on.
A circuit that lets a radio send and receive data simultaneously over the same frequency could supercharge wireless data transfer.
Slack wants to be an open, searchable home for all your work communication.
Brokerage giant Fidelity gives a glimpse of how virtual reality might be used beyond gaming.
Experimental Google software that can describe a complex scene could lead to better image search or apps to help the visually impaired.
In Santander, Spain, thousands of sensors measure traffic, parking, lighting and irrigation.
Amsterdam wants its next data projects to be driven by citizens.
An online platform connects cities to a global network of suppliers and ideas.


text: Border Security Rife With Cost Overruns and Delays, Efforts Made to Correct Print article Send a Tip by Kristin Tate 28 Feb 2014 post a comment WASHINGTON, D.C.--Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC) recently wrote draft legislation called the DHS Acquisition Accountability and Efficiency Act, which would require the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to be more accountable financially and more transparent in the management of its acquisition program. Duncan is Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight and Management Efficiency. In September, the Congressman said, "As of late 2012, over a third of DHS programs sustained 'high' to 'significant' cost increases, all while DHS chose to move forward with a strategy to buy systems and services that are unaffordable." Following the hearing, Duncan released a statement that said, "Congressional watchdogs found 21 IT programs with cost or schedule problems, poor TSA management of its 'body scanners' and canine teams, mismanagement of a $3 billion effort to improve DHS' radio systems, and failure to convert DHS H-60 helicopters in a coordinated and cost-efficient manner." "It is difficult to determine the cost of the department's major acquisition programs because the department has not provided consistent, comparable updates on an annual basis," the new draft legislation says. "As of January 2014, the department identified over 80 major acquisition programs costing over $300,000,000, and, based on 2011, estimates it plans to spend about $170,000,000,000 in the future on major acquisition programs... Many programs continue to experience challenges with funding instability, workforce shortfalls, reliable cost estimates, realistic schedules, agreed-upon baseline objectives and consistent and reliable data needed to accurately measure program performance." Sylvia Longmire, Breitbart Texas' contributing editor and border security expert said, "The DHS has just not hired enough skilled contract managers over the years to ensure the US government is getting the best deal possible, and isn't being scammed by the prime contractor. It's upsetting that actual legislation needs to be proposed to keep a government agency from overspending our tax dollars, but at least someone is taking this initiative." The DHS' acquisition management has made the "High-Risk List," compiled by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), annually since 2005. This list identifies government agencies rife with waste, fraud, and abuse. According to the GAO, 42 out of the DHS' 77 acquisition programs continue to increase in cost or experience "schedule slips." "Efforts to secure the border are ripe with examples of cost overruns and delays; the most obvious of which is the Secure Border Initiative's virtual fence, which cost $1 billion and ended up being scrapped after five years," Longmire said. As Breitbart News reported last week, in 2006 the federal government spent $1 billion to build a virtual fence, which spanned 53 miles of the Arizona border -- each mile cost over $18.5 million to cover. The project was abandoned in 2011 because it "was plagued with delays, cost overruns, difficulty in dealing with prime contractor Boeing, and general financial mismanagement." Despite the failure, a plan to install 350 miles of virtual fencing along the Arizona-Mexico border was approved by an Arizona House panel on Monday. The endeavor would receive $30 million in funding but could also include an additional $260,000 in donations collected by the state. The plan will next be reviewed by the Senate Appropriations Committee. Follow Kristin Tate on Twitter @KristinBTate


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Australia's standards and conformance infrastructure
A number of bodies comprise Australia's standards and conformance infrastructure. These are: Standards Australia Limited; The National Association of Testing Authorities (NATA); The Joint Accreditation System of Australia and New Zealand (JAS-ANZ) and The National Measurement Institute.
Department of Industry
National Measurement Institute
Maintains Australia's units and standards of measurement and coordinates Australia's national measurement system.
National Measurement Institute
Standards Australia
A non-government standards organisation charged by the Australian Government to meet Australia's need for contemporary, internationally aligned standards and related services.
Standards Australia
Standards Australia publications
Select and buy Standards Australia publications, either for immediate download or have a hard copy posted to you. Australian Standards are published and distributed by SAI Global under licence from Standards Australia.
Standards Australia


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|06 Jan 2012
Spectrum 48k
Getting a WIN XP computer to talk to a WIN 7 homegroup?
Ok, I have a homegroup set up called "WORKGROUP". It consists of two win7 computers and one XP.
The two Win7 computers talk fine, but the WIN XP one will not even access the master win7 computer, which is called "win7big".
This is despite the face that I made sure the WinXP computer was part of "WORKGROUP". It doesn't even get to the username/password box popup. Just a red error (x) with cannot find... etc, when I type in \\win7big in explorer.
Any advice on how to get this XP to connect ?
|My System Specs
|06 Jan 2012
Homegroup will only connect Win7 systems to each other - from memory when I had one XP system and the others Win7 I had to use the "map network drive" command i.e. \\server\name then login with username and password to get it to connect to the Win7 systems.
Hope this is of help.
|My System Specs
|06 Jan 2012
W7 Ult desktop, W8.1 laptop, W7 Home netbook, W8.1 tablet, Win 10 TP VM
In the Windows world, networking consists of Domains, Workgroups and Win 7 Homegroups.
You need a Domain server and Win XP Pro or Win 7 Pro or above to access a Domain.
A Homegroup under Win 7 is only accessible by other Win 7 machines. You can't rename it, always called Homegroup.
A Workgroup is the most common form of home network. The fact that you say you named it "WORKGROUP" tells me you actually have a workgroup, not a Homegroup. Confused yet? Under XP, you could setup a Workgroup and name it whatever you wanted and MS often defaulted the name to "HOMEGROUP". A Workgroup named "HOMEGROUP" is a different beast than a Win 7 Homegroup.
As to sharing between Win XP machines and Win 7 machines in a Workgroup, it can be done. I find it best to have the same username/pw exist on all machines. You need to share any folders on each machine that you want the others to be able to access. You also need to enable network discovery on the Win 7 machines. Here's a link to a how-to article: Complete Guide to Networking Windows 7 with XP and Vista - How-To Geek
|My System Specs
|06 Jan 2012
Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 64-Bit
Check out this tutorial, which explains how to share files between Windows 7 and Windows XP.
File Sharing - Between XP and W7 (and vice versa)
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HERO3+ Camera Comparison
This article compares the features of the HERO3+ Black Edition, HERO3+ Silver Edition, and the HERO3: White Edition.
This article compares the features of the HERO3+ Black Edition, HERO3+ Silver Edition, and the HERO3: White Edition.
We are always stoked to hear from the GoPro community and we welcome your enthusiasm about us and what we are doing. If you have an idea or a suggestion for us, we encourage you to check out this page: Connect with GoPro.
Question Which broadcasting products have been proven to work with the HERO3+ Black Edition? Where does it apply? HERO3+ Black Edition Various HDMI Recorders Answer Here are the following devices we have seen will work with the HERO3+ cameras: Blackmagic Shuttle Thunderbolt Blackmagic Ultra Studio Mini Recorder Atomos Ninja 2 HDMI recorder Atomos Ninja Blade HDMI recorder
This article describes the process to reset the camera to it's defaults.
Question Do the HERO3+ cameras support timecode dropdown? Where does it apply? Monitors/recording devices that support timecode dropdown HERO3+ cameras Answer The HERO3+ cameras support true 24p output, and cannot support time code dropdown to 23.59, so monitors/devices that support 23.59 will not be compatible. However, 30fps and 60fps will support the timecode drop down of 29.97 and 59.94.
What's the issue? The camera does not power on Where does it apply? HERO3+ cameras How to fix it If your camera is not powering on, there could be a fault with the camera, battery, SD card, or there could be a loose connection somewhere. We have some tips for you to try that should clear up the issue for you. Remove any BacPac accessories, the battery, and SD card from the camera. Reinsert the battery only. Press the power button. If the camera powers on, your camera was frozen and... Read More »
Question? What is the difference between the Dive Housing and Standard Housing? Where does it apply? HERO3 HERO3+ Answer? The Standard Housing is the slim housing that comes with the HERO3+ and is waterproof down to 40m. The Dive Housing is Dive Housing is designed for deep sea diving and extreme activities. It is waterproof to 60m.
This article describes the process to reformat an SD card in a Mac computer.
This article describes how to reformat your SD card in Windows.
This article provides a list of some external mics that are supported.