Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” is the most famous love story in the Western canon. It’s a tale so embedded in our culture — one that has seen so many iterations and retellings — it might feel hard to appreciate its original pathos, and the way it perfectly distills the intersections of young romance, idealism, and rebellion. In this episode, host Rhiannon Giddens and guests take a fresh look at this classic by focusing on the character of Juliet and her pivotal decision to take the friar’s dra...
Jan 17, 2024•54 min•Season 4Ep. 8
Carmen is maybe the most famous heroine in all of opera. She’s a woman of Romani descent living in 19th century Spain, sensual and self-confident, aware of the power she wields over men — and she enjoys it. In her signature aria, popularly known as the “Habanera,” she describes herself as a bird who can’t be captured. True to her own word, Carmen — and what she represents — is hard to pin down. When “Carmen” premiered in Paris in 1875, it was deemed wildly immoral. Carmen becomes intrigued by a ...
Jan 03, 2024•54 min•Season 4Ep. 7
When the Voyager spacecraft set off to explore the galaxy in 1977, it carried a recording to represent the best of humanity. The “Golden Record” featured everyone from Bach to Chuck Berry, but there was only one opera aria: the rage-fest and coloratura masterpiece from Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.” As Kathryn Lewek reprises her role as Queen of the Night in this season’s holiday presentation of “The Magic Flute” at The Metropolitan Opera, we’re revisiting this episode. Host Rhiannon Giddens and he...
Dec 13, 2023•27 min•Season 4Ep. 6
It’s the early 1900s, and the steamship El Dorado makes its way along the Amazon River towards Manaus, a city in the heart of the Brazilian rainforest. Onboard is the world-famous opera singer Florencia Grimaldi. She’s got a gig at the opera house in Manaus, but that’s just a cover. She’s actually hoping for a reunion with her long-lost love, the butterfly catcher Cristóbal. But on the journey, Florencia learns that Cristóbal went missing in the rainforest while in pursuit of a rare butterfly. F...
Nov 29, 2023•53 min•Season 4Ep. 5
Malcolm X led many lives within his 39 years: as a bereaved but precocious child; as an imprisoned convict; as a firebrand spokesperson for the Nation of Islam and Black nationalism; and ultimately as one of the most pivotal figures of the Civil Rights movement. Today, he continues to inspire passion and controversy, his legacy as nuanced as the man himself. Anthony Davis’s opera “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X” seeks to gather Malcolm X’s many identities and hold them together in the way on...
Nov 15, 2023•46 min•Season 4Ep. 4
If a loved one were to die, how far would you be willing to go to bring them back? Orpheus, the ancient Greek musician, goes to hell and back to have the love of his life, Eurydice, by his side again. The gods cut a deal with Orpheus: he can bring his love back from hell, but all throughout the journey, she has to follow behind him and he is not allowed to look back at her. Unable to resist, he turns to see her, and the gods take her for a second time. In a moment of overwhelming grief, Orpheus ...
Nov 01, 2023•33 min•Season 4Ep. 3
“L’Elisir d’Amore” — “The Elixir of Love” — is what’s known as an opera buffa , or comic opera. That means that we’re in for a happy ending. But Donizetti knows that the payoff is only earned through the suffering of his protagonists. In one pivotal moment, our hero Nemorino glimpses his beloved shedding a single tear — and he concludes (crazily, but correctly) that it can only mean that she loves him back. The aria Nemorino delivers here — one of the most famous in the history of opera — expres...
Oct 18, 2023•42 min•Season 4Ep. 2
What does redemption mean to a man sentenced to death? Is capital punishment justice or vengeance? Could anyone ever forgive a murderer? These are just some of the questions behind the true story of the nun who became a spiritual adviser to men on death row at the Louisiana State Penitentiary. Dead Man Walking was first a 1993 memoir by the Catholic nun and fervent death penalty abolitionist Sister Helen Prejean; later, it was adapted into an Oscar-winning movie. Sister Helen’s story inspired a ...
Oct 04, 2023•45 min•Season 4Ep. 1
At last! After much anticipation, Aria Code returns! We’re guiding listeners through highlights from the Metropolitan Opera’s 2023-2024 season, pairing beloved classics with investigations into modern masterpieces. So get ready for a night at the opera — from the comfort of your own home. (Or wherever!) Arias from the likes of Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking and Anthony Davis’s X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X will tackle some of the most complex social and ethical questions head-on, while clas...
Sep 28, 2023•2 min
Saying “I love you” for the first time takes courage, especially when you don’t know the response you'll get. But being open with your emotions and putting yourself out there can change you in unexpected ways. In Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin , it’s the 16-year-old Tatyana who pins her heart on her sleeve. Young and naive, but also fiercely confident, she pours out her feelings for the visiting Eugene Onegin in one night of impassioned love-letter-making. His answer defines the rest o...
Dec 01, 2021•51 min•Season 1Ep. 40
“To be or not to be, that is the question.” It’s hard to think of a more famous line from a more famous play. In this iconic speech from Shakespeare’s Hamlet , the troubled Danish prince asks whether this whole life thing is even worth it. But “to be or not to be'' is not the only question we’re asking this week. When everyone knows this line so well, how do you make it fresh again? How does adapting Shakespeare’s play into an opera change our understanding of the text? In this episode, host Rhi...
Nov 17, 2021•42 min•Season 3Ep. 17
When we talk about “falling in love,” we talk about it like it is something that just happens . Suddenly the ground opens up and we are falling for somebody, as if there is no choice in the matter. This is everywhere -- in movies, TV shows, novels, and of course, in opera. Take Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde - while Tristan is bringing her across the Irish sea to marry his uncle Marke, King of Cornwall, they both drink a love potion and fall instantly, madly in love with each other. But Isolde is s...
Nov 03, 2021•40 min•Season 3Ep. 16
This week we’re decoding with the man who wrote the code - Terence Blanchard, composer of Fire Shut Up in My Bones . Not only is it the work that reopened the Met after its 18-month pandemic shutdown, but it’s also the first opera by a Black composer ever to be performed there. Based on the 2014 memoir of the same name by New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow, Fire Shut Up in My Bones is a coming-of-age story about his childhood in a tiny town in northwest Louisiana. From a young age, Charles...
Oct 13, 2021•43 min•Season 3Ep. 15
Psalm 137 depicts the ancient Hebrews, enslaved and weeping “by the rivers of Babylon,” as they remember their homeland, Jerusalem. Those words have inspired songwriters of reggae, Broadway, disco, folk and more, but one of the most memorable versions is featured in Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Nabucco . The opera retells the story of the Babylonian captivity when Nebuchadnezzar (or Nabucco, in Italian) seizes Jerusalem, destroys the temple, and enslaves the Israelites in his kingdom. At the heart of ...
Sep 29, 2021•44 min•Season 3Ep. 14
The young Composer in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos is one of opera’s great trouser roles -- a female singer playing the part of a young man. He is set to premiere his new opera at the home of the richest man in Vienna, only to learn moments before the performance that a bawdy comedy troupe will be performing at the same time. As his plans collapse around him, the Composer falls in love with Zerbinetta, the leader of the commedia dell'arte troupe, and his whole world changes in a flash. In his ari...
Sep 15, 2021•33 min•Season 3Ep. 13
People who go to see Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor spend the entire evening waiting for the famous Mad Scene, to hear the soprano’s incredible acrobatics, and to feel her intense emotional changes over the course of the lengthy showstopper. But the Mad Scene is more than a vocal showpiece: it’s a window into what it means to lose touch with reality and the ways women’s real-life challenges can go ignored or, even worse, pathologized as illness. In the opera , Lucia has no control of he...
Aug 25, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Season 3Ep. 12
Perhaps no opera better reflects the questions and contradictions at the heart of Russian history than Modest Mussorgsky’s historical epic Boris Godunov . Based on the play by Alexander Pushkin (considered by many to be one of Russia’s greatest writers), it’s a meditation on power and legitimacy, and a portrayal of a pivotal period in Russian history -- The Time of Troubles. When Tsar Ivan the Terrible dies without an heir, Boris Godunov is elected tsar, casting doubt on his legitimacy. He rules...
Aug 11, 2021•34 min•Season 3Ep. 11
One of opera’s great heroines is based on one of history’s extraordinary women. The 19th century French courtesan Marie Duplessis was elegant, successful, famous, and gone before her time, dying of tuberculosis at the age of 23. One of her lovers, Alexandre Dumas fils , was so inspired by her that he wrote a novel and a play about her life called The Lady of the Camellias , which in turn inspired Giuseppe Verdi to compose La Traviata . Verdi immortalized Marie Duplessis in the character of Viole...
Jul 21, 2021•38 min•Season 3Ep. 10
What makes us human? As artificial intelligence becomes more advanced, technology is becoming even more integrated into the fabric of daily life, and better able to simulate real human interactions. But what really separates humans from machines is our ability to love, to dream, and to believe in an illusion. In Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann, the poet Hoffmann thinks he’s finally found love, and he’s so head-over-heels that he doesn’t realize something’s off -- Olympia, the woman of his drea...
Jul 07, 2021•40 min•Season 3Ep. 9
Note: This episode includes descriptions of childhood sexual assault. The drive for revenge can be all-consuming, especially when you or someone you love has been wronged. Outcast and distraught, the title character in Richard Strauss’s Elektra is obsessed with avenging the murder of her father. And because the story is based on a Greek myth, and Greek myths are full of dysfunctional families, this means that Elektra is hellbent on killing her own mother. We get our first taste of the darkness i...
Jun 23, 2021•44 min•Season 3Ep. 8
It’s not easy to talk about death. We associate dying with so much suffering and loss. But for many people, the end of life is full of peaceful remembrance of the moments and relationships that have meant the most. For the leading man in Puccini’s Tosca, that’s the sweetness and beauty of his beloved. Caught up in the messy politics of his time, Mario Cavaradossi has been arrested, interrogated, and tortured. And then, he’s sentenced to death. “E lucevan le stelle” finds Cavaradossi in his priso...
Jun 09, 2021•28 min•Season 3Ep. 7
In order to be a Roman Emperor, you had to be entirely cold-blooded. It was a violent world of infighting, ruthless slander, and take-no-prisoners politics -- a world where rulers would kill a million people and enslave a million more just to flex their power. This was the Game of Thrones setting that George Frideric Handel chose for Agrippina . The opera's name comes from Empress Agrippina the Younger, a woman of ambition and influence, and this episode focuses on someone who inadvertently stan...
May 19, 2021•38 min•Season 3Ep. 6
Almost three hundred years ago, the English artist William Hogarth created a series of paintings called A Rake’s Progress , which tell the tragic story of a man whose life spirals out of control after inheriting an unexpected fortune. He leaves behind a fiancée, and it is her story of devotion that reverberates through Igor Stravinsky’s opera The Rake’s Progress and the aria “No Word from Tom.” In this episode, you’ll visit with Hogarth’s paintings, hear how Stravinsky captured the undying loyal...
May 05, 2021•46 min•Season 3Ep. 5
Maybe you’ve heard this one before: a powerful man abuses his privilege and wealth to exploit the women in his life. When confronted with the fact that they’re not his playthings, he throws a fit and blames everyone but himself. Sound like your daily news alert? It’s Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro , but somehow the world of feudal Spain in the 1700s is still distressingly familiar today. The aria “Hai già vinta la causa” traces the emotions of the aristocratic and imperious Count Almaviva when ...
Apr 21, 2021•37 min•Season 3Ep. 4
Chances are, you know the overture to The Barber of Seville (maybe from Bugs Bunny?!) but Gioachino Rossini’s most famous opera is more than a comedic romp. Embedded in the topsy-turvy tale of young love and silly disguises, there is a story of forced marriage and a woman’s determination to live a life of her choosing. We meet the heroine Rosina for the first time in the aria “Una voce poco fa,” in which she declares that while she may seem sweet and innocent, she is really not someone to be mes...
Apr 07, 2021•41 min•Season 3Ep. 3
They say you can’t go home again, and Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida knows it all too well. Captured from her homeland of Ethiopia and enslaved in Egypt, she falls in love with an Egyptian warrior. Aida is torn between her love for this man and her love for her home and, because it’s opera, she ultimately chooses the tenor. In “O Patria Mia,” Aida stands on the banks of the Nile and says goodbye to Ethiopia. In this episode, host Rhiannon Giddens and her guests explore what home means, and what it means ...
Mar 24, 2021•42 min•Season 3Ep. 2
Sometimes, the only thing that gets us through the darkest moments is knowing that the sun will rise again on a new day. Puccini's final opera, Turandot , is about courage in the face of adversity, and love triumphing over fear. In other words, it is exactly what the world needs right now. The aria “Nessun dorma” is Prince Calaf’s declaration of love and resounding victory cry. In this episode, host Rhiannon Giddens and three guests explore what makes this aria so popular even beyond the opera h...
Mar 10, 2021•33 min•Season 3Ep. 1
The third season of the critically-acclaimed podcast is more expansive than the previous two, with a total of 18 new episodes released bi-weekly, starting March 10, 2021. Just like a full season at the opera house, the podcast season will cover a staggering range of music, artists, and voices -- from early works by Handel all the way to the contemporary work of American composer and jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard. We'll cover fan favorites by Verdi and Puccini, as well as lesser-known gems by ...
Mar 03, 2021•1 min
Gioachino Rossini’s operatic version of the Cinderella story may not have any enchanted mice or pumpkins, but there’s plenty of magic in the music. Cinderella (or La Cenerentola, in Italian) has silently suffered the abuse of her stepfather and stepsisters, but in true fairy tale fashion, her fate changes for the better and all is made right by the triumph of goodness over evil. In the opera’s joyous finale “Nacqui all’affanno… Non più mesta,” Cenerentola looks ahead to a future with no more sad...
Feb 05, 2020•42 min•Season 2Ep. 10
Love is intoxicating, but dating can be hard. In Jacques Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann , a love-obsessed poet tells fantastical stories of romance gone very, very wrong. Based on the works of 19th-century Gothic horror writer E.T.A. Hoffmann, the opera is a journey through desire and loss – a journey that just might make you feel better about your own dating disasters! In the aria “Ô Dieu! de quelle ivresse,” the poet-protagonist Hoffmann professes his passionate love to the courtesan Giulie...
Jan 29, 2020•34 min•Season 2Ep. 9
