Dueling opera genres
Metropolitan Opera (Lincoln Center), auditorium seen from Family Circle By Photo: Andreas Praefcke - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2243016
The opera overture has long acted as a kind of musical window displays to the delights that await opera goers, although composers have been known to rerun overtures written for entirely different operas. Intermezzo have served as meditatative reliefs to the sometimes lethal goings-on on stage, and sometimes an intermezzo is the only part of an opera that is remembered.
On this week's Classics of the Phonograph, Saturday at 11 am on WILL-FM, we will hear some memorable examples of both genres.