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Operas & Fairy Tales/Literature

Adults

Enjoy this program by the Cleveland Opera Theater and learn about the inspiration for these larger-than-life works of performance art.

See other dates and locations for this program on our events calendar.

Whether listeners are craving glamour, magic and happy endings or rich characters caught in the grip of high tragedy, opera is just the right genre to fit the bill. But composers and librettists usually do not invent their own stories; from the earliest operas to the modern day, most stories are taken directly from existing myths, epics, fairy tales and literature.

Here Cleveland Opera Theater takes the opportunity to examine why opera composers are drawn to the supernatural and the larger-than-life and how they have incorporated, adapted and retold these stories through music. Beginning with the inception of opera in the early Baroque period, we examine the changing fashions of literary sources, the archetypes and tropes present in myriad operas, and the adjustments composers and librettists must make to tell these stories in a plausible way on stage.

We address the history and process of creating canonical masterworks by Rossini, Puccini and Wagner as well as the modern approaches of contemporary composers like Nico Muhly, Thomas Adès and Kaija Saariaho.