Opera in the 20th century

1955, a busy year in the world of music. As Leonard Bernstein composes On the Waterfront Symphonic Suite for orchestra and the first performance of Dance Preludes of Witold Lutoslawski (clarinet/piano) took place. As well as the first performance of Gerald Finzi’s Cello concerto opus 40 (July 19th), the Theme with Seven Variations and Coda by Uuno Klami, Benjamin Brittens’ Hymn to St Peter, Stanley Bates’ Symphony no. 4 – the latter on November 20th. In the world of opera the volume started to rise again. A number of beautiful productions, some better known than others. If there are recordings, we will broadcast them.

In this episode are excerpts from:

• Nino Rota – Il cappello di paglia di Firenze
• Werner Egk – Irische Legende
• Michael Tippett – The Midsummer Marriage

More 1955 opera and operatta productions are:

• Carlisle Floyd – Suannah
• Mykola Lysenko – Taras Bulba
• Lydia Auster – Tiina (ballet) (Тійна)
• Lu Zongxian – Caoyuan zhi ge 草原之歌
• Germaine Tailleferre- Du style galant au style méchant
• Lukas Foss- Griffelkin
• Marc Blitzstein- Reuben, Reuben
• Zagir Ismagilov- Salawat Yulayev
• Frank Martin-Der Sturm
• Hans Werner Henze- König Hirsch
• Ikuma Dan- Kikimimizukin (The Listening Cap)
• Louis Gruenberg- The Delicate King
• Louis Gruenberg- Antony and Cleopatra
• Jakov Gotovac- Đerdan
• Norman Dello Joio- The Ruby
• Germaine Tailleferre- Le bel ambitieux
• Germaine Tailleferre- La fille d’opéra
• Germaine Tailleferre- Monsieur Petitpois achete un château
• Germaine Tailleferre- La pauvre Eugénie
• Dmitry Kabalevsky- Nikita Vershinin
• Robert Ward- He Who Gets Slapped