Operas Every Child Should Know Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces

Deep down in the jagged bed of the river Rhein there lay hidden a great treasure of gold, which for ages had belonged to the Rhein-daughters--three mermaids who guarded it.

One lovely morning, in a Hungarian meadow, a scholar went to walk before he should begin his day's task of study and of teaching. He was an old man, who had thought of little in...

Four hundred years ago in Nuremberg there was a great rivalry among the townsmen, as to who was the best singer. Indeed, in the history of this great yearly competition, some ha...

Twelve years after that day of the hunt in Count Arnheim's forests, the gipsies were encamped in Presburg. In those strange times gipsies roved about in the cities as well as in...

Dukes and duchesses, pages and courtiers, dancing and laughter: these things all happening to music and glowing lights, in the city of Mantua four hundred years ago!--that is "R...

One fine Easter morning, in a small Italian village, a fop, named Turiddu, came along the little street singing of Lola, an old sweetheart, who, since Turiddu went to serve his...

Once upon a time an adventurous Egyptian youth found himself near to the Temple of Isis. He had wandered far, had clothed himself in another habit than that worn by his people,...

"The Princess was torn from the Queen of the Night, great priests, because that Queen would overthrow our temple, and here Pamina is to remain till purified; if you will accept...

In the great palace of King Henry I, at Antwerp, there were two parts, called the Palas, and the Kemenate. The former was where the knights lived, and the latter was the home of...

One morning during fair time in Richmond the Lady Harriet, maid of honour to her Majesty Queen Anne, was sitting in her boudoir at her toilet table. She and all her maids and wo...

It is about half-past ten, and everything ready for the elopement. The Captain is on deck playing a mandolin while holding a most beautiful pose (because Little Buttercup is als...

The morning of the song festival dawned clear and fine. Early in the morning, Hans Sachs seated himself in his shop, beside his sunny window, his work on the bench before him, b...

On a meadow on the banks on the river Scheldt, King Henry and his Saxon nobles were one day assembled in their hall of justice, which in those times was beneath a broad-spreadin...

There was no joy in the court, and Amneris sat in the vast hall of the palace between Radames's prison, on the one hand, and the hall of justice on the other, where the trial of...

On the quarterdeck of the good ship _Pinafore_, along about noon, on a brilliant sunny day, the sailors, in charge of the Boatswain, are polishing up the brasswork of the ship,...

Rigoletto and Gilda had fled from the palace, for the dwarf meant to hide his daughter away forever; and in the darkness they were hurrying on their way to an old inn, which cou...

Night of the same day came on, and David and other apprentices were putting up the shutters of their masters' houses, before it became too late. Hans Sachs's house--which was al...

After leaving the Hall of Justice, Arline returned with her father to the home of her childhood, for her dream had come true: she "dwelt in marble halls, with vassals and serfs...

"Alas!" he cried, muttering to himself, as he worked at his task; "Alas! Here I am, day after day, trying to forge a sword which Siegfried cannot break. I, who have made swords...

Many years ago, when noblemen, warriors, gipsies, lovers, enemies and all sorts and conditions of men fraternized without drawing very fine distinctions except when it came to l...

In a dungeon underneath the palace, John found his mother. He went to the place where he had privately ordered the Anabaptists to have her taken, the moment he could leave the c...

Once upon a time there was a pretty girl named Michaela, and she was as good as she was beautiful. She loved a corporal in the Spanish army whose name was Don Jose. Now the corp...

When Sieglinde and Siegmund had fled and while they were wandering, waiting for the battle which was certain to occur between Siegmund and Hunding, Wotan was preparing to send o...

Down in the very bowels of the earth, as it seemed to Leonora, was Florestan's dungeon. There he sat, manacled, despairing, with no ray of light to cheer him, and his thoughts o...

"Now, damsels, get to bed," Plunkett said to Martha and Nancy as he opened the door of the farmhouse upon their arrival. "Get to bed, because ye must get up at dawn." The two gi...

Far off in the forest lived a huntsman and his wife. The huntsman was rough and brutal, but his wife, Sieglinde, was a young and tender creature who lived far away from pleasure...

After the ceremony and the festivities that had followed the marriage, came the peace and quiet of night. The door of the bridal chamber opened, and pages went in bearing lights...

The night had passed, the angels had disappeared again in the mist which still hung over the forest at the back, and now as dawn broke, the dew-fairy came out of the mist as the...

As Siegfried and the Mime reached the part of the forest where the Dragon kept guard, it seemed to be black, black night and a storm was brewing. The scene was very frightful, i...

While Siegfried was on his way to search for the glory suited to such a hero, a banquet was being held in the hall of the Gibichungs, a race of mortals living on the banks of th...

Marcelline, the jailer's daughter, had been tormented to death for months by the love-making of her father's porter, Jaquino. In short, he had stopped her on her way to church,...

Three days had passed since the Rhein-daughters had lost their golden treasure, and on the fourth they were swimming near the surface of the river, popping their heads up and ca...

At the little inn belonging to Faith, John had been waiting all day for her return with Bertha, and trying his best to look after those who came and went. Outside, people were w...

Once upon a time, in a far-off forest of Germany, there lived two little children, Haensel and Gretel, with their father and mother. The father and mother made brooms for a livi...

Back at the home of the Gibichungs sat Hagen, awaiting the return of Gunther and Siegfried. Altars to Fricka, Donner, and Wotan were raised upon the Rhein, ready for sacrifices...

Flying to Lillas Pastia's inn, as she had agreed with Jose, Carmen is joined by her old comrades--smugglers and gipsy girls, chief of whom are Mercedes and Frasquita. It is late...

All Egypt was troubled with wars and rumours of wars, and in Memphis the court of the King was anxiously awaiting the decision of the Goddess Isis, as to who should lead the Egy...

This opera of shadows and darkness began again in a ghostly ruin in the mountains of Biscay. A forge fire blazed through a yawning doorway of tumbled-down stones. It was not yet...

At the close of day, at the foot of an ice-covered mountain, forests on every side, the Anabaptists were encamped in Westphalia. John of Leyden had gone to that part of Germany...

There you are, prepared for almost anything in the way of battle, murder, or sudden death, to the accompaniment of beautiful music; opera in true Italian style, at its second best.

While Siegfried was on his way, led by the little bird, the Wanderer was seeking Erda, who had given to him Bruennhilde and his eight other warrior daughters. Erda was Wisdom, a...

The return of the Egyptian troops was hourly expected; all Thebes was preparing to receive them with honours and rejoicing; and great fetes were arranged for their amusement. Am...

Before the city hall of the city of Muenster, many citizens were collected, and many were continually arriving, bearing rich bronzes, and chests of treasure, which they were hop...

The eve before her marriage it was proper for Amneris to go to the Temple of Isis to pray. She went accompanied by Ramphis, the High Priest, who promised to remain near till mor...

Disgraced, there is nothing left for Jose but to go away to the smugglers' retreat in the mountains. There, in a cave looking out to sea, well located above the valley for smugg...

One beautiful day about four hundred years ago the sun rose upon a castle on the Meuse, where lived the Count Oberthal, known in Holland as Lord of the Manor. It was a fine sigh...

Back in gay Seville, not near to its cigarette factory and the guard-house, but at the scene of the great bull-fight, where Escamillo is to strut and show what a famous fellow h...

In Sherwood forest, the merriest of lives, Is our outlaw's life so free! We roam and rove in Sherwood's grove, Beneath the greenwood tree. Through all the glades and sylvan shad...

Away on a far mountain, the Valkyries were waiting for Bruennhilde's coming. They were her sisters: Gerhilde, Ortlinde, Waltraute and Schwertleite, seated upon a high place, dre...

Back at Aliaferia, Manrico was held prisoner. All was gloom and darkness again, with the prison tower where Manrico was confined looming near, its bars seeming very sinister, th...

Plunkett's men had hunted far and wide for the runaways, but without success. The farmer was still sore over his defeat: he felt himself not only defrauded, but he had grown to...

After wandering all the afternoon in the great forest, and filling their basket with strawberries, Haensel and Gretel came to a beautiful mossy tree-trunk where they concluded t...

Among the outlaws, the strongest and also the cleverest, perhaps, was Will Scarlet. He had not been captured with the others of the band, and so he had come into Nottingham, whe...

Now if the Duke of Mantua was ever angry in his life, he was angry when the curtain rose on the second act. There he was, pacing about a sumptuous apartment, fuming with rage.

After the row had quieted down and Nancy and Harriet got time to think matters over, Harriet reached the conclusion that she could not endure Lionel's misfortune. Hence she had...

Oh, cheerily soundeth the hunter's horn, Its clarion blast so fine; Through depths of old Sherwood so clearly borne, We hear it at eve and at break of morn, Of Robin Hood's band...

At last this tragedy began to see daylight, inasmuch as the third act began in broad day with the banner of the Count floating from his tent, pitched before the ramparts of Cast...