A Tenor Playlist

Most commonly playing the romantic hero, it's no surprise that often the tenors have the best tunes in opera. Attached is a link to a playlist of some of the most popular tenor arias, sung by a variety of tenors:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5C5195F7B0919DA8

Wagner, the Bayreuth Festival and the beginnings of Regie Theatre

Wagner was a pioneer. His Ring cycle of four operas was 25 years in the making and demanded a whole new type of art form. But it also demanded a new opera theatre. The Ring opens with the Rhinemaidens swimming at the bottom of the river Rhine, moves to a mountain in the clouds, passes through forests with dwarves and dragons, and ends with the burning of Valhalla in the heavens while the earth is flooded with the waters of the Rhine. Staging this was not going to be easy....

And it still isn't easy. A staging of The Ring remains the biggest challenge for any opera company and one of the biggest challenges in the theatre. Wagner decided that the only way to stage his work satisfactorily was to build a new theatre. He settled in the town of Bayreuth in northern Bavaria, and with the financial support of King Ludwig, a huge (and impressionable) Wagner fan, built his theatre. And so, the Bayreuth Festival, which is run every summer by a member of the Wagner family and which only performs the operas of Richard Wagner, was born.

The Rhinemaidens at the Bayreuth premier, 1876