# Operatic geography. Are there any operas set in your town?



## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

Recently I was in Latvia and the elderly opera fan next to me mentioned that Ponchielli wrote an opera called I Lituani (The Lithuanians).

I'm _tickled_ that Donizetti wrote an opera called Emilia di Liverpool. (Subtle joke for UK fans there!)

And of course the otherwise neglected county of Cornwall turns up in none other than Tristan Und Isolde!

Any other unlikely locations featured in operas?


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

I passed by Sandviken earlier this year unfortunately it was the wrong Sandviken.


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

Yes- Der Tring des Nibelungen.


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## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

Figleaf said:


> Yes- Der Tring des Nibelungen.


I'm almost regretting starting this thread now.


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

Stewart Wallace has written two operas set in San Francisco. _Harvey Milk_ (1995) was based on the life and murder of the politician. _The Bonesetter's Daughter_ (2008) was based on the novel by Amy Tan (she also wrote the libretto) and takes place in San Francisco, China, and Hong Kong.

More known operas set somewhat near me include Floyd's _Of Mice and Men_ in Soledad, and Puccini's _La fanciulla del West_ in the Sierra Nevadas. Those locations are each about 130 miles away, to the southeast and northeast, respectively.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

Alexandria, Virginia? I doubt it. Washington, DC? Well, maybe part of NIXON IN CHINA is set there -- I don't know.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

I don't know of anything set in the San Diego area ... however Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears were staying in Escondido, a town just north of here when they started work on _Peter Grimes_ ... does that count? 

One of the more ridiculous settings is act 4 of Puccini's _Manon Lescaut_, set in a desert outside the New Orleans territory ... I suppose if you go far enough you will find one


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I live not too far from Eugene, Oregon.

Apologies to Pushkin.


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## DonAlfonso (Oct 4, 2014)

Not only is _The Eighth Wonder_ by Alan John set in my town (Sydney) but it's about the opera house in my town.


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

Legnano in Italy for Verdi's _La battaglia di Legnano_










Loch Katrine (Scotland) for Rossini's _La donna del lago_.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Janáček's The Excursions of Mr. Brouček - most of part one is set on the moon.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

Don Fatale said:


> And of course the otherwise neglected county of *Cornwall *turns up in none other than Tristan Und Isolde!
> 
> Any other unlikely locations featured in operas?


_The Wreckers_ by Ethyl Smyth is also set in Cornwall

I bet an extensive range of locations have been employed by libretists, its just that some operas may be more obscure than others


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> I live not too far from Eugene, Oregon.
> 
> Apologies to Pushkin.[/B]


Pushkin should be so lucky, 'Dean of Spades.'


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

Bellinilover said:


> Alexandria, Virginia? I doubt it. Washington, DC? Well, maybe part of NIXON IN CHINA is set there -- I don't know.


_Nixon in China_ is set entirely in China.

Operas set in DC include:
Scalia/Ginsburg by Derrick Wang.
The First Lady, by Kenneth Wells, about Eleanor Roosevelt and her daughter Anna at the time of the death of FDR.

I don't think any of _Appomattox_ by Philip Glass happens in DC, but it is a Virginia-based opera.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Well, the action of some very well known operas is taking place in Madrid. Think of Verdi's "Don Carlo", for instance.

But let me mention here a zarzuela, a very popular one: _Luisa Fernanda_, that was premiered in Madrid itself, at Teatro Calderón, back in 1932. We can watch it complete in youtube:


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

I come from a small village named after one of Napoleon's battles so there's sort of a Prokofiev connection there.

N.


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## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

I'm guessing Rome and Paris would have the most, but I livein London.

My brian(sic) is working as well as it ever did with an examination paper in front of me so far I can nly come up with 

The Beggars Opera and of course The Threepenny Opera
Sweeney Todd

I'm sure there must be lots of historical pieces but I'm blowed if I can think of them. Donizetti set Elizabetta in Kenilworth! Lucia in the hills south of Edinburgh! 
Maria Stuarda?

help please


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Belowpar said:


> I'm guessing Rome and Paris would have the most, but I livein London.
> 
> My brian(sic) is working as well as it ever did with an examination paper in front of me so far I can nly come up with
> 
> ...


Anna Bolena is set in London.


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

_The End of the Affair_ by Jake Heggie and based on the Graham Greene novel takes place in London.
Virgil Thomson's _Lord Byron_ is also set in London.
Much of _The Rake's Progress_ by Igor Stravinsky takes place in London.
_Gloriana_ by Benjamin Britten takes place in London and other parts of southern England.


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

I don't live in Leadville or Central City Colorado, but the opera "The Ballad of Baby Doe" is set there, and the opera house referenced in it is the very same opera house in which the opera was premiered. I can't say I'm wildly enthusiastic about the opera, but I do like this little bit of trivia about it.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

QuietGuy said:


> I don't live in Leadville or Central City Colorado, but the opera "The Ballad of Baby Doe" is set there, and the opera house referenced in it is the very same opera house in which the opera was premiered. I can't say I'm wildly enthusiastic about the opera, but I do like this little bit of trivia about it.


*And I love it . *


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Headphone Hermit said:


> _The Wreckers_ by Ethyl Smyth is also set in Cornwall
> 
> I bet an extensive range of locations have been employed by libretists, its just that some operas may be more obscure than others


Richard Rodney Bennett's The Mines of Sulphur is also set in the West Country but doesn't specify where - one character is called Boconnion which does sound a bit Cornish, maybe.


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## Jorge Hereth (Aug 16, 2015)

Antônio Carlos Gomes (1836-1896) made a geographic mix-up of his operas.

His first two operas, _A Noite do Castelo_ and _Joana de Flandres_, composed in Brazil with their libretti in Portuguese and premiered in Rio de Janeiro, he had them both somewhere between Northern France and Belgiumat the times of the Cruzades.

His next six operas he composed in Italy and with their libretti in Italian, and locates them:
_Il Guarany_: 16th Century Brazil (somewhere in the area where today the state of Rio de Janeiro is)
_Fosca_: 10th Century Italy (Venezia and Trieste)
_Maria Tudor_: 16th Century England (London)
_Salvatore Rosa_: 17th Century Italy (Napoli)
_Lo Schiavo_: 16th Century Brazil (at the coast of where today Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo states are)
_Condor_: middle ages Uzbekistan (Samarkand)

His last one, _Colombo_, wouldn't make it to an opera anymore - despite the music and the libretto (in Portuguese) got ready in 1892 - until Heitor Villa-Lobos made out the opera of it in 1936, and set in Spain and the Caribbean, right where Carlos Gomes had planned it to be set.


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## Steatopygous (Jul 5, 2015)

Just last month I went to the first opera set in Melbourne, Stella, by G.W. Marshall Hall who founded the Melbourne Conservatorium. Composed in 1909, it was produced in 1912, then not until now. It is an early version of Peyton Place or the like, where a nurse kills herself despite being on the verge of love because her troubled past is about to be exposed.
Marshall Hall himself was an interesting character who wrote lewd poetry - no problem there - but also published it - ah, the problem arises. The principals of Melbourne's private girls' schools banded together to have him dismissed.

(The alert reader will deduce that I live in Melbourne.)


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

Steatopygous said:


> Just last month I went to the first opera set in Melbourne, Stella, by G.W. Marshall Hall who founded the Melbourne Conservatorium. Composed in 1909, it was produced in 1912, then not until now. It is an early version of Peyton Place or the like, where a nurse kills herself despite being on the verge of love because her troubled past is about to be exposed.
> Marshall Hall himself was an interesting character who wrote lewd poetry - no problem there - but also published it - ah, the problem arises. The principals of Melbourne's private girls' schools banded together to have him dismissed.
> 
> (The alert reader will deduce that I live in Melbourne.)


Both the opera and the history of the composer sound fascinating.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Sloe said:


> Anna Bolena is set in London.


and at least part of Maria Stuarda and Roberto Deveraux.

N.


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## Steatopygous (Jul 5, 2015)

sospiro said:


> Both the opera and the history of the composer sound fascinating.


It's actually quite good: echoes of Puccini and Gounod. As the conductor said, Marshall Hall would have been a fine film composer because he can create mood with just a few notes.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Menotti's _The Saint of Bleecker Street_ was set on Mulberry Street in New York's Little Italy section.


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## Braddan (Aug 23, 2015)

I can't quite see the Lammermuirs from my home but regularly pass close by on my way to visit family in the Borders. Recently visited Sir Walter Scott's home Abbotsford. Also not far from Macbeth country which lies between myself and fellow forumite Don Fatale.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

In a round about way. "Sleepless in Seattle" was certainly inspired by " None Shall Sleep" or Nessun Dorma from Turadot


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