Opera Lecture Series – Operas of National Identity

Explore the fascinating world of opera with popular opera lecturer Murray Dahm.

Since 2003, Opera Bites Co-Founder Murray Dahm has delivered accessible, friendly and informative lectures, drawing on its history, culture and music.

Join him as he explores a variety of areas of operatic history from composers and voice types through to genres and quirky bits of opera history, utilising his extensive (and ever-growing!) CD and DVD collection.

Operas of National Identity: The 19th century saw many nations emerge out of the empires they had been a part of or merge from disparate elements into the nations we recognise today. There was also a growth in national and political identity (many civil rights codes and constitutions date from the 19th century). In many instances these new nations and ideas were formed along language lines and operas in those languages played an important part in distilling and reinforcing the feelings of national identity and destiny.

Several of these operas remain popular (such as Verdi’s Nabucco with its chorus of Hebrew Slaves), others (such as Auber’s La muette de Portici) have fallen into obscurity. Join us to explore this intriguing aspect of operas history—many of your favourite operas had a part to play in forging the modern world. The course will make extensive use of recordings and DVDs.