Baroque & Classical Treasures

15 selections · Stage Door Society Editorial

Before there was opera as we know it, there was Monteverdi's L'Orfeo — the moment when music and drama became inseparable. This collection traces the art form's first two centuries, from the ornate splendor of Handel's da capo arias to the crystalline perfection of Mozart's ensembles.

Opera

L'Orfeo

Claudio Monteverdi · 1607

Monteverdi's revolutionary masterwork traces the legendary musician Orpheus as he navigates love, loss, and the limits of art's redemptive power. When his beloved Euridice dies from a snakebite on their wedding day, Orfeo descends into the Underworld armed only with his lyre and voice, attempting to move the gods themselves through the sheer force of his music. This foundational opera transforms the Greek myth into a profound meditation on desire, mortality, and the transformative magic of performance itself.

Opera

L'incoronazione di Poppea

Claudio Monteverdi · 1643

Monteverdi's masterwork of moral ambiguity traces the ruthless ascent of Poppaea, the ambitious mistress of Emperor Nero, as she manipulates her way to the throne. Through a tapestry of seduction, political intrigue, and the downfall of the virtuous Empress Ottavia, the opera unfolds a darkly human drama where love and power prove inseparable. The work culminates in Poppaea's coronation—a triumph of desire over virtue, celebrated in one of opera's most rapturous love duets. A revolutionary exploration of historical figures stripped of heroic idealization, revealing instead the complex passions that drive human ambition.

Opera

Dido and Aeneas

Henry Purcell · 1688

When the Trojan prince Aeneas arrives in Carthage, he and Queen Dido fall passionately in love, offering each other solace and hope. Yet their union is doomed: a malevolent Sorceress, consumed by envy, conspires to separate them, manipulating Aeneas into abandoning his beloved to fulfill his destiny. Dido's tragic lament over her lost love stands as one of opera's most devastating moments, a meditation on duty, desire, and the price of greatness.

Opera

Rinaldo

George Frideric Handel · 1711

Handel's triumphant opera seria follows the legendary crusader Rinaldo as he battles the sorcerer Armida and her enchantments to liberate Jerusalem and win the hand of his beloved Almirena. A spectacular collision of heroic valor, magical spectacle, and passionate romance, the work established Handel as London's preeminent operatic master and remains a cornerstone of the Baroque operatic repertoire.

Opera

Giulio Cesare

George Frideric Handel · 1724

Julius Caesar arrives in Egypt in pursuit of his rival Pompey, only to find himself entangled in a dangerous power struggle between the seductive Queen Cleopatra and her tyrannical brother Ptolemy. As Caesar and Cleopatra's passion ignites, the widow Cornelia and her son Sesto plot vengeance for Pompey's murder, while Ptolemy schemes to eliminate his competition. Love, ambition, and political intrigue collide in Handel's masterpiece of Baroque drama, where heroic virtue and romantic desire clash against the backdrop of imperial conquest.

Opera

Handel's Alcina

George Frideric Handel

Opera

Rodelinda

George Frideric Handel · 1725

Queen Rodelinda of the Lombards faces the machinations of the usurper Grimoaldo, who has seized her husband King Bertarido's throne and now demands her hand in marriage. As Rodelinda steadfastly resists his advances and mourns her supposedly dead husband, Bertarido returns in disguise to test her faithfulness and orchestrate the restoration of his rightful rule. Through trials of loyalty, passion, and political intrigue, the opera explores the triumph of virtue and conjugal devotion against tyranny and ambition.

Opera

Agrippina

George Frideric Handel · 1709

Handel's audacious opera seria chronicles the ruthless machinations of Agrippina, the ambitious wife of Emperor Claudius, as she orchestrates an elaborate scheme to place her son Nero on the imperial throne. Amid a tangle of political intrigue, romantic entanglements, and shifting allegiances, the beautiful Poppea becomes a pawn in Agrippina's designs, while the noble general Ottone finds his virtue tested by love and ambition. With its satirical edge and vibrant musical invention, *Agrippina* subverts the conventions of opera seria through a darkly comic exploration of power, desire, and the corruption of the Roman court.

Opera

Orfeo ed Euridice

Christoph Willibald Gluck · 1762

Orfeo, the legendary musician, descends into the Underworld consumed by grief over his beloved wife Euridice's death from a snakebite, armed only with his lyre and divine permission to retrieve her. The gods grant him a single, devastating condition: he must not look upon Euridice until they both reach the world of the living, or she will be lost to him forever. This sublime meditation on love, loss, and the redemptive power of art marked a revolutionary departure from the ornamental excess of opera seria toward emotional authenticity and dramatic coherence.

Opera

Gluck's Alceste

Christoph Willibald Gluck

Opera

Idomeneo

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart · 1781

King Idomeneo of Crete, returning victorious from the Trojan War, has vowed to Neptune that he will sacrifice the first person he encounters if granted safe passage home. That person proves to be his own son, Idamante. Torn between paternal love and divine obligation, Idomeneo struggles with his terrible oath while his son and the Trojan princess Ilia navigate their own passionate devotion, ultimately leading to a resolution that reconciles duty, love, and divine mercy.

Opera

The Marriage of Figaro

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart · 1786

On his wedding day, the clever valet Figaro discovers that his master, the Count Almaviva, intends to exercise his feudal right to seduce Figaro's bride Susanna. As the Count pursues his designs with cunning and persistence, Figaro and Susanna—aided by the Countess and her page Cherubino—orchestrate an elaborate scheme of disguises and deceptions to outwit the aristocrat. In a night of escalating chaos and mistaken identities, the servants ultimately triumph, exposing the Count's infidelity and forcing him to beg his wife's forgiveness.

Opera

Don Giovanni

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart · 1787

Mozart's masterpiece of seduction and damnation follows the libertine Don Giovanni as he pursues conquest across Seville, leaving a trail of betrayed women and vengeful suitors in his wake. When he mockingly invites the statue of a murdered nobleman to dinner, the supernatural reckoning arrives—a darkly comic meditation on desire, honor, and divine retribution that blends comedy with existential terror.

Opera

Die Zauberflöte

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart · 1791

A young prince embarks on a perilous quest to rescue a maiden from the clutches of darkness, guided by a magical flute and an unlikely bird-catcher companion. As Tamino penetrates the mysteries of an enlightened temple, he discovers that truth and virtue demand trials of fire and water, while the forces of night conspire to reclaim what they have lost. A transcendent fusion of fairy tale enchantment and Enlightenment ideals, where love, wisdom, and brotherhood triumph over chaos and deception.

Opera

La clemenza di Tito

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart · 1791

A Roman emperor discovers his trusted friend has joined a conspiracy against him, but ultimately chooses clemency over vengeance.

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