Join Daniel Balsam and Chris Stacey for their musical series: Coda Clash. Coda Clash is part educational, part entertainment, and entirety fun. Dan and Chris present their analysis of each opera's score, libretto, and production based on the evening’s theme. Through the use of argumentation, and audio and video clips, they leave the final judgement of what opera wins the Coda Clash up to the audience.

Musical Compositions: Carmen, Georges Bizet (1875) and Tosca, Giacomo Puccini (1900)

Theme: Tragic Love. Passion, Scandal, Jealousy, Death.

Coda Clash: Which opera most persuasively encapsulates tragic love as an expressive term?

Date: Wednesday, January 18, 2022

Time: 6:30PM Central, 7:30PM Eastern, 4:30PM Pacific. This is a virtual event. We will send you a Zoom link on January 17, 2023.

Cost: Free

Productions: We are using a fantastic interpretation of Carmen by La Scala (Daniel Barenboim, Anita Rachvelishvili, Jonas Kaufmann, Erwin Schrott) and an equally intense Tosca by the Met Opera (Emmanuel Villaume, Sonya Yoncheva, Vittorio Grigolo, Željko Lučić). If you wish to view these operas in advance, Carmen is on Marquee TV and Tosca is on Met Demand. The clips we’ve selected create a provocative set of angles into operas that are rarely interrogated with analytical rigor given their status as part of the standard repertoire.

Recommended Reading

Carmen, Overture Opera Guide, Richard Langham Smith (Editor)

Tosca's Rome: The Play and the Opera in Historical Perspective, Susan Vandiver Nicassio