Opera Lecture Series - The Operas of Verdi

Since 2003, Opera Bites co-founder Murray Dahm has delivered accessible, friendly and informative lectures, drawing on its history, culture and music. Enjoy exploring a variety of areas of operatic history from composers and voice types through to genres and quirky bits of opera trivia. 

​From Verdi and Puccini to opera darlings such as Luciano Pavarotti and Joan Sutherland, Murray presents weekly fun, informative and thoroughly delightful talks, abundantly illustrated with audio and visual excerpts.

Murray's style is popular with seasoned opera-goers and newcomers alike. Come and revel in the joy of opera!

The Operas of Verdi – Verdi (1813-1901) is one of the world’s greatest and most revered opera composers. Several of his operas (Nabucco, La traviata, Rigoletto, Aida, Otello and more) are the most popular works, performed hundreds of times each and every year in different productions in all the worlds opera houses. Verdi’s operas have been sung (and recorded) by the greatest singers of every age. The stories of Verdi’s operas are also timeless and speak of universal truths of love and struggle which audiences have always identified with.

Verdi was a master of melody, and those melodies are as fresh and beautiful today as when he penned them. They are frequently heard on radio, television and stages throughout the world not to mention in a vast legacy of recordings. Yet Verdi was a late starter, regarded as too old to attend university, he was privately taught (and would later claim he was largely self-taught). He never forgave the institutions which had snubbed him. And yet he forged his own path in the world of opera, proving his worth with the operas he produced. 

Join us as we explore some of Verdi’s masterpieces, discover their historical context and experience them through an array of historical and new recordings.

Full term enrolments and casual drop ins available.