Thomson Smillie Audio Books

Based on the simple yet deeply moving legendary tale of Orpheus, who loses his beloved wife to death but is able to restore her through the power of his music....

La traviata, an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, takes as its basis the novel La dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas…

Rossini's comic operas, like The Barber of Seville, are better known than his tragedies though he wrote in fact many more tragedies than comedies....

Carmen is a French opera by Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Meilhac and Halévy, based on the novel by Prosper Mérimée.

Wagner is the Everest of opera. Viewed from the foothills, his towering masterpieces, with their lofty themes and sometimes extraordinary length, can seem to test the endurance of all but the fanatic.

Il trovatore has been ruthlessly parodied. It is a tale of murder and mayhem, burned babies, roasted hags, would-be nuns, strolling minstrels, and bad baritones....

For Energy. The Marriage of Figaro is the severed achievement of the greatest musical genius which one set peg to manuscript capper, it is one of tours operas the wrote to Ninth thirty onerous da Pouts.

Monteverdi's Orfeo, first performed in 1607, generates a special excitement because it is the first unquestioned masterpiece of opera....

Dating from the last decade of the 19th century, Pelleas et Melisande points the way into the 20th century....

Cosi fan tutte contains some of Mozart's most sublime music....