Paul Terracini | conductor

Zoe Drummond | soprano
Daniel Nicholson | baritone
IBERT: Divertissement
MENOTTI: The Telephone
Arias and orchestral excerpts from operas by MASCAGNI, PUCCINI, LEONCAVALLO, DVORAK and VERDI

What to do when your beloved won’t get off the phone for long enough to let you propose to her, and you have a train to catch? In our distracted smartphone era this may seem like a small-scale problem, but things were a little different when Menotti’s one-act opera The Telephone was premiered in 1947.

Ibert’s lighthearted and witty Divertissement, adapted from his incidental music for the famous French farce The Italian Straw Hat, aptly complements the mood of Menotti’s comic drama.In the second half, sit back and enjoy some of the best-loved vocal and orchestral treasures from the Italian opera repertoire, including Puccini’s “O Mio Babbino Caro” (Gianni Schicchi) and “Un Bel Di” (Madama Butterfly), Verdi’s “Caro Nome” (Rigoletto) and the famous Intermezzo from Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana.