Saying “I love you” for the first time takes courage, especially when you don’t know the response you'll get. But being open with your emotions and putting yourself out there can change you in unexpected ways. In Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, it’s the 16-year-old Tatyana who pins her heart on her sleeve. Young and naive, but also fiercely confident, she pours out her feelings for the visiting Eugene Onegin in one night of impassioned love-letter-making. His answer defines the rest of her life, and the course of the opera.  Host Rhiannon Giddens and her guests explore Tatyana’s famous Letter Scene and what it tells us about Tchaikovsky, Russian society, and the nearly universal experience of unrequited love. Soprano Renée Fleming is one of the most acclaimed singers of her generation, singing across genres from classical to Broadway to jazz and more. Of all the roles she’s performed, the shy and soulful Tatyana is the one she relates to best. She loves the Letter Scene because it allows her to act out the intense emotions of a teenager who’s fallen in love for the very first time.  Dr. Philip Ewell is a professor of music theory at Hunter College of the City University of New York, where he specializes in Russian music, 20th-century music, race studies in music, and more. He trained as a cellist in Russia during and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and has spent seven years total living there. He loves to teach Eugene Onegin to his Russian opera seminar through the lens of Avril Lavigne’s “Sk8er Boi.” (Trust him, it works!)  Tim Manley is a writer, illustrator, storyteller, and educator. He performed his story “I Need You To Know” with The Moth in 2015, where he now leads storytelling workshops. He found that opening up about his feelings in front of an audience transformed his life. Tim also created the web series The Feels, which was nominated for an Emmy. He is currently working on a young adult novel.

LIVESTREAM EVENT: Friday, October 8 at 12 noon ET This fall, Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones became the first opera by a Black composer staged at the Metropolitan Opera. In this very special online talk, Aria Code host Rhiannon Giddens will talk with Terence about this historic premiere, his writing process and the unique challenges of staging an opera in the midst of a global pandemic.  Watch the FREE event on Friday, October 8, at 12PM ET:  

When the great American composer Carlisle Floyd wrote his first full-length opera, Susannah, back in the 1950s, he had no way of knowing how the Biblical themes of shame, blame and lust would still resonate today. In this special episode of Aria Code, host Rhiannon Giddens joins soprano Renée Fleming, writer and stage director Thomas Holliday, and feminist writer Leora Tanenbaum to consider the haunting folk aria “The Trees on the Mountains,” and the devastating loss of innocence at the heart of the story. You’ll hear Fleming’s performance from the Metropolitan Opera’s 1999 production of Susannah, as well as Rhiannon Giddens’ version from her new album, there is no Other. The Guests One of the most celebrated singers of our time, soprano Renée Fleming has used her voice to break down the barriers between different genres of music. From opera to Broadway to jazz, and even the movie soundtrack of The Lord of the Rings, this fourteen-time Grammy nominated artist has sung it all.   Stage director and writer Thomas Holliday practically became a member of the Floyd family when he embarked on five years of research and interviews for the comprehensive biography Falling Up: The Days and Nights of Carlisle Floyd. Feminist writer Leora Tanenbaum has been writing books and articles about slut-shaming and the sexual double standard for over 20 years. When she’s not fighting the good fight for gender equality, Leora can be found at Columbia University, where she is Director of Communications. Special thanks to the Metropolitan Opera, Boosey & Hawkes, and Nonesuch Records for the music in this episode. 

You hear the message over and over in pop culture: love overcomes everything. But when Don José sings “The Flower Song” in Bizet's Carmen, you're reminded that love has a dark side, too. In the Season 1 finale, host Rhiannon Giddens welcomes tenor Roberto Alagna, critic Anne Midgette and psychologist Andrew G. Marshall to consider the crazy, possessive side of love and the importance of experiencing art that doesn’t have a fairy-tale ending. Then, you’ll hear Alagna sing the role of the passionate and violent Don José onstage at the Metropolitan Opera. The Guests Tenor Roberto Alagna first performed as Don José when he was 35. Twenty years and many performances later, he thinks he “judged” José a little too harshly in the past and now feels more empathy for the character's misguided and obsessive love. As a teenager, Washington Post critic Anne Midgette dreamed of living in Europe with a boyfriend who sang opera. When she moved there after college and dated a tenor who sang “The Flower Song” on a train platform, she thought, “Oh my god, my dream came true.” When writer and marital therapist Andrew G Marshall took his parents to see Carmen, they expected to hear some familiar tunes and a sweet love story. Instead, they got “horror and bloodshed.” Pro tip: always read the program notes.

A picture may paint a thousand words, but nothing compares to the intimacy and immediacy of a handwritten letter. Hearing the "Letter Aria" from Jules Massenet's Werther will prove it. From an opera based on the Goethe novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, this scene finds the tortured heroine Charlotte re-reading the letters of the doomed poet. In this episode, host Rhiannon Giddens welcomes soprano Isabel Leonard, pianist Mary Dibbern and author Peter Bognanni to explore why the words we write to each other have so much power – sometimes even more than the ones we say aloud. They'll reflect on Massenet's talent for showing Charlotte's deep connection to Werther and you'll even get a real-life story about how email brought two people together. Then you'll hear Isabel Leonard sing the complete scene onstage at the Metropolitan Opera. The Guests Mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard can handle many different roles – this season she's sung everything from Nico Muhly to Claude Debussy – but describes Charlotte as one of her most challenging. "The vocal writing is relentless," she says. "Massenet had a way of expressing a very deep understanding of Charlotte's complex struggle." Pianist Mary Dibbern began her love affair with French opera began in Paris more than 30 years ago. Since then, she’s translated a biography of Jules Massenet and is currently the Music Director of Education for the Dallas Opera. Minneapolis-based Peter Bognanni fell in love with his wife over email. He is also the author of Things I’m Seeing Without You, a modern-day story about two teens who fall in love over text messages and email.

When the Voyager spacecraft set off to explore the galaxy in 1977, it carried a recording to represent the best of humanity. The “Golden Record” featured everyone from Bach to Chuck Berry, but there was only one opera aria: the rage-fest from Mozart’s The Magic Flute. In this episode, host Rhiannon Giddens and her guests consider why the Queen of the Night’s big moment – “Der Hölle Rache” – is an out-of-this-world achievement, how Mozart created a profound fairy tale for adults and what it takes for a soprano to reach the stratosphere. You’ll hear Kathryn Lewek hit all those high notes onstage at the Metropolitan Opera and talk to Timothy Ferris, the man who produced NASA’s “Golden Record.” The Guests Soprano Kathryn Lewek describes singing “Der Hölle Rache” as throwing darts with your eyes closed. But after performing the part more than 200 times, she certainly knows how to hit the bullseye. Harvard University professor Carolyn Abbate once took her son to see The Magic Flute and he declared it to be “bad, but not in the way I expected it be bad.” Her latest book is A History of Opera: The Last Four Hundred Years. Composer and author Jan Swafford was a graduate student when he spent his last $50 to buy a copy of The Magic Flute and immediately regretted it: he hated the opera. To say he’s warmed to Mozart over the years would be a wild understatement. Timothy Ferris produced the Golden Record that went up with NASA’s Voyager space probes in 1977. It was the only record he ever produced, but he's written many books including Coming of Age in the Milky Way, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

You’ve probably been there: in love for the first time and enchanted by the very sound of your sweetheart’s name. The problem for Gilda in Verdi’s Rigoletto is that her new love isn’t who he says he is. The worst will come (it’s opera), but for a few brief moments in Act I, Gilda’s innocence sweeps you away. She’s young and head over heels and obsessing over the “caro nome,” the “dear name” of her new love.  In this episode, host Rhiannon Giddens and her guests consider the dizzying thrill of your first love, Verdi’s brilliant powers of orchestration and why Gilda’s infatuation rings so true even today. You’ll hear soprano Nadine Sierra reminisce about her own formative experiences and then fall in love with the so-called “Gualtier Maldè” onstage at the Metropolitan Opera. The Guests Before Nadine Sierra could be accurately described as one of the most talented young artists in opera, she was a self-described “opera nerd.” She had a protective family – like Gilda – but that couldn’t stop her from secretly riding to high school in her boyfriend’s car. Paul Thomason has combined his lifelong passion for music, colorful storytelling skills and a knack for mid-century slang to become one of the most insightful writers and lecturers on opera. He’s written for far too many publications to list. Carl Pickhardt is a psychologist and author who has spent decades helping parents and children navigate the challenges of adolescence. His most recent book is titled Who Stole My Child? Parenting Through the Four Stages of Adolescence. 

Singing even one high C can be an event for the tenor and his audience. Everyone in the room knows how easily it could go wrong. Multiply that pressure by nine? You get “Ah, mes amis.” Gaetano Donizetti wrote this high-stakes aria for his opera La Fille du Régiment. The young hero Tonio has just enlisted in the army and received permission to marry the girl of his dreams. “Ah, mes amis” is his celebration: Tonio’s bursting with so much joy that the guy sings nine – count ‘em, NINE – high Cs. In this episode, host Rhiannon Giddens and her guests consider the sheer athleticism it takes to pull off “Ah, mes amis” and reflect on the power of love to make us do crazy things. And after surveying this Mount Everest of tenor arias with a singer, a vocal coach and a former NFL player, you'll hear tenor Javier Camarena scale its heights from his base camp on the Metropolitan Opera stage. The Guests Renowned tenor Javier Camarena made his professional debut singing the role of Tonio, but remembers it as both exciting and terrifying: as a young singer in Mexico, he didn't really speak any French. "I think it was like, Spang-French or something like that," he says, laughing about it now. When Lydia Brown first came to New York, she used to line up on Saturday mornings to get cheap seats to the Met Opera. Now she's working inside the building as a vocal coach to some of the world’s top singers.   Ta’u Pupu’a is a former defensive end for the Cleveland Browns and the Baltimore Ravens. After a career-ending injury, he attended Juilliard Opera Center and transformed from a tackler to a tenor. He now performs at opera houses across the world.

She seduces, she traps, she destroys. She's a femme fatale and her signature aria is the dangerously alluring “Mon coeur s’ouvre a ta voix” from Samson et Dalila by Camille Saint-Saëns. "My heart opens to your voice,” sings Dalila, "like the flowers open to the kisses of the dawn." It sure sounds like a love song, but just below the surface it’s simmering with seduction and betrayal. In this episode, host Rhiannon Giddens and her guests reflect on the Biblical story of Samson and Delilah, the trope of the femme fatale and how Saint-Saëns created this unforgettable moment that sounds as if Dalila’s slowly removing her clothing, one note at a time. Plus, you'll hear mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča sing the complete aria from the Metropolitan Opera stage. The Guests Mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča made her Met debut a decade ago, but the role of Dalila is relatively new to her: she first sang Samson et Dalila at the Vienna State Opera in May 2018. But judging from her recent appearance at WQXR, the part of a Biblical seductress suits her just fine. James Jorden is the founding editor of the world's first (and still very popular) opera blog Parterre Box. He's written for many other publications, including Opera News, The New York Times and the New York Observer. In another life, he used to sing “Mon coeur s’ouvre a ta voix." Dr. Caroline Blyth teaches religious studies at the University of Auckland in New Zealand and studies Biblical themes in contemporary culture. She spent eight years researching the Delilah story for her book Reimagining Delilah’s Afterlives as Femme Fatale: The Lost Seduction.  

When things go from bad to worse for Tosca, Puccini’s tragic heroine, she turns inward and prays. “I lived for art,” she tells God, “I lived for love.” What did I do to deserve all this? Tosca's despair and the moving way Puccini captures it musically speak so directly to artists, to audiences, to all of us, that "Vissi d'arte" has become one of the most famous arias in opera. In this episode, host Rhiannon Giddens and her guests consider what it means to "live for art" and how Tosca's lament has given them much needed strength, whether facing personal struggles, the darkest days of the AIDS epidemic or the persistent sexual harassment that sparked the #MeToo movement. Plus, you'll hear soprano Sondra Radvanovksy sing the complete aria from the Metropolitan Opera stage. The Guests Sondra Radvanovsky first sang Tosca in Denver and didn't quite anticipate how the high altitude would leave her even more breathless than the music! In the many years since, she's established herself as one of the great Puccini (and Verdi) singers and returns to the Met as Floria Tosca in March 2019. Rufus Wainwright comes from a famously musical family, but his curiosity took him far beyond his singer-songwriter roots. As a child, he used to stage operas at home with his siblings and, as an adult, he's written the two operas, Prima Donna and Hadrian. Vivien Schweitzer is a pianist and the author of the new book A Mad Love: An Introduction to Opera. She worked for ten years as a classical music and opera critic for the New York Times. She has also written for the BBC, the Moscow Times, and The Economist.    

Love at first sight is not just a cliché of romantic comedies: more than half of all Americans say they’ve experienced it. Can this explain the timeless appeal of Puccini’s La Bohème? In this episode, host Rhiannon Giddens and her guests consider what love at first sight is really all about, sharing perspectives on the music, the history and, yes, the brain science. Plus, you'll hear tenor Vittorio Grigolo sing the complete aria "Che gelida manina" from the Metropolitan Opera stage. The Guests Vittorio Grigolo started singing as a young boy, when the Italian press gave him the nickname Il Pavarottino (“The Little Pavarotti”). Today, he is one of the world’s leading tenors. He debuted as Rodolfo in La Bohème at the Met in 2010. James Kuslan is a lecturer and writer on opera and culture. His writing has appeared everywhere from the pages of Opera News to the liner notes of Deutsche Gramophon records. Dr. Helen Fisher is a biological anthropologist who studies the brain systems that affect human social behavior. She holds positions at Rutgers University and the Kinsey Institute. She is also the Chief Scientific Advisor to Match.com. The Team Aria Code is produced by WQXR in partnership with the Metropolitan Opera. Our team includes Merrin Lazyan, Brendan Francis Newnam, Matt Boynton, Ricardo Quiñones, Ania Grzesik, Khrista Rypl and Matt Abramovitz. Original music by Hannis Brown.

Verdi’s La Traviata revolves around the high-class courtesan Violetta, the quintessential "tart with a heart" who falls for Mr. Right but can’t decide whether she really wants to settle down. (Spoiler alert: it’s an opera, so she never gets the chance.) In this episode, host Rhiannon Giddens and her guests reflect on Violetta’s spectacular Act I finale and its deep inner conflicts around love and freedom. Plus, you'll hear the complete aria sung from the Met Opera stage. The Guests Diana Damrau is one of the leading sopranos of our time. She has performed at all the world's major opera companies, specializing in lyric and coloratura roles. She's currently singing the role of Violetta at the Metropolitan Opera. Cori Ellison is the company dramaturg for Santa Fe Opera and has also worked with the Glynebourne Festival Opera, New York City Opera and the Juilliard School. She's our go-to opera guru for traditional and contemporary repertoire. Brooke Magnanti is a writer who earned her doctorate in forensic pathology, but you might know her as Belle de Jour. Her book, The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl, documented her year working as an escort and inspired a TV series and several follow-up books. The Team Aria Code is produced by WQXR in partnership with the Metropolitan Opera. Our team includes Merrin Lazyan, Brendan Francis Newnam, Matt Boynton, Ricardo Quiñones, Ania Grzesik, Khrista Rypl and Matt Abramovitz. Original music by Hannis Brown.

Aria Code is a new podcast that pulls back the curtain on some of the most famous arias in opera history, with insight from the biggest voices of our time, including Plácido Domingo, Diana Damrau, Sondra Radvanovsky, and many others. Hosted by Grammy Award-winner and MacArthur “Genius” Fellow Rhiannon Giddens, Aria Code is produced by WQXR in partnership with The Metropolitan Opera.Each episode dives into one aria — a feature for a single singer — and explores how and why these brief musical moments have imprinted themselves in our collective consciousness and what it takes to stand on the Met stage and sing them. Our first episode drops December 4, 2018!