BBC Two - Lucy Worsley's Nights at the Opera - Series 1 - 2017
Description: For centuries in western culture, opera has been the greatest show on earth. Historian Lucy Worsley explores how history and opera go hand in hand. She visits the great European cities where some of the most famous operas were written, tells the stories of the colourful characters who composed them and shows how they reflected the turbulent times they were composed in and the lives, hopes and fears of the people who lived in them.
Whilst Lucy visits the cities and European opera houses, Antonio Pappano, music director of London's Royal Opera, helps us understand some of those operas' greatest musical moments.
In the first episode, Lucy investigates four cities and four operas embedded in the cauldron of European politics between the 17th and 19th centuries. She visits Venice, where Claudio Monteverdi invented modern opera with The Coronation of Poppea, the first work which featured real historical characters that the audience could identify with. It is also one of the steamiest and sexiest operas ever written. Then to Vienna, where Mozart's subversive masterpiece The Marriage of Figaro held a mirror up to a society where the Enlightenment was beginning to break down the old feudal order, and Beethoven wrote Fidelio, an opera that embraced the French Revolutionary radical ideals of liberty, equality and brotherhood. Finally, Lucy travels to Milan, where Verdi's Slaves' Chorus in his opera Nabucco captured the hopes and dreams of the Italian people as they moved towards independence and a united nation.
In the second programme, Lucy investigates four cities in France and Germany and four operas of a new kind that swept away conventions in the 19th and early 20th centuries. They delved into the realities of people's lives and their deepest desires, especially those of women - for freedom, identity and sex. She visits Paris, where two operas captured the spirit of Bohemianism that swept the city - Bizet's Carmen, that showed the gritty realities of life for Paris's underclass and the upper classes' fear of them, and Puccini's classic opera La Boheme, about the lives and loves of a group of young people exploring the new personal and sexual freedoms available. Then to Bayreuth in Germany, where Wagner's monumental Ring Cycle set out create a 'total work of art' to that would tap into and transform German identity. Finally Lucy travels to Dresden, where Richard Strauss premiered Salome, a work that explored perverted female pleasure in a way that is still shocking even today.
IMDB: www.imdb.com/title/tt7508296/
Release: BBC2.Lucy.Worsley's.Nights.at.the.Opera.Series.1.2017.720p.AAC
Audio: English
Subtitles: Yes/English/Soft
Technical information
Episode 1 of 2
First broadcast: 14 October 2017
Duration: ~1 hour
Media info:-
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media
Codec ID : isom (isom/iso2/avc1/mp41)
File size : 1 014 MiB
Duration : 58mn 52s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 2 407 Kbps
Writing application : Lavf57.25.100
Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : [email protected]
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 2 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 58mn 52s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 2 309 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 3 500 Kbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.100
Stream size : 972 MiB (96%)
Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 58mn 51s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 93.4 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 127 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Frame rate : 46.875 fps (1024 spf)
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 39.3 MiB (4%)
Episode 2 of 2
First broadcast: 21 October 2017
Duration: ~1 hour
Media info:-
General
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media
Codec ID : isom (isom/iso2/avc1/mp41)
File size : 1 023 MiB
Duration : 58mn 54s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 2 428 Kbps
Writing application : Lavf57.25.100
Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : [email protected]
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 2 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 58mn 54s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 2 330 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 3 500 Kbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.101
Stream size : 981 MiB (96%)
Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 58mn 53s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 93.4 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 106 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Frame rate : 46.875 fps (1024 spf)
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 39.3 MiB (4%)
