50 episodes
Aria Code WQXR & The Metropolitan Opera
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- Music
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4.6 • 16 Ratings
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Aria Code is a 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 Roberto Alagna, Diana Damrau, Sondra Radvanovsky, and many others. Hosted by Grammy Award-winner and MacArthur “Genius” Fellow Rhiannon Giddens, Aria Code is produced 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.
A wealth of guests—from artists like Rufus Wainwright and Ruben Santiago-Hudson to non-musicians like Dame Judi Dench and Dr. Brooke Magnanti, author of The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl—join Rhiannon and the Met Opera’s singers to understand why these arias touch us at such a human level, well over a century after they were written. Each episode ends with the aria, uninterrupted and in full, recorded from the Met Opera stage.
Aria Code is produced in partnership with WQXR, The Metropolitan Opera and WNYC Studios.
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Love and Other Drugs: Gounod's Roméo et Juliette
Gounod’s “poison aria” is so difficult, it’s often cut from productions. But it’s a pivotal moment in the opera — and a testament to Juliette’s courage.
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You Don't Own Me: The Myth and Magic of Bizet's Carmen
Carmen is perhaps the most famous heroine in all of opera: an icon of sensuality and self-determination — and a full-blown stereotype of Romani culture.
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Revisiting Mozart’s Queen of the Night: Outrage Out of This World
When the Voyager spacecraft set off to explore the galaxy, it carried recordings to represent the best of humanity. There was only one aria: the rage-fest from Mozart's The Magic Flute.
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Love Takes Flight: Catán's Florencia en el Amazonas
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Davis’s X: The Life and Legacy of Malcolm X
Malcolm X means many things to many people. In Anthony Davis’s opera, his humanity comes first.
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Revisiting Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice: Don’t Look Back in Ardor
When someone you love dies, how far would you be willing to go to bring them back? The mythical Orpheus goes to hell and back, but even that isn’t enough to save his love Eurydice.
Customer Reviews
Opera becomes compelling
I came across this through another podcast, "Front Row", from the BBC. This lives up to the promise of the discussion on that podcast. Probably not for opera nerds but one for relative newbies who don't mind a new addiction. Each one is a story within a story and presented with great care and expertise. I like it very much.
Aria Code - does what it says on the tin.
Aria Code is the very first podcast I have listened to - it is great introduction to the world of podcasts and also a brilliant complement to opera and, more specifically, to arias. The thirty minute length of each episode is ideal for dipping in and out of the series and finding those arias and operas I’m familiar with. It really enhances your understanding of the aria, its meaning and its position in the opera. Especially good is the fact that after the discussion and analysis, the aria is sung in its entirety by one of the Met Opera singers who has been involved in the discussion - this allows you to sit back and listen to the aria with your new found knowledge. So it really does decode the aria - just like it says on the tin.