University College Opera The brainchild of the conductor Anthony Addison, (UCL's then Director of Music), University College Opera gave its first performance in 1951 with an all-student production of Purcell's "Dido and Aeneas", followed by Mozart's "Bastien und Bastienne". Even in its earliest years, the company's annual repertoire concentrated on rarely performed operas including: Nicolai's "The Merry Wives of Windsor" (1952), Bizet's "Don Procopio" (1955) and Lortzing's "Der Wildschütz" (1958). In 1961, the company staged its first UK premiere, Moniuszko's "Halka". During its first 17 years, UCOpera's performances took place in the old gymnasium at University College. With the opening of the college's
Mateo Falcone (opera) Mateo Falcone (opera) Mateo Falcone ("Матео Фальконе" in Cyrillic; "Mateo Fal'kone" in transliteration) is a one-act opera composed by César Cui during 1906–1907. (Actually, Cui designated the genre of this work as "dramatic scene.") The libretto was adapted by the composer from Prosper Mérimée's like-named story from 1829 and Vasily Zhukovsky's verse rendering thereof. It was premiered on 14 December 1907 (Old Style), at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow (the work was given along with the composer's early one-act comic opera, "The Mandarin's Son"). The premiere production of "Mateo" was a failure; the work never became part of the standard