Decanonized

The devil categorically should have all the good music. Friend of the pod and Mythical Fuckboy Correspondent Benjamin Poore joins us to wrap up spooky season with Gounod’s devilishly fun Faust. We discuss ecumenical erotics, take a field trip to Paris’s Palais Garnier, and drop in on Gounod’s catastrophic love life.Additional topics include: Caravaggio, Iran-Contra, the Rocky and Bullwinkle Movie, and Alma Mahler’s burn book.Find Ben by summoning him during a dark night of the soul. Find full show notes for Faust, including a playlist and further reading, at Decanonized.com.Follow Decanonized on Instagram and Patreon.

Emotional regulation wasn’t widely available in 15th-century Spain. Conductor and author Patrick Summers joins us to talk about Verdi’s Il trovatore, in which the outsider is portrayed as a human being with actual feelings, the villain has interiority, the heroine takes charge of the world around her, and the tenor is a golden retriever with some very seductive tunes. Additional topics include: death by laughter, Carl Jung, golden retriever tenors, and teddy-bear stabbings.Follow Patrick on Facebook, and check out his new book, Tapestries: Connections from an Artistic Life.Full episode page and show notes for Il Trovatore at decanonized.com. Follow Decanonized on Instagram at @decanonized and on Patreon.

Opera is an opera is an opera is an opera: This week, soprano and comedian Stephanie DePrez joins us to discuss Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein’s  modernist 1934 gem Four Saints in Three Acts, including what it’s like to sing a work when you get the vibes but not the text, the star-studded (and slightly problematic) history of this work’s premiere, and pigeons on the grass. Additional topics include: Jesuit theater education, Pete Davidson, Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins, and ecstatic visions. Follow Steph on Instagram, TikTok, and Substack.

RIP Lorenzo Da Ponte, you would have loved ethical non-monogamy. Our Catastrophic Horniness Correspondent Aksel Tollåli returns to discuss the final (and somehow most controversial?) Mozart and Da Ponte collaboration, in which an incredibly cynical libretto is matched by some of the most gorgeous music in the whole of the operatic canon. It's like if Nathan Fielder orchestrated the Enlightenment. Additional topics include: The Body Keeps the Score, John Cage, married life with the Mozarts, and the Marquis de Sade. Follow Aksel on Instagram and Bluesky. Read friend of the pod Kevin Ng's essay on Così fan tutte in the age of consent for Vancouver Opera.

In which a guy gets performance anxiety about a shooting contest and takes bulletmaxxing advice from the sketchiest dude alive. Composer, scholar, performer, and writer Garrett Schumann joins us to discuss Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz, which holds a storied place in history as the “first” German Romantic opera and a less-discussed place as the origin story for German nationalism. Additional topics include: Patton Oswalt and horror movies, Faust derangement syndrome, the Paris Commune, and an anthology series pitch for Rian Johnson.Full show notes, including a synopsis of Der Freischütz, recommended recordings, and further reading, at decanonized.comFollow Garrett on Bluesky.Follow Decanonized on Instagram at @decanonizedFollow Decanonized on Patreon (where we'll soon be launching bonus episodes!) at https://www.patreon.com/cw/Decanonized

It’s all fun and games until the guillotine gets weird. In honor of Bastille Day, critic Carmen Paddock joins us to talk about Umberto Giordano’s verismo (?) opera about a poet who negs a debutante at a party, and her subsequent ability to take ride-or-die to new extremes during the French Revolution.  We also discuss the real hero or Andrea Chénier, who is (as in so many operas) actually the baritone.Additional topics include: sopranos melting down on Instagram, John McWhorter melting down over John Cage, and Charlotte Corday melting down over Jean-Paul Marat.Follow Carmen on Bluesky, Instagram, and Substack. Full episode page for Andrea Chénier on Decanonized.com.Follow Decanonized on Instagram at @decanonized and on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/Decanonized

Happy Pride and World Cup month, here’s an unlikely football (soccer) anthem and the sapphic story behind it. Unfortunately, the composer who got ahold of this story doesn’t believe in lesbians, so the soprano marries the tenor at the end. Music and culture writer Kevin Ng joins us to dive head-first into Puccini’s final — and famously unfinishable — opera, Turandot, which had its posthumous premiere 100 years ago in 1926. Additional topics include: Lorena Bobbitt, castration, Freud, fascism, and T-shirt cannons.  Follow Kevin on Instagram at @_kevinwng and on Bluesky at @kevinng.bsky.social.Read Kevin’s NYT piece on the latest attempt at constructing ending for Turandot: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/24/arts/music/turandot-opera-revised-ending.htmlFull episode page with recommended reading, recordings, and more at http://decanonized.com/episodes/puccini-turandot 

Is Iago one of opera’s greatest villains? Or just someone who listened to Steely Dan’s “Dirty Work” one too many times and decided to make it everyone’s problem. Bassist, lecturer, and writer Jerrell Jackson joins us to discuss Verdi’s penultimate opera, in which a storm wrecks Cyprus for five minutes and male insecurity wrecks everything else for the next three hours. Additional topics include: Classical Music Twitter, the visual spectrum of Plácido Domingo’s blackface Otellos, the New York Times comments section, and the ’90s teen Shakespeare renaissance. Follow Jerrell on Instagram at @datbassjawn and on Twitter at @datbassjawn.Full episode notes, including a synopsis of Otello, recommended recordings, and a reading list, at Decanonized.com.Follow Decanonized on Instagram at @decanonized.

The Bridal March from Lohengrin is a bold wedding choice once you know the rest of the opera. But considering the divorce rate, maybe it’s the most honest one. Critic Benjamin Poore joins us to talk about Wagner’s Swan King opera and ask the important questions: Is Lohengrin really the hero? Is Ortrud the only sane person? And what if Elsa did kill her brother? Additional topics include: Nazis, doomscrolling, Richard Wagner’s Livejournal, and who could take Norman Lebrecht in a fight.Don’t ask for Ben’s social media handles, but you can read his writing for VAN. Full show page, including a synopsis of Lohengrin, recommended recordings, and further reading.Follow Decanonized on Instagram at @decanonized

Is Peter Grimes the villain, or just his town’s biggest HR violation? Musicologist and Britten scholar Dr. Imani Mosley joins us to discuss the original problematic Grimes. And since Peter Grimes is the only Britten opera on this list, it’s a jam-packed episode as we navigate the seas of judgment in Suffolk, the work’s 1945 premiere, and the lasting influence of Britten on opera.Follow Imani on Instagram at @idm and on BlueSky at @imanimosley.bsky.social. Listen to her talk about how much Percy Grainger sucked (and heal your inner band kid who had to play “Country Gardens” at every grade-school spring concert) over at This Guy Sucked. Full show page, including a synopsis of Peter Grimes, recommended recordings, and further reading at decanonized.com.