Aria Code

Exploring individual opera arias with singers, musicians and cultural figures AI summary

WQXR & The Metropolitan Opera Visit website › Music · EN · 52 episodes · latest 2026-03-25

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What it is about

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.

Publisher’s own description, taken unchanged from the podcast feed.
© WQXR & The Metropolitan Opera

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Latest episodes

  1. Introducing Classical Music Happy Hour with Emanuel Ax

    2026-03-25 · 4 min · Season 4, episode 9

    Hello Aria Code fans, pianist Emanuel Ax is dropping into the feed to introduce Classical Music Happy Hour, a new podcast he hosts that you might enjoy. The show is all about the joy in chatting about music with all…

  2. Introducing Our Common Nature with Yo-Yo Ma

    2025-11-12 · 44 min

    Ana González is here to introduce you to her new podcast, Our Common Nature, a musical journey with cellist Yo-Yo Ma. When the world stopped in 2020, Yo-Yo Ma started thinking about how music can reconnect people to the…

  3. Love and Other Drugs: Gounod's Roméo et Juliette

    2024-01-17 · 54 min · Season 4, episode 8

    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.

  4. You Don't Own Me: The Myth and Magic of Bizet's Carmen

    2024-01-03 · 54 min · Season 4, episode 7

    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.

  5. Revisiting Mozart’s Queen of the Night: Outrage Out of This World

    2023-12-13 · 27 min · Season 4, episode 6

    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.

  6. Love Takes Flight: Catán's Florencia en el Amazonas

    2023-11-29 · 53 min · Season 4, episode 5

    It’s the early 1900s, and the steamship El Dorado makes its way along the Amazon River towards Manaus, a city in the heart of the Brazilian rainforest. Onboard is the world-famous opera singer Florencia Grimaldi. She’s…

  7. Davis’s X: The Life and Legacy of Malcolm X

    2023-11-15 · 46 min · Season 4, episode 4

    Malcolm X means many things to many people. In Anthony Davis’s opera, his humanity comes first.

  8. Revisiting Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice: Don’t Look Back in Ardor

    2023-11-01 · 33 min · Season 4, episode 3

    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.

  9. Good Things Come to Those Who Weep: Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore

    2023-10-18 · 42 min · Season 4, episode 2

    Sometimes, a single tear can launch a lifetime of happiness.

  10. Death, Faith, and Redemption: Heggie’s Dead Man Walking

    2023-10-04 · 45 min · Season 4, episode 1

    The true story of a man on death row and the nun who accompanied him to the execution chamber.

Episode details from the publisher’s feed. Playback happens at the publisher.

Publisher details

Oldest episode in feed
11/2018 · over 7 years
Typical length
35 min
Format
Episodic Newest first, episodes stand alone
Keywords
aria, code, wqxr, metropolitan, opera, wnyc, studios

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