William Shakespeare was a poet and dramatist of epic proportions. His plays have inspired music, ballets, films, and countless operas, which are among the genre's greatest successes. Join us as WRTI radio personality and noted lecturer Mike Bolton reviews some of Shakespeare's greatest plays... as operas! Verdi's haunting Macbeth, Gounod's tragically romantic Roméo et Juliette, and Brett Dean's deeply traumatic Hamlet, among others, energized composers to create some of their greatest works. We’ll juxtapose the original versions of the plays with their operatic counterparts with audio and video excerpts from around the world.

Mike Bolton is well known throughout the region as an opera lecturer, classical music host on WRTI 90.1 FM, and for his work with Opera Philadelphia where he led the Community Initiatives Department for almost 15 years. Some accomplishments include OPERA America’s first-ever Diversity Award for his community-wide outreach programming for Richard Danielpour and Toni Morrison’s opera Margaret Garner, creating a series of flash mobs throughout Philadelphia which have been seen on YouTube by over 13 million people, and attracting over 65,000 people to his opera lectures which have been given for Opera Philadelphia, Philadelphia Orchestra, Curtis Institute of Music, Cincinnati Opera, the Metropolitan Opera Guild, and many other organizations.