The Metropolitan Opera will broadcast Giuseppe Verdi’s Don Carlos, on Saturday, March 26 at USC Beaufort’s Center for the Arts at 801 Carteret Street. Note that the curtain is at 12 noon rather than the usual 1 p.m.

Many of you may be wondering if I haven’t misspelled the title. Shouldn’t it be Don Carlo? This is because the opera originally premiered in Paris and was sung in French. So why did Verdi, the king of Italian opera, compose and opera with a French libretto?