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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Opera Pedants Thread
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
What are your favourite operas, favourite arias, favourite choruses?
[ 26. March 2014, 23:56: Message edited by: Firenze ]
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
The Ring Cycle would be just about my favourite; Como Scoglio (which my wife studied and could sing) though she was Dorabella in the community performance of Cosi fan Tutte that we did. I was a 'columnist' along with an off-duty advertising man: we did not sing but dressed in period costume to shift the set-pieces. My favourite ensemble piece/chorus was definitely Ride of the Valkyries which made me want to get behind the wheel of a supercar with a flat-6 engine and go 'bahnstorming' at speeds approaching 200 MPH!
My wife also was gifted with a high F-sharp when she was young and managed the famous Queen of the Night aria in Die Zauberflote.
Tell us about your passions.
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
There was a hoax on the radio a few years ago that listening to Wagner in your car made people more susceptible to road rage. It got a fair amount of attention before being debunked.
The Seattle Opera does do a very good Ring Cycle. I like it but my personal favorite is "The Marriage of Figaro". A smaller opera company did a great performance here which was conducted from a harpsichord.
I'm also very fond of "Carmen". If you let it slide in, I'd add "Porgy and Bess".
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
I think Figaro is the best of all operas, although quite a few have better music - Don Giovanni and Orfeo for starters. There was a great outdoor performance of Carmen on Sydney Harbour last year, the first Carmen being particularly good - we saw it before the cast change. We saw performances of Alcina in consecutive years. The first year had Joan Carden as Alcina and she was excellent. The following year was Sutherland and she was outstanding. And to make it an even more pointed difference, the second ballet, at least on the night we saw it, was also much better - one of those ballets where absolutely everything clicks, down to the smallest detail.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
Wow! I am working on a local ballet and I have done set carpentry for several productions over the last few years. I have never ceased to be amazed.
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
If you like The Ring you really need Anna Russell to explain it all.
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
I think Figaro is the best of all operas, although quite a few have better music - Don Giovanni and Orfeo for starters.
"The Marriage of Figaro" is one of my favourites - a lovely, enjoyable piece of work.
I tend to prefer the lighter pieces of Verdi and Puccini - lots of catchy tunes to be found. "Die Fledermaus" is lovely too and I always enjoy the rare occasions when that's shown on TV for New Year's Day.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
My favourite composers of opera are, in this order: Mozart, Mozart and Mozart ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) .
I saw a (mostly*) wonderful Magic Flute about 18 months ago at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées. The whole stage was basically set with bare black scenery and then they projected white line drawings onto it (geometric figures, birds, stars) to turn it into a giant blackboard. It was magical. They were using period instruments and the flautist (wooden instrument) played like a flippin’ angel.
Nonetheless if I could only have one opera forever, I think I would have to go with Don Giovanni. Non mi dir is perfection. The climbing/descending scales of the overture and the descent into hell are incredible, and way ahead of their time. As I read in a commentary recently – imagine hearing that for the first time, and that you have *never* heard Beethoven or Wagner. It’s revolutionary. And fabulous. And if the production’s up to scratch, the stage goes on fire.
*Apart from the first ten minutes or so, which were Out. Of. Tune. Which is a bugger, because you sit there going “Oh crap, am I going to sit through three hours of no one singing in key?” The show was basically saved when the Queen of the Night turned up and nailed her first aria, at which point her colleagues all went “Oh yeah, that’s how you sing in tune” and bucked their ideas up ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif) .
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
I'm with you Lyda*Rose - and after the Russell surely the Queen of the Night's aria as sung by Florence Foster Jenkins?
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sir Kevin:
Wow! I am working on a local ballet and I have done set carpentry for several productions over the last few years. I have never ceased to be amazed.
Not a regular ballet attender so I don't know the right technical terms. The production had a female and male dancer alone on the stage, which had sort of inflated airbags across the back of the stage to represent the sea. At the end, he was standing near the back, and a bit to our left. She was at the front right, did a couple of pirouettes, then ran delicately towards him. He cupped his hands lowland to his left, she put a foot into the cup and he lifted her up and over his right shoulder and projected her into the airbags. The first year, it was impressive, but in the second performance we saw, the whole just became a fluid movement, absolutely spot on. A real knock-out.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
I must admit my favourites tend to be from the baroque period. Wagner I have never really got into. Probably just me, and little to do with Wagner!
Last one we saw was Purcell's "Fairy Queen". Though that was done as an opera and not as a semi-opera, I guess for reasons of cost. I would like to see it done properly at some point - ditto King Arthur.
Some of Handel's later oratorios are operas in all but name. Joan Sutherland did a fabulous Athalia. The rest of the "cast" was selected for their precision and clean tone, whilst she hammed it up with vibrato a mile wide. A real pantomime villain!
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
Siegfried is great earphone music for writing software. Especially the forging song.
Being a soppy sentimental sort, I rather like Puccini.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Siegfried
Ship's ferret
# 29
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Posted
I have an obvious bias for Wagner. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
I also like the drinking song from Boheme (or is it Traviata--I always confuse the two) and the Triumphal march from Aida.
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Siegfried
Life is just a bowl of cherries!
Posts: 5592 | From: Tallahassee, FL USA | Registered: May 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
They both have drinking songs!
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Felafool
Shipmate
# 270
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Posted
For me, I love the way Puccini 'lays down a tune', and my fave has to be Madama Butterfly.
Wagner does some good stuff in between the hours of dross, and Lohengrin is my favourite of his.
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I don't care if the glass is half full or half empty - I ordered a cheeseburger.
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
Dross? Dross? What dross?
OK, Parsifal goes nowhere, and Tannhauser is a bit dirgy when not being stirring, but there is not a second of dross in the Ring! Well, excpet, maybe, just possibly, if Erda is suing too slowly and too mournfully. But the rest of it is a continuous thrill. Each section demands the next one.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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basso
Ship’s Crypt Keeper
# 4228
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Posted
I love the Ring, but Meistersinger is my favorite Wagner. I also like Peter Grimes, and all Mozart.
As I get older and perhaps mellower, I keep coming back to Bohème. The last two acts can reduce me to tears in no time at all. It was the first opera I got to know really well, thanks to the Beecham/Björling/de Los Angeles recording we had when I was growing up.
Posts: 4358 | From: Bay Area, Calif | Registered: Mar 2003
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
I have a soft spot for Peter Grimes since it's one of the few operas I've seen live - a perfectly magnificent production in the Oslo Opera House.
I also remember a Carmen for the opposite reason. It was an amateur company, with - rather superannuated - professionals in the lead roles. Carmen - with a little energetic suspension of disbelief - was OK. Don Jose was quite good (a pity his costume showed a little of his abdominal corsetry). But the Toreador (and producer) was old and fat and his voice wurbled all over the place. We were in the front row, so had a view of the orchestra doing major eye rolling during his arias.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
I have a soft spot for Peter Grimes since it's one of the few operas I've seen live - a perfectly magnificent production in the Oslo Opera House.
My first experience of Peter Grimes was Opera North's production a few years ago. It had a profound, lasting effect on me. A true and beautiful work.
I'm mostly a Wagnerite, though I love all sorts of opera. I used to think Parsifal was the greatest opera ever written. After much longer acquaintance, I think the title might actually go to Götterdämmerung, if we're allowed to take the Ring operas separately (and I think we should be). The term "emotional rollercoaster" could have been invented specially for it. I always need a little lie down after I've listened to it.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
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Alaric the Goth
Shipmate
# 511
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Posted
You know you've had too much whisky when you click on this thread because you think it says 'Pedants thread', get confused when it's about opera, and click on SOF again a minute or so later, only to find it says 'Opera Pedants Thread...
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'Angels and demons dancing in my head,
Lunatics and monsters underneath my bed' ('Totem', Rush)
Posts: 3322 | From: West Thriding | Registered: Jun 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
We saw Figaro several years ago in Berlin, with Auschwitz right after, and then Mozart's Requiem in Vienna after that. The context of this sequence has me in its thrall, at the level of dream, and surreality. Poignant and as immediate as when I heard Figaro laugh, I hear it just now, and again. Now I have a Figaro ear worm for the evening.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
I fell in love with opera when I was in college. I have since "complained" to the professor responsible, telling him of the thousands of dollars I have spent over the years, all because of him!
Wagner is my true love, especially the Ring and Parsifal (heard Vickers in the title role at the Met ![[Yipee]](graemlins/spin.gif) ).
I love almost all of it, but Puccini leaves me cold.
(I just spent most of today at the Arizona Opera offices stuffing envelopes for a mailing they're sending out.)
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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JB
Independent Thinker
# 1776
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Posted
Santa Fe usually has memorable staging, and one that I recall was Cosi fan Tutte in 2007. The opera was set in the 1950s, in a mirror-finished set which cracked along with the trust and virtue of the protagonists.
Another was the premier of "Mother of us All" (an opera biography of Susan B. Anthony by Virgil Thomson to a libretto by Gertrude Stein) in 1976. It was videotaped by PBS and at the end there was a feminist on the fountain outside delivering a speech. It wasn't clear if it was part of the opera. The film crew moved out into the courtyard and recorded it also. You can still get the music on iTunes.
And finally Madame Butterfly: quote:
This is a setting worthy of opera, and the Santa Fe directors regularly use the surrounding mountains, the great expanse of darkening sky, or the moonlit hills to evoke an opera’s time and place – most famously in Madame Butterfly, when the shimmering lights of Los Alamos, twenty miles away in the foothills of the Jemez, suggest Puccini’s Nagasaki, ironically one of the towns nearly destroyed by the atomic bomb developed on that very mesa.
Huscher, Phillip. The Santa Fe Opera: an American pioneer. Santa Fe: The Santa Fe Opera 2006, p. 84.
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You live, you learn
You learn, you live
Posts: 2588 | From: Land of Enchantment | Registered: Jun 2001
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
As fond as I am of Mozart, especially "Figaro", I'm not all that fond of "Cosi Fan Tutti". The music is good, but the story is nasty. Figaro is interesting for other reasons. The author of the original French play had to get royal permission to get the play past the censors. One of the tasks he undertook was the initial funding of the American revolution.
I'm also fond of some more minor works Der Rosenkavalier and Orpheus in the Underworld. I also have fond memories of a production of Die Fledermaus with a farewell appearance by Beverly Sills and among others Donald Gramm. The drunken jailor was played by Victor Borges who kept a Bosendorfer in the prison cell.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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jacobsen
seeker
# 14998
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
I have a soft spot for Peter Grimes since it's one of the few operas I've seen live - a perfectly magnificent production in the Oslo Opera House.
I was in the Cologne opera chorus when we did Peter Grimes, in German. Mutterings from the chorus indicated that they thought it was all nicked from Puccini... When our singer playing the preacher fell ill, they had to import a substitute from Covent Garden, who of course only knew the role in English. In those days -1981 - there wasn't much sense of Britten's style, though fortunately almost all the soloists were native English speakers, if not from England, and they at least had a clue. Charles Mackerras conducted. Don't know what he thought of the chorus.
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But God, holding a candle, looks for all who wander, all who search. - Shifra Alon
Beauty fades, dumb is forever-Judge Judy
The man who made time, made plenty.
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jacobsen
seeker
# 14998
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Posted
I've just clocked that this thread is about favourite operas. Well, some years ago (about 30) I came across an LP set of Monteverdi's Incoronazione di Poppea with Jon Vickers and Gwyneth Jones as Nero and Poppea. An amazing marriage of Wagnerian voices with early baroque style. There was no leaflet enclosure, and the occasional technician's voice could be heard on the recording, so I deduce it was pirated. It is great to hear early music sung with full, round tone. Having sung the role of Nero in a couple of amateur productions, I have an affection for the work, as well as approving an operatic era where so many male roles can be taken by female voices.
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But God, holding a candle, looks for all who wander, all who search. - Shifra Alon
Beauty fades, dumb is forever-Judge Judy
The man who made time, made plenty.
Posts: 8040 | From: Æbleskiver country | Registered: Aug 2009
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
I'd probably go for The Marriage of Figaro because of the wealth of minor character roles and the lack of a soppy soprano/tenor love interest. (Figaro and Susanna certainly show their love but in a gloriouslly unromantic way.)
From that you will guess that I don't really like Puccini.
Bellini's Norma is a wonderful work.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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Welease Woderwick
Sister Incubus Nightmare
# 10424
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by basso:
...Meistersinger is my favorite Wagner. I also like Peter Grimes, and all Mozart.
As I get older and perhaps mellower, I keep coming back to Bohème. The last two acts can reduce me to tears in no time at all...
Yes, YES and YES!!
Boheme gets to me every time and Meistersinger is Wagner's finest in the same way that Falstaff is Verdi's.
About 20 years ago Welsh National did a minimalist Turandot that was amazing.
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I give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.
Fancy a break in South India?
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What part of Matt. 7:1 don't you understand?
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
I love "Figaro" - there was a good performance on TV a few years back (from the Met.), Renee Fleming was a wondrous Countess and moved me to tears. I also saw a terrible performance of "Don Giovanni" at Covent Garden with Peter Glossop - at the end of the Champagne Aria no-one clapped.
Two performances of "Die Entfuhrung" - one at Salzburg c.1968 (dull) and much more recently at Budapest (lovely).
I was lucky enough to see "Peter Grimes" with Peter Pears at Sadler's Wells - he was past his prime by then but what a sense of history! And a great perferomance of "Billy Budd" by Welsh National in Lisbon - the Portuguese didn't know what to make of it (I'd seen it before in London and hated it!)
My one visit to Glyndebourne (1969) - Cavalli's "La Calisto" in an edition by Raymond Leppard, probably most inauthentic but lovely. And Rameau's "Les Boreades" (a concert performance) at the Proms with John Eliot Gardiner.
A memorable performance of "Lady Macbeth of Mtensk" (Prokofiev) at the Coliseum; also a marvellous pared-down version of "Cheryomushki" (Shostakovich) at the Lyric, Hammersmith.
Finally, "Siegried" (or one of that ilk) at the Coliseum - officially in English but Wotan was ill and his replacement had to sing in German! And a memorable "Mastersingers" with a packed atage at the old Wells (rumour has it that, at one performance, a chorus member bet that he could come in with a set of golf-clubs and not be noticed: he won!)
[ 28. March 2014, 08:00: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
PS "La Traviata" at Covent Garden with an immensely fat soprano - didn't quite work somehow!!!
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
What was I thinking of? Verdi's Falstaff, of course. Lots of character roles, but the young lovers don't dominate and have the two loveliest arias in the work.
And I have a soft spot of Il trovatore. Unless you think of all the characters as completely psychotic, the plot is ridiculous, but the music is gripping.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
I think opera writer Denis Forman put his finger on why Figaro is so easy to like: it's funny, it has great tunes, and none of them is more than about 5 minutes long. Obviously, there's more to it than that: I think Mozart can make you fall in love with his characters, and it's the Countess that makes Figaro one of my favourites. She's clever, witty, sad, and ultimately she wins. One of opera's great characters. Her aria Dove sono melts my heart every time.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Welease Woderwick
Sister Incubus Nightmare
# 10424
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Posted
But opera surely isn't opera unless she dies in the end!?!?
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I give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.
Fancy a break in South India?
Accessible Homestay Guesthouse in Central Kerala, contact me for details
What part of Matt. 7:1 don't you understand?
Posts: 48139 | From: 1st on the right, straight on 'til morning | Registered: Sep 2005
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
... and it ain’t over until the fat lady sings.
There was a wonderful modern-day BBC take on Figaro some years ago, set in modern times, starring a randy MP who was after his maid, Susanna. It was sung in English. Purists will hate it, but as an introduction, it was great (and hilarious) and inspired me to go and see the real thing.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Purcell's Dido and Aeneas: The plot is no more farcical than any other, its short and there are splendid tunes.
Failing that, Rusalka charmed a 10 year old Godchild. Best Song to the Moon ever IMO Leontyne Price's - very leisurely and voluptuous.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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basso
Ship’s Crypt Keeper
# 4228
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Posted
One of my favorite opera memories is a Figaro years ago in San Francisco.
Frederica von Stade was the Cherubino and Kiri Te Kanawa the Countess; it was each singer's debut with the company. With those two on stage I somehow have no memory of any of the other singers.
(I was about 18 years old. I've had a crush on Flicka ever since.)
Posts: 4358 | From: Bay Area, Calif | Registered: Mar 2003
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
Wow!
We saw Billy Budd at Santa Fe with JB and Motherboard a few years ago. I remember the fantastic minimalist sets more than the singing: they really brought the ocean to the desert. On non-English language operas you just have to look at your neighbour's seat-back for a translation: light-years better than sur-titles floating downstage!
That said, I have my own ideas for staging famous German operas: they will figure prominently in one of the later chapters of my novel and as soon as it's on Kindle or Nook (hopefully later in 2014) and it's copyrighted I shall post the excerpt here on the Ship! God willing, you lot will like it and buy the book which I guarantee will be inexpensive.
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
There was a wonderful modern-day BBC take on Figaro some years ago, set in modern times, starring a randy MP who was after his maid, Susanna. It was sung in English. Purists will hate it, but as an introduction, it was great (and hilarious) and inspired me to go and see the real thing.
It was lovely. Mozart would have approved heartily.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
If you want to understand Wagner's Ring, look for Arthur Rackham's illustrations for it. They can be found on line, or you can buy a copy through Dover press.
Posts: 1540 | From: Illinois, USA | Registered: Nov 2008
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Garasu
Shipmate
# 17152
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Posted
If you want to understand Wagner's Ring, listen to Anna Russell's analysis!
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"Could I believe in the doctrine without believing in the deity?". - Modesitt, L. E., Jr., 1943- Imager.
Posts: 889 | From: Surrey Heath (England) | Registered: Jun 2012
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Yangtze
Shipmate
# 4965
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Posted
I went to The Ring for first time at the end of 2012 (at the Royal Opera House) and loved it so much went to it again in 2013 (Proms). I foresee many more in the future.
Hard to choose my favourite opera, they are all so different. I did surprise myself by really enjoying Philip Glass's Satyagrya as I am not a fan of Glass' music generally, But Satyagra was mesemerising. Could have done with a bit of an edit though - about 30 mins too long.
Posts: 2022 | From: the smallest town in England | Registered: Sep 2003
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moonlitdoor
Shipmate
# 11707
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Posted
I have a question based on what la vie en rouge wrote - is it easy or difficult for singers to adapt to sing in tune with original instruments ?
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We've evolved to being strange monkeys, but in the next life he'll help us be something more worthwhile - Gwai
Posts: 2210 | From: london | Registered: Aug 2006
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jacobsen
seeker
# 14998
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by moonlitdoor:
I have a question based on what la vie en rouge wrote - is it easy or difficult for singers to adapt to sing in tune with original instruments ?
There could be two aspects to this. The first is what is known as Baroque Pitch, which is slightly less than a semitone lower than western concert pitch. Actually, pitch varied considerably from place to place during the baroque and classic periods, but current convention has it that on average, an A was slightly lower then than now. This makes more of the repertoire accessible to lower voices. My younger self could have sung the soprano arias in Handel's Messiah in baroque pitch. Now I'm grateful to sing the alto arias in baroque pitch!
The second aspect is that early instruments were more difficult to tune and to play in tune, and the earlier, the more difficult, as anyone who has played or listened to a renaissance crumhorn will testify. They were (are?) aften not in tune with each other, and there was therefor a range of intuneness, or out of tuneness, from which a singer might choose which instrument to be in tune with. Or not. As a member of a medieval band, playing that well known instrument of the later middle ages, the concertina*, I have experienced this at first hand.
Probably the answer to the question would be the ability of the singer to hold pitch. This is a technical issue, though some singers are born with the gift, while others have to acquire it.
*We don't have access to an portative organ, which would be held with one hand and played with the other, but a concertina is also a reed instrument with a not dissimilar sound. It is also forceful enough to hold its own amidst a welter of tromba, crumhorn,you name it. None of them could be called quiet instruments.
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Posts: 8040 | From: Æbleskiver country | Registered: Aug 2009
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Joan Rasch
Shipmate
# 49
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Posted
For those reading here who are beginners with Wagner and would like to explore some more, our Shipmate Adeodatus did some nice posts on a blog called wagner200th.
cheers from Boston
Joan Rasch aka Fafner the thurifer
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Posts: 509 | From: Boston, MA USA | Registered: May 2001
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Welease Woderwick
Sister Incubus Nightmare
# 10424
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Posted
The Peter Sellars modern dress Don Giovanni, Cosi and Nozze were fab but sadly now, apart from Nozze, quite difficult to get hold of in DVD format. The Perry twins in The Don were remarkable - and gorgeous but that is another subject not appropriate for this thread!
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Posts: 48139 | From: 1st on the right, straight on 'til morning | Registered: Sep 2005
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
This is slightly off topic, but opera related. There was a local news item on Tv a couple of nights ago about a teenage Samoan New Zealander who had never heard classical singing. A couple of years he mistakenly got Les Mis out of a dvd library thinking it was an action movie He was so entranced he watched it 3 times and the singing just blew him away. He now wants to sing opera. The news item showed him listening to, then singing with, a local group of tenors called O sole mio (?spelling).
Honestly I don't ever think I've seen a teenager so enthusiastic about anything, much less opera. Apparently he has professional support to get further training, then who knows?
I know very little but he sounds as though he has potential.
Huia
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Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
The NY Times has an interesting article Figaro serves a new Master which describes a new production of the plays of Barber and Figaro. Stephen Wadsworth who directed the last Seattle Ring Cycle is directing the two plays from his own translations of the original plays.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Joan Rasch:
For those reading here who are beginners with Wagner and would like to explore some more, our Shipmate Adeodatus did some nice posts on a blog called wagner200th.
cheers from Boston
Joan Rasch aka Fafner the thurifer
I did, but unfortunately I never finished the project. I got stuck on Siegfried. (I know. The irony was crushing.) If you'll pardon me sounding fanboy-ish, I looked at the rest of the Ring, and at Parsifal, and I just thought, what the heck can I say about these that would do them justice?
I suppose I ought to compose a blog post to that effect...
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Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Chamois
Shipmate
# 16204
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Posted
Originally posted by jacobsen:
quote:
Well, some years ago (about 30) I came across an LP set of Monteverdi's Incoronazione di Poppea with Jon Vickers and Gwyneth Jones as Nero and Poppea.
I saw a wonderful performance of this back in the 1980s, Kent Opera on tour in Cambridge with very young, talented singers. In the scene where Poppea is talking in her bedroom with her maid she was slowly getting undressed. The singer was a most attractive young woman and the man sitting next to me got quite restive!
I've also seen some good performances of Monteverdi's Orpheus and Eurydice. My top favourite for baroque opera has got to be the ENO production of the Return of Ulysses. Some memorable highlights were members of the dance troupe being the horses of the sun and the pigs.
Mozart is great. I'm not so keen on 19th century opera, although Donizetti is always fun. I find Wagner sounds good but doesn't work on stage, it's too static. I've always thought Wagner was ahead of his time and his operas should be done as animations. The End of the World and the Bottom of the Rhine would work so much better on film than on stage, and the Valkyries could really ride through the clouds.
On the whole I prefer 20th century opera. Benjamin Britten's Gloriana and Noyes Fludde. Janacek's Cunning Little Vixen. Tippett's Knot Garden, Glass's Atkenhaten (spelling?). Nixon in China and Dr Atomic. All of Richard Strauss, especially Salome and Ariadne auf Naxos. I don't like Lady Macbeth of Mtsenk - the final act in particular is far too long and ridiculous. I heard a radio production of Paradise Moscow (also by Shostokovich) which was far better.
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Posts: 978 | From: Hill of roses | Registered: Feb 2011
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chamois:
.. I find Wagner sounds good but doesn't work on stage, it's too static. I've always thought Wagner was ahead of his time and his operas should be done as animations. The End of the World and the Bottom of the Rhine would work so much better on film than on stage, and the Valkyries could really ride through the clouds.
There is the spectacular Bugs Bunny Wagnerian short "What's Opera Doc".
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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