Opera

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Songwronger
Date: 19 Sep 12 - 11:54 PM

I pick up operas at thrift shops. 2-3-4 discs in a case for a buck, can't beat it. Last one I listened to was a short one called The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, by Michael Nyman. Strange piece. Nyman has done some nice film score work. What was the movie, The Thief, the Wife, the Cook, etc. He did the score for that. Excellent.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 20 Sep 12 - 12:21 AM

Jack, you said that "The opera was written in 1846-8, so it predates any political expression of German nationalism", but German Nationalism started to take shape much before that. It was flourishing at the time of the Napoleonic Wars. With the end of the Holy Roman Empire, and the subsequent defeat of Napoleon there was both a feeling for some sort of unification of the German speaking peoples and the opportunity for it. German Nationalism was, in fact, a driving force in many of the Revolutions of 1848, which you can Google, just as well as I can.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: GUEST,Jane Ann Liston
Date: 20 Sep 12 - 07:38 AM

Offenbach wrote a delightful Wagner parody 'Symphonie de l'avenir'. Wagner never forgave him for this. Whether Offenbach's Jewish origin had anything to do with this, I do not know.

By the way it was Rossini who made the 'wonderful moments but awful quarter hours' comment about Wagner.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Don Firth
Date: 20 Sep 12 - 03:50 PM

I haven't seen any reviews of "The Ring" so far, Maggie, but then I haven't really looked yet.

But damn and blast!! KCTS Channel 9 is showing it on successive Sunday afternoons, and we're having guests this Sunday--actually, our monthly writers' group, in which several of us get together, read what we've written lately, and critique each other's stuff. I always look forward to these sessions, but it means I'll have to miss Die Walküre this Sunday!

I have discovered that bits and chunks of it are starting to show up on YouTube!! Not anywhere near as good as seeing the whole thing on our new 26" flat-panel high definition TV, but--maybe they'll redo it sometime. Or Tacoma's PBS affiliate, KBTC, will pick it up. They often show stuff a few weeks after KCTS does (most convenient if we have to miss a show we want to see!)

####

Frankly, I don't give diddly-squat whether Wagner was a German nationalist or not. That was a century and a half ago, and the world has gone through a lot of changes since then.

One of the biggest recurring problems in the world is people who insist on perpetuating feuds that started centuries ago!!

And oftentimes, those who are currently thirsting for blood don't even know what set the feud off in the first place!

Maybe this is evolution's way of culling the herd and improving the gene pool. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Sep 12 - 09:50 PM

Don, I recorded them but since you said you'd see it I hadn't done anything about converting the files to burn. I'll give that one a shot.

SRS

Subject: RE: Opera
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 21 Sep 12 - 03:27 PM

Don, most feuds of the past are safely forgotten. Those that continue to be fought do so because they still strike a nerve - sometimes a different one than originally. Facts of history are mixed with myths and legends, and then often projected onto new problems.

Theatre directors love the "Ring" because it leaves ample space for interpretation. Other operas have clearly-cut heroes and messages, which may not be found compatible with current ideas. "Lohengrin" has been mentioned in that context; but although Wagner clearly identifies with the title hero, he grants a point or two to the antagonists.

Opera goers have learned to live with problematic plots. Those however who only care for the music, miss the point. This applies even to Baroque operas, all the more for "auteuristic" dramas such as Wagner's. And yes, some aspects of the author's personality do matter, in my opinion. -

Present-day "musicals" represent a direct continuation of the opera tradition. Anyone who wants to criticize "opera", must be more specific. And certainly Wagner is not typical of the genre. Beginners who come from Mudcat can be recommended to listen to French 19th century operas first, or perhaps to the cherished "Bartered Bride" (though they may object against some clichés in that one).

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Jack Campin
Date: 21 Sep 12 - 03:37 PM

Beginners who come from Mudcat can be recommended to listen to French 19th century operas first, or perhaps to the cherished "Bartered Bride" (though they may object against some clichés in that one).

The first operas I got to like were 20th century ones - Bartok's "Bluebeard's Castle" and Stravinsky's "Oedipus Rex". Wagner's "Tristan" wasn't far behind. All of those have simple, archetypal storylines with close to zero historical or political connotations.

19th century French opera has never really connected with me. It just seems like a bunch of songs strung together.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 Sep 12 - 05:57 PM

An opera that's a good introduction to the genre is Puccini's La Bohème.

A group of "bohemians" living on the edge in Paris in the 1850s. Artist types. Rodolfo (tenor) is a poet and aspiring playwright, Marcello (baritone), Rodolfo's roommate, is a painter (CLICKY). They have two close buddies, Schaunard (baritone), a musician (although it's never made specific what instrument he plays or how he expresses his music), and Colline (bass), a philosopher, who wears a big coat with many pockets in which he carries a whole library of books.

Twentieth century equivalents, a group of beatniks or hippies.

Rodolfo meets Mimi (soprano), the girl who lives upstairs, and they immediately fall in love (CLICKY). She makes a meager living by sewing artificial flowers. But she's frail and a bit sickly. In the harsh Parisian winter, living in a cold and drafty garret is not good for Mimi. Never made specific, but the assumption is that Mimi suffers from "consumption" (tuberculosis).

Marcello also has a girl friend, Musetta (soprano). She's a chronic flirt, and this drives Marcello crazy. But she has a good heart.

Act II. The gang whoopin' it up at the Café Momus on Christmas eve (CLICKY). Mimi's and Rodolfo's first date.

And in the final act (Act IV), the guys clowning it up (CLICKY) before Musetta knocks on the door and tells them that Mimi is down below, too sick and weak to climb the stairs.

Spoiler alert! Just before the final curtain: Mimi dies in Rodolfo's arms (CLICKY).

No kings, pharaohs, great battles, no complicated plot. Just a small group of ordinary people, easy for anyone to relate to. Kind of a tear-jerker ending, but absolutely gorgeous music, and with a halfway decent cast of singers, it would be hard to screw it up.

It was the first opera I was introduced to, and the first opera I actually saw live, on stage. Highly recommended for those new to opera. Warm plunge.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Opera
From: GUEST,Jane Ann Liston
Date: 22 Sep 12 - 08:01 AM

As far as 'Boheme' is concerned I definitely prefer Musetta to Mimi. In fact, I prefer operetta to grand because in the latter, so many of the women are wimps, with 'victim' writ large upon their foreheads before they've sung a note! Usually they allow themselves to suffer at the hands of men: fathers, husbands, brothers, lovers. Operetta heroines are much less likely to put up with being bossed about, and are therefore better role models, plus more likely to let you leave the theatre with a smile. Who wants to be in tears at the end of an evening out?

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Sep 12 - 11:26 AM

The first one I remember as a child was Fidelio that was broadcast on television. I remember years later asking my mother about some concert we'd watched and I described a woman singing outside a castle (or prison) walls - she was amazed I remembered it at all because I'd been about 4 when it was broadcast.

For sheer fun I always enjoy productions of Die Fledermaus over the holidays, just like I always enjoy The Nutcracker ballet. There are others that for various reasons - great music, interesting libretto, whatever. In no particular order, Tosca, The Daughter of the Regiment (of course I saw the Beverly Sills broadcast), La Gazza Ladra (The Thieving Magpie), The Bartered Bride, Don Giovanni, Marriage of Figaro (etc. - basically, any Mozart operas). I won't catalog them, and what I've done is list charismatic well-known operas that I enjoy in broadcast on the radio or on television. I don't get to live often because of the cost, but given the means, I would attend more often. They're also probably performed more frequently, giving a chance to know them better.

SRS

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 22 Sep 12 - 12:08 PM

An opera I have thoroughly enjoyed is "Boris Godunov," Mussorgsky's masterpiece.
I have three versions on DVD, Kirov Opera of St. Petersburg, Bolshoi Opera, and the original 1869 version, De Nederlandse Opera, as staged in Barcelona. The first two were re-orchestrated by Rimsky-Korsakov. All three are excellent, but I would have liked to have heard Nesterenko of the Bolshoi production in the original as recorded in Barcelona. Robert Lloyd, Boris in the Kirov presentation, was a surprise to me, a non-Russian in a very Russian opera.

I have recently re-listened to "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme," not a real opera, but a musical comedy ballet with text by Molière and music by Lully, originally staged in 1670 and directed by Vincent Dumestre, Alpha 700 DVD. It tells the tale of a countryman who comes to the city and wants to learn how to be a "gentleman."

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Sep 12 - 01:51 PM

Not to take us off the subject, but that is a popular theme that turns up everywhere including MGM cartoons (like this.)

SRS

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Don Firth
Date: 22 Sep 12 - 03:31 PM

Well, Jane Ann, Stilly River Sage in the post just below yours mentioned an opera in which the lead is a very strong woman who takes charge of a nasty situation and wins! Fidelio, by Beethoven (his only opera).

The heroine's name is Leonora. Her husband is a political prisoner, along with a number of other people. She finds out where he is imprisoned, then dresses herself as a young man and applies for a job in the prison, telling them that his (her) name is "Fidelio" (Faithful). She manages to find her husband, free him and the rest of the prisoners, and bring those who imprisoned them to book.

Not bad!!

Of course, one thing you need to take into consideration in some opera plots is the status of single women, and women in general, in the cultural climate of the times in which the particular opera is supposed to be taking place. It's not that the women allow themselves to suffer at the hands of men (fathers, husbands, etc.), it's that, in the culture of the times, they have little choice. Nevertheless, within this cultural context, there are plenty of strong, take-charge women.

In Il Trovatore (The Troubadour), which takes place during a civil war in Spain in the sixteenth century, even though Manrico, the troubadour knight and his love, Leonora (another "Leonora"; the name sings well), wind up dead at the end, the gypsy woman, Azucena, wins, exacting a terrible revenge on the Count di Luna and his family, who had burned her mother at the stake as a witch, the incident that kicks off the plot in the first place.

And Brunhilda, in Wagner's "Ring Cycle" (CLICKY) is not exactly a shrinking violet.

Don Firth

P. S. And by the way, Q, ". . . a non-Russian in a very Russian opera." American bass-baritone George London, born in Canada and raised in Los Angeles was the first Canadian-American to be invited to sing Wotan in "The Ring," and a number of other Wagnerian roles in Germany (Bayreuth Wagner Festival, I think), and he was also invited to sing "Boris Godunov" in Russia a number of times.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 22 Sep 12 - 03:32 PM

Speaking of "La Boheme", I saw Baz Luhrmann's Broadway production,(which was wonderful) and can tell you that the difference between a Broadway musical and a Broadway opera is that he had three casts who alternated performances, because it was too demanding vocally for one cast to perform night after night.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Sep 12 - 03:48 PM

Not sure what you were linking to Don, but that doesn't look like Brunnhilde riding onto a pyre or any other exciting moment in the operas!

SRS

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Don Firth
Date: 22 Sep 12 - 04:23 PM

I "google imaged" my way through a bunch of images of Brunnhilde, but couldn't really find what I was looking for, so I picked that one, figuring she was taking a short breather between miscellaneous heroic deeds.

####

By the way, speaking of "Boris Godunov," when Seattle Opera did it some years back (lavish production!), Boris was sung by Giorgio Tozzi.

Despite the Italian name, Giorgio Tozzi was an American, born in Chicago, and was one of the basso mainstays of the Metropolitan Opera for many years.

If you saw the 1958 movie version of "South Pacific," you heard his voice. Rossano Brazzi played the role of Emile de Becque, but Brazzi's singing voice in such songs as "Some Enchanted Evening" was Giorgio Tozzi's voice dubbed in.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Opera
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 23 Sep 12 - 12:08 AM

In some comic operas, like Don Pasquale, women have a stronger role than in tragic operas. However, even in tragic operas the role of women is being reinterpreted. I suppose that has a lot to do with the directors and the singers, and perhaps some purists would object to the reinterpretations.

Thinking of opera directors and singers, before I started seeing Met Opera broadcasts at movie theaters two years ago, I had always imagined the performances to be rather wooden: singer on stage singing but not acting. I was delighted to find out that I was wrong. Many of the singers are also excellent actors. Friends who have long been opera fans have told me that more and more often acting abilities as well as singing abilities have been required in operas. I have also been amazed at the physical capabilities of the performers. They don't just stand on stage!

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Elmore
Date: 23 Sep 12 - 12:25 PM

My two favorite actors in opera are Placido Domingo and Natalie Dessay. Netrebko's pretty good too, and still a pleasure to look at.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 Sep 12 - 12:46 PM

Ah! Daniele De Niese! Luscious. (Forget I used that gender-incorrect word). Makes silly staging of some opera re-dos almost acceptable. Queen of Glyndebourne. Not the top singer in the tree, but does a pretty good job of her roles- and - I could go on......

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Fred Maslan
Date: 23 Sep 12 - 03:01 PM

Many years ago I bought season tickets to the opera, thinking it might be a "babe magnet" (I was very young). After attending nearly the whole series I had almost convinced myself I did not like Opera, when Beverly Sills came to town. I realized then it wasn't opera that was the problem. It was the local opera company! (Which by the way is much improved). I especially love the Russian operas, with there roots in the Russian acappella tradition.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Sep 12 - 03:33 PM

Hey! Wottheheck is going on? I just checked the "Brunnhilde" link in my post above and it's definitely NOT the one I intended to post. In fact, I've never seen the image before! This, apparently, is the one Stilly was commenting on.

I googled images of Brunnhilde and picked one showing her dressed in essentially Viking battle armor, with a spear in one hand, shield in the other, standing on a rocky promontory and surveying the scene below her. Most impressive!

Also, I checked the link on "Preview," and it was the right one, so I hit "Submit Message," then checked again, and it was still the right one.

This morning I took a look and the image is entirely different! Wotthehell hoppen!??

Anyway, lemme try it againd and see what happens:    CLICKY.

####

On the Classic Arts Showcase channel, I've seen a clip of Natalie Dessay singing the "Mad Scene" in Lucia di Lammermoor. WOW!!!

The opera is adapted from Sir Walter Scott's novel, "The Bride of Lammermoor," adapted to the opera stage by Gaetano Donizetti.

The Lammermoors and the Ravenscrofts have been feuding for generations.   One day, Lucy is walking in the woods nearby, and is attacked by a wild boar. A young man appears in the nick of time, kills the boar, saving her. It turns out the young man is Edgar of Ravenswood.

They continue meeting surreptitiously in the woods, and, of course, they fall in love (basic Romeo and Juliet plot). Edgar, who is very poor, tells her that he will go to France, recoup his wealth, then go to the head of the Lammermoor family, Lucy's brother Henry, make peace with him, and ask him for her hand in marriage—joining the two families and ending the feud.

While he is away, Lucy's brother Henry learns that she and Edgar have been seeing each other, and intercepts Edgar's letters to Lucy. Lucy, not hearing from him, is in despair, afraid that he has abandoned her.

In the meantime, the Lammermoor family is having financial problems of its own, so Henry arranges to have Lucy married to the wealthy Lord Arthur Bucklaw. Lucy refuses, but under heavy pressure from Henry, including his lying to her and telling her that he has heard that Edgar has married someone else, the miserable Lucy agrees to Henry's demands, not caring what happens to her at this point.

A few moments after the wedding contract is signed by both Lord Arthur and Lucy, in bursts Edgar, just back from France (the famous "sextet" takes place at this point). Edgar, thinking Lucy has betrayed him, curses her. He and Henry agree to meet the following morning for a duel and end the feud forever, one way or another, then he stalks out, furious and bewildered. Lord Arthur stands there with a finger up his nose, wondering what the hell is going on. And Lucy is starting to come unglued!

In the next scene, Arthur and Lucy have adjourned to their chamber and the wedding party is having a jolly good time, when a maid appears and announces to the party that Lucy has just killed Lord Arthur Bucklaw with a dagger. As the crowd stands around with their mouths open, Lucy appears at the top of the stairs with blood stains—Arthur's—all over her wedding dress.

CLICKY.

WARNING. This scene lasts about twenty minutes. But the singer is the aforementioned French coloratura soprano, Natalie Dessay.

I have seen this opera a couple of times on television and once live at Seattle Opera, and Natalie Dessay's "Mad Scene" is the best I've seen, both singing and acting.

[The only thing I DON'T like about this rendition is the tendency on the part of some opera directors to "update" the staging and costumes of operas set in historical eras. As I recall, in the Seattle Opera production, the men were wearing kilts. Most appropriate.]

Some decades back, I saw "Lucia" on television with the great soprano Joan Sutherland singing the role. The voice was great—but Dame Joan just STOOD there for the whole thing, essentially motionless, with her hands clasped like a little choir girl, and sang straight to the audience.

In addition to having a first class singing voice, Natalie Dessay is a fantastic actress!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Jack Campin
Date: 23 Sep 12 - 05:34 PM

[The only thing I DON'T like about this rendition is the tendency on the part of some opera directors to "update" the staging and costumes of operas set in historical eras. As I recall, in the Seattle Opera production, the men were wearing kilts. Most appropriate.]

Kilts are no more appropriate for the early-modern Scottish Lowlands than they are for the Tokyo subway.

The Lammermuirs are a few miles from where I live and I can get there on a local bus. I've never seen anyone on those buses in a kilt and I wouldn't have been any more likely to if that bus had been running in Donizetti's time or in the period Scott's novel is set.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Sep 12 - 06:16 PM

Post from yesterday apparently didn't take - I have been wondering if various local opera companies get a bump from the presentation of something like the Ring Cycle - an uptick in opera interest?

The new photo makes a lot more sense, Don!

SRS

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Sep 12 - 06:24 PM

Surely I can't be the only bugger reading this thread who's noticed that Mozart isn't even getting a look in. Dammit, most operas are based on stupid stories, none more so than Wagner's, and Mozart's are no exception. But the music is utterly sublime. The guy knew how to entertain, edify and enthrall, all in the same music. Best of the lot by a long chalk, I reckon!

Subject: RE: Opera
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 23 Sep 12 - 07:52 PM

Don, that is a great clip, and I saw that at the movie theater. For anyone who doesn't want to watch the whole 20 minutes, watch the first four as Dessay rolls herself down the bottom three steps. Ouch! And then she continues to sing and act. I can't imagine doing that once, let alone performance after performance.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Sep 12 - 08:31 PM

Mebbe so, Jack, but for the purposes of creating a sort of Scottish "ambiance," kilts are a lot more appropriate than tuxedos, even if NEITHER are historically accurate.

####

Mozart? Right you are, Steve!

Here's a concert presentation of the love (seduction) duet between Don Giovanni (Italian for "Don Juan") and Zerlina, a highly impressionable little country girl, sung by hunky Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky and the lovely American soprano Renée Fleming. CLICKY. I get a kick out of the way, even in a concert situation, he starts to drag her off the stage to look for a convenient haystack.

Renée Fleming once commented in an interview that when doing love scenes and seduction scenes with Hvorostovsky, she doesn't have to act, panted a bit, and fanned herself with her hand.

Early in the opera, Don Giovanni seduces the daughter of the Commendatore. The Commendatore rushes in, sword in hand, and Giovanni kills him. Later, mockingly, Giovanni invites a statue of the Commentatore to dinner.

Conceive his surprise when the statue arrives at the appointed time! And drags the unrepentant Don Giovanni down to Hell! CLICKY. (Thomas Ramey, baritone and Kurt Moll, bass).

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 Sep 12 - 09:11 PM

Handel produced operas by the score, much good music but his plots often were fluff.
Vivaldi was prolific with operatic scores; they are only beginning to be appreciated.
So many composers, so many scores. One could listen continuously for a lifetime. Many have yet to be recorded.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Jack Campin
Date: 24 Sep 12 - 06:48 AM

for the purposes of creating a sort of Scottish "ambiance," kilts are a lot more appropriate than tuxedos, even if NEITHER are historically accurate.

A lot of Scots find it pretty offensive to have their history Bravehearted up like that.

There aren't many operas set in the early US. One is Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera, set in colonial Boston around 1700. A similar approach to historical authenticity would be to have all the cast in backwards baseball caps, saggy jeans, gold chains, and designer sunglasses.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 24 Sep 12 - 12:47 PM

Jack, unfortunately the subtleties of modern regietheater seem to escape you. The kilts are of course an ironic comment on the clichés about Scotland (or Scottland) held by the degenerated bourgeoisie. Actually, the director received a phone call "We Muslims in opera are cartoons in nightgowns, as in Entführung aus dem Serail and L'italiana in Algeri. If you not also show Scots in kilts, we will bomb!"

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Stringsinger
Date: 24 Sep 12 - 03:29 PM

Thank you Kat.

Two of the best operas that don't have creaky librettos or plots are:

Otello by Giuseppe Verde and Boito (librettist)

The Counsel and Amahl and the Night Visitor by Gian Carlo Menotti.

Maybe The Magic Flute could be placed in this category (an afterthought)

There may be more that have dramatic credibility but not too many.

I might include Porgy and Bess as well as Sweeney Todd as important operas
with engaging librettos.

One could argue that the American Musical has made strides in combining sincere drama with music, for example West Side Story.

Opera is nevertheless highly entertaining if 1. you see it live and 2. if you have a way of following the text.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Don Firth
Date: 24 Sep 12 - 04:53 PM

Jack, Lucia di Lammermoor, based on a novel by Sir Walter Scott, is set in Scotland. How would you prefer that this information be conveyed to the audience? Have the stage director interrupt the action and have a bagpipe and drum band march across the stage from time to time?

Opera is full of stereotypes—of necessity. In Puccini's La Fanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West) we have people singing in Italian, but supposed to be gold miners and cowboys. Many of them are wearing Stetsons and spurs on their boots. And when the lead tenor first appears, he walks in (Stetson, spurs, six-guns on his hips) and sings "Sono Dick Johnson di Sacremento." Got quite a laugh when the opera was first performed in the United States.

And in Puccini's Madama Butterfly, the lead tenor portrays an American naval officer, Lt. Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, on leave in Japan. He turns out to be a total jerk, spurring this young naive young Japanese woman, who thought he was sincere and not just out for a quick lay, to commit ritual suicide. He led hear to believe they were married, but to him, she was just a pleasant diversion while he was on leave.

Should I, as an American, be offended by the use of these stereotypes?

I can see the dramatic necessity of conveying an essential piece of information to an audience by the simple device of a stereotype. And I don't see that THESE PARTICULAR stereotypes are at all offensive, save to someone who is looking to be offended.

####

Re: the Boston setting of "The Masked Ball."

Originally, Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera was based on a play having to do with the 1792 assassination of Sweden's King Gustave III.

But as per my post above of 14 Sep. 12 – 5:46 p.m., the authorities kept a close watch on the themes of Verdi's works and censored his operas on more than one occasion.

And this was one of those occasions. An opera in which a monarch was assassinated might just give people, especially oppressed people (and Italy was under the Austrian thumb at the time) ideas—and this was unacceptable! So they demanded that Verdi either pull the opera or change it.

If the opera dealt with the assassination of a mere governor in the wilds of far-off America, this was more or less acceptable to the almighty authorities. But a European king? Never!! So, gnashing his teeth, Verdi made the demanded changes

But—he kept the original! And the original with King Gustave III as the assassinated party is the way most opera companies do the opera now. NOT the "Boston version."

A similar thing happened with Verdi's Rigoletto. The story deals with the lecherous young Duke of Mantua (tenor) who is out to seduce anything in skirts. In the course of events, the duke manages to seduce, or rape, the innocent daughter of his hunchbacked jester, Rigoletto. Rigoletto then plots the death of the Duke, but the plot goes horribly wrong.

Originally, the opera was based on the play Le Roi S'Amuse (The King Amuses Himself) by Victor Hugo, and the King in question was Francis I of France. Once again, the Austrian authorities had a hissy-fit. The opera showed a monarch in a bad light, and there was also the assassination plot. They demanded that Verdi either pull the opera or changed it. So once again, spitting sparks, Verdi morphed the French king into the non-existent Duke of Mantua, and one of Verdi's best known operas was allowed to live.

And one of the best known tenor arias in opera. The Duke singing "La Donna é Mobile" (Women are Fickle). Ha! Look who's talking!!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Don Firth
Date: 24 Sep 12 - 05:05 PM

FYI:

The kilt is a knee-length garment with pleats at the rear, originating in the traditional dress of men and boys in the Scottish Highlands of the 16th century. Since the 19th century it has become associated with the wider culture of Scotland in general, or with Celtic (and more specifically Gaelic) heritage even more broadly. It is most often made of woollen cloth in a tartan pattern.

Although the kilt was most often worn on formal occasions, and at Highland games and sports events, it has also been adapted as an item of fashionable informal male clothing in recent years, returning to its roots as an everyday garment.

Where you see most of the kilts in a traditional staging of Lucia di Lammermoor is in the scene in which everyone is gathered for the wedding of Lucia and Lord Arturo.

A formal occasion, where, historically, kilts were traditionally worn.

So what's the big deal?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Jack Campin
Date: 24 Sep 12 - 05:24 PM

Gustav III was seen in the political terms of the day as a progressive, maybe even a radical. His assassination was organized by the reactionary aristocratic elite.

Now which of the world's national leaders is currently getting the most assassination threats from people of similar disposition?

That American setting doesn't look so silly after all.


Lucia di Lammermoor, based on a novel by Sir Walter Scott, is set in Scotland. How would you prefer that this information be conveyed to the audience?

Tell them in the programme note. Fix a few stag antlers on the wall. It isn't all that important to the action anyway. Does anybody code the national setting of Tosca by having people walk across the stage at the start carrying panfuls of pasta?

Wikipedia gives a detailed biography of the actual family behind the story:

Lord Stair

They were lifelong enemies of everything to do with Highland culture and politics (as would anybody have been who'd lived through what the Highlanders did to Galloway). They would have seen association with tartan symbolism as a deadly insult, like painting Abraham Lincoln in a Klan outfit.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Sep 12 - 05:54 PM

Steve, a while back I posted . . ., Don Giovanni, Marriage of Figaro (etc. - basically, any Mozart operas). . . - not wanting to list all of them because it would run on. I agree, they're first rate.

Never expected a thread to get hot and bothered about the length (or the presence of) a man's kilt. :)

Does any of you remember one of the programs that Victor Borge used to tour with? He would have a couple of plants in the audience for skits and he had a soprano with him to torture, usually with Caro Nome from Rigoletto. "Don't lean on the piano! You'll dent it!"

SRS

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Jack Campin
Date: 24 Sep 12 - 06:15 PM

It looks like some American opera companies get it right:

San Diego production of Lucia, Peter Hall designs

Spot on for 17th century Scottish aristocratic dress. There are other photos of this production around the web. Looks great. And there is a dramatic point to this. Scott knew those characters well. They were fond of the same kind of ostentatious personal display that aristocrats all over Europe went in for. It's well documented in their portraits. Scott's novel is an arranged-marriage story, about a conflict between love and familial wealth and power; displaying that wealth and power in their fashion sense underlines the point. The designers of the 19th century productions got this right, and dressing the cast up in an austere nationalist uniform gets it entirely wrong.

Meanwhile I found a review page on an English National Opera production that has one of the male leads in a short kilt of the modern type that did not exist anywhere at the period when the story is set. I have yet to be impressed by anything ENO has ever done; they seem extraordinarily fond of fucking things up with gratuitous modernist anachronisms.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Sep 12 - 06:39 PM

From your same link, but a page earlier, this looks like what I would imagine from the various period books I've read. Knee-length breeches with stockings, or long pants, and kilts on occasions, not all of the time.

SRS

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Don Firth
Date: 24 Sep 12 - 06:51 PM

From the article:

Sir Walter Scott took the plot of his Bride of Lammermoor from this incident, but he disclaimed any intention of making Lord Stair the basis for Sir William Ashton.

Jack, I agree that the photo you linked to is a more appropriate depiction of the period being portrayed, and is the way I have usually seen the production. But—you're going to have to explain to me why the wearing of kilts by some of the cast members in some productions of Lucia do Lammermoor offensive to Scots.

It's a work of FICTION, Jack!

And Un Ballo in Maschera, once again, although the idea for the plot of the play from which Verdi got his idea for the opera was derived from an actual incident, in the opera itself, the assassination plot was hatched up by Count Anckarström, who is under the impression that the King and his wife, Amelia, are having an affair.

Again, A WORK OF FICTION.

What does today's political climate have to do with it?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Sep 12 - 07:14 PM

Very little, I hope. This thread is about opera!

When I was a kid I remember discovering the MGM musicals, and others, but MGM were the biggest. And Kathryn Grayson, Jeannette McDonald, Nelson Eddy, Howard Keel, Ann Blythe, Jane Powell, and others. I always thought they had the voices for opera, but I seem to recall my mother telling me that they had the looks to make it in the movies and made a lot more money. Does that theory work for the rest of you? Did they have the chops for opera if they so choose? I know there were some crossover folks, between stage and film and opera, but I don't know if any in this group named were part of that group. (John Raitt, Alan Jones, Paul Robeson, I know they were up to the rigors of opera.)

SRS

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Jack Campin
Date: 24 Sep 12 - 07:25 PM

The costumes in that picture look fine - but no kilts, ever. The short kilt hadn't been invented, and a great kilt would have got you the same reception on the Dalrymples' turf as a burka at a Republican convention.

I presume this is the first Earl of Stair in military campaign garb:

flickr page

and here he is trying to make an impression:

artfund image

Stair managed to combine having the sort of dysfunctional family people write operas about with being the leading legal theorist in Scottish history and a major political figure, among other things being largely responsible for the Massacre of Glencoe and partly for the Treaty of Union. He was a one-off. And could probably have had you murdered for suggesting he ever wore a kilt.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 24 Sep 12 - 09:37 PM

In the Met's production of Lucia in which Natalie sang, I remember that there were men dressed in tartan fabrics in an early scene, but I don't remember any kilts. There were some big, lovely dogs, too, probably Scottish deerhounds.

The aforementioned Un Ballo in Maschera is included in the schedule of HD broadcasts this season. Anna Netrebko will perform in it. Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito is also included. Don Giovanni was included last year.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 24 Sep 12 - 09:57 PM

"Khovanshchina" is another Russian opera by Mussorgsky, completed by Rimsky-Korsakov.
It is set in the time of Peter the Great, about the struggle for power between the old order and the new. Two great Russian bassos sing the roles of the "Old Believer" and Prince Khovansky, who represents the new; Nesterenko and Vedernikov, resp. Intrigue galore, it kept my interest.

I enjoyed "The Cunning Little Vixen" by Leos Janacek, which is based on a serialized comic novella. Much of the comedy is retained, but the composer, who was 70 when he wrote it, reflects on the cycle of life and death. Thomas Allen plays the role of a Forester, and Eva Jenis the Vixen.
The staging, designed by Bob Crowley, is brightly colored and eye-catching, but the simplicity and essential innocence of the tale is kept. Conducted by Charles Mackerras, Orchestra of Paris, Choeur du Chatelet, Chatelet Theatre Musical of Paris. I highly recommend this DVD (there are other films available).

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 24 Sep 12 - 10:07 PM

At the start of this thread, SRS linked the Wikipedia write-up on the Ring Cycle.
The story and history of many operas are summarized in Wiki; a quick source of information.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: GUEST,olddude
Date: 24 Sep 12 - 10:19 PM

by far the most complex and beautiful music ever written is Opera
love it ...

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Elmore
Date: 25 Sep 12 - 10:56 AM

I'm currently taking a class for old geezers at a local college entitled "Brush up Your Shakespeare." It consists of 5 operas based on plays by Shakespeare. As mentioned by someone earlier, Verdi's Otello is exquisite. However, the instructor says that later in the term we're going to view a version of Hamlet with a happy ending. Can't wait for that.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Stringsinger
Date: 25 Sep 12 - 04:41 PM

There was a production of Aida presented where they used live elephants onstage.
During one dramatic moment, one of the elephants pooped onstage prompting the comment, "A critic!"

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 26 Sep 12 - 12:36 PM

The French label Fra Musica has some interesting opera DVD's in their catalogue.
Lully, both Armide (Theatre des Champs Elyases and Atys (Opera comique), by Lully, Les Arts Florissants and William Christie performing the music for both French opera companies. Two cds each.

These will seriously deflate my budget, since they are about $40 each.

Others offered by Fra Musica on DVD are Carmen, music by Gardiner; Mirelle (Gounod), orchestra directed by Marc Minkowski, Opera National de Paris, Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, Christie and Opera comique (London!); Katia Kabanova (Janacek) performed at Teatro Real (Madrid), conductor Belohlavek, production by Robert Carsen.

Seriously deflate? Leave only a dead moth and some dust.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Sep 12 - 11:44 AM

Several years ago I had the great good fortune to stumble upon a bin full of classical CDs, all great labels, at a garage sale run by a local church. This was from someone's estate, and I ended up getting the entire bin (300+ discs) because the woman running it was convinced no one would by classical - as I looked at it she walked up and said "I'll never sell those. $20 and the bin is yours." I handed over the bill, and have been working my way through listening to this collection ever since. Based upon the selections, I think he must have taught, using various performances of the same works as examples, but his collection included a lot of secular works, including opera. I've been slow to move into that part of the collection, but I think I'll do a little research on each one then give them a listen. I thought of this because there are a few Fra Musica discs in there.

SRS

Subject: RE: Opera
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 05 Nov 12 - 07:08 PM

The first of the Fall 2012, Metropolitan Opera Encore broadcasts at my local cinema will be L'Elisir D'Amore with Anna Netrebko. It will be on Wednesday evening, November 7. I have my ticket, but a storm is moving in and my car is making a whining noise. (I've scheduled a service appointment on Thursday and won't drive much between now and then.) I hope I get to the opera and back home again! While seeing an opera on a big screen can't duplicate the experience of seeing it live, one of the benefits of seeing it this way is that during intermission you see interviews with performers and other people involved in the production as well as seeing parts of the set changes.

On Sunday, CBS Sunday Morning did a segment on the Live in HD Metropolitan Opera broadcasts. You should be able to see it here, probably after an advertisement. http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50134467n&tag=contentMain;contentBody

You can then look at a web extra about The Tempest. http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50134460n&tag=contentMain;contentBody

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Nov 12 - 11:04 PM

It took a little poking around to find the list, but there are actually five theaters in this county that are participating! Thanks for the heads-up!

SRS

Subject: RE: Opera
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 06 Nov 12 - 09:30 PM

The theater I go to doesn't advertise them. I found out because I often heard people at my local Y and library book club talking about seeing the operas, so one day I asked them where. I don't know why they are not advertised. I can only get information at the theater or on their website.