Opera

Subject: Opera
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Sep 12 - 10:25 PM

I figure there probably isn't an appetite for a lot of opera threads, but I'm starting this one because this week on PBS in the U.S. they are playing the full Der Ring des Nibelungen. All four operas, after the introductory program tonight. It's a new and though somewhat tricky with the moving set, stunning performance.

Great Performances Wagner episodes

Anna Russell's take on the Ring Cycle

Wikipedia summary of the operas and librettos

SRS

Subject: RE: Opera
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 12:04 AM

Wonderful! My brother got to see the Ring Cycle, in Bayreuth. It was an incredible experience.

Thanks!

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Elmore
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 10:03 AM

I take classes for old geezers , including opera,at a local university. I've avoided Wagner because of his antisemitism.Viewed the entire ring cycle,and,despite traces of antisemitism found it an amazing work. Looking forward to the new production on PBS.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 10:52 AM

Ilike Anna Russells version of the Ring better than I like Wagners..

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Elmore
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 11:08 AM

Anna's version certainly has more laughs.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 11:11 AM

I can heartily recommend ' A Night At The Opera ' by the Marx Brothers.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 11:31 AM

Wagner was a man of his times and the anti-Semitism was part of the culture of his class. You can't make it go away from his oeuvre, but you can understand that it is there. Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice is still performed despite the characterization of Shylock. We understand, we know better, and we move on and understand the character is now an artifact only.

SRS

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Stringsinger
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 01:39 PM

Wagner's Ring is a long time to sit in a chair. He was the master of orchestration,
even designing Wagnerian horns for his work. It was unfortunate that Hitler used Wagner's work as part of his propaganda campaign.

This is some of the most difficult music for a singer; they have to be musical athletes
to get through the Ring.

Bayreuth would be the place to see it. It's a pity that Adolphe Appia, director and set designer was not able to work at Bayreuth because of Cosima Wagner, (I think she was Franz Lizt's daugher.) She wielded a heavy hand of power at Bayreuth.

Rudolph Bing has written about this in his book. Also Appia, himself.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Elmore
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 01:47 PM

SRS: I know, I know. It's an emotional rather than an intellectual issue with me. I'm old enough to know better. If it's not a problem for James Levine, who am I to worry? Thanks for the information on the recent production. Regards, Elmore.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 02:02 PM

I tend to respect Wagner rather more than I actually enjoy him. Have always liked the following remark:


"Wagner's music is better than it sounds."
    Edgar Wilson Nye,
    US humorist (1850 - 1896)
quoted in Mark Twain's Autobiography, 1924

Subject: RE: Opera
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 02:09 PM

Anna Russell was brill. My brother also saw her, live, in her earlier days. Brought home an LP which had us all in stitches.

Strinsinger/Frank! Nice to *see* you back! I may be showing my bro's age, but not only was it Bayreuth, it was also Kirsten Flagstad!

My brother has finished an epic opera and is now entering it into his PC, so we have a couple of sound files I will get up soon. He's now starting the full orchestration. Libretto, stage directions, etc. as well as the music, all by him. I am proud of him.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 02:15 PM

I find opera to be the most hideous and pretentious form of music.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 02:39 PM

Who cares, Bonzo? What is this compulsion of yours to click on topics that don't interest you, just for the odd pleasure of telling us all so, as if we might give a flying one? Are you seeing anybody about it?

~M~

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 02:58 PM

For the first time ever I agree 100% with Bonzo3legs, performances are priced to keep out ' the riff raff '

Dave H

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Elmore
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 03:53 PM

I believe performances are priced to mount (mount?) the lavish productions. I can't afford to pay those prices. However, several times a year the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts "live" performances to selected theaters throughout the country for twenty something bucks.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 04:22 PM

Most opera singers sound so manufactured to my ears; they appear to be twisting their vocal chords in an attempt to produce sounds that have no connection to the real world.
And, female opera singers sound so unfeminine, and definitely unsexy ... even Katherine Jenkins!

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Elmore
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 04:32 PM

How about the sublime Anna Netrebko?

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Don Firth
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 05:09 PM

Thanks for the heads-up, Maggie!

I checked our local listings and came up madder than a boiled owl!

Both of our local PBS affiliates, KCTS in Seattle and KBTC in Tacoma are in the middle of their all-too-frequent beg-a-thons, which, within recent years, seem to occur every couple of months and go on for WEEKS! Current fare consists of two hours of Elvis Presley singing gospel songs, an Ed Sullivan Show retrospective, a guitarist who does his damnedest to play flamenco with a PICK while backed by drums and string bass, and, I swear, the fortieth showing of "Voice of an Angel," little Jackie Evancho, who is a lovely child and who indeed sings like an angel, and who is being grossly exploited just the way Charlotte Church was (this kind of callous exploitation that all too often burns out potentially great talent before it has a chance to mature causeth me to lament loudly and rend my garments!), plus two-hour lectures on how to keep your brain healthy well into your nineties, along with frequent breaks offering you premiums for contributing, including a DVD of the program you are watching, which has been broadcast three times within the past two weeks!!

Which is why, instead of watching television lately, Barbara and I have been watching selected movies that we get from NetFlix and the Seattle Public Library.

Looking at the upcoming schedules of both stations—no Wagner in evidence!!

Seattle Opera put itself on the international map a few decades back when general manager Speight Jenkins stuck his neck out and mounted a local Wagner Festival with all four of the Ring operas. All four operas within a week! Complete with a mix of internationally known opera stars and some very good local talent (Babara Coffin, with whom I went to high school, was one of the Valkyries). Barbara (my Barbara) and I took in all four operas. The singing was great and the staging was spectacular! The four operas lasted a total of twenty hours! After four evenings, we were rump-sprung from sitting, but our ears were all a-glow!

The response was far greater than anybody anticipated. People came from all over the country—and from as far away as Australia—to take in Seattle Opera's Wagner Festival. And they're still running it every couple of years, I think, along with their regular schedule of five different opera productions per year (each opera given about five times over a couple of week period).

If this new Ring Cycle doesn't show up on our local PBS affiliates' schedules right soon, I'm liable to write a few letters!!!

Don (snarl!!) Firth

P. S. Bonzo3legs, take a listen to the tenor-baritone duet au fond du temple saint from "The Pearl Fishers," by George Bizet (who also wrote "Carmen") and try to tell me that opera is "hideous and pretentious." (Concert presentation: CLICKY)).

Or French soprano Natalie Dessay doing a bravura job of singing "Olympia's Song" from Offenbach's "Tales of Hoffmann. Dessay is portraying Olympia, a wind-up singing and dancing doll built by the toy maker Copelius, whom Hoffmann, for some reason, thinks is a real woman and he falls in love with her! I've seen Natalie Dessay in a number of performances, and although she can by very serious when the role calls for it, she has a real flair for comedy. (CLICKY #2).

Or Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky singing "Eri Tu?" from Verdi's "The Masked Ball," when his character thinks his wife and his best friend are having an affair. Hvorostovsky's voice is like dark chocolate! (CLICKY #3).

Wagner's "Ring of the Nibelungs" is based on Norse Sagas. It's folklore!

In fact, for those who say that opera plots are "stupid," I would invite them to take a good look at the plots of their favorite ballads! I would go so far as to say that ballads are "mini-operas" and operas are "ballads on steroids."

Rarely do the composers actually write the plots of their operas. They take them from plays or novels, get a "librettist" to set the work into some manner of verse to which music can be written, then they set about actually writing the opera. "Carmen" came from a novel by Prosper Merimee. "Rigoletto" was a novel first, by Victor Hugo. "Il Trovatore" (the Troubadour) was written by a Spanish playwright and made into an opera by Giuseppe Verdi. "Lucia di Lammermoor" was based on Sir Walter Scott's "The Bride of Lammermoor." In some productions, the male members of the cast are running around on the stage in kilts.

And Elmore is right. An opera is a multi-media production. It's like paying to put on a play, complete with costumes and sets, plus not just actors, but people who can sing, and sing very well, often in foreign languages, and with voices big enough to make themselves heard over a full symphony orchestra, plus a whole symphony orchestra! Mounting an opera production is a mighty costly affair. Opera companies keep the ticket prices as low as they dare, because they WANT people to come to their productions.

And for each opera they put on, Seattle Opera manages to pack a 2,500 seat opera house for five nights running. The tickets are pricy, yes, but if they are to stay in business at all, much less make a profit, opera companies are pretty marginal operations. The idea that they price tickets high to keep opera "elitist," is just plain dumb!

(Where the hell do people get some of the nitwit ideas they get?)

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 05:14 PM

I don't mind a bit of Cav and Pag - or some Puccini. And I quite like Carmen. But I'm not an addict.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 06:08 PM

This thread is about opera. It isn't about the people who don't like it or the reasons they think it sucks.

Don, I'm going to try recording each night and if they turn out well I'll burn them to disks and send you copies.

SRS

Subject: RE: Opera
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 06:15 PM

Oh Gawd another tin eared comment about opera singers - the operatic style is perfectly natural for Italians - Welsh and other nationalities with a tradition of singing Perhaps we should get some opera singers ie to comment on the tuneless rubbish served up by some called folk singers.

Opera btw covers over 400 years of musical tradition and many different styles

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Don Firth
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 06:18 PM

Bless you, Maggie!!

Re:   ". . . twisting their vocal chords in an attempt to produce sounds that have no connection to the real world."

Not everyone can be an opera singer. First, a person has to be born with a potential for a pretty big voice (often needing to be heard over a full symphony orchestra, remember). Then, they have to learn how to use that voice in the most efficient way possible. Good, solid breath support (I've heard many folkies whose breath support is practically non-existent), and placement, which is a matter of learning to use the body's natural resonators, which requires some serious concentration early on, until it becomes "second nature."

And here, too, many folkies haven't a clue as to matters of placement. You can hear it especially when they try to sing loud. It's a BLAT rather than a musical sounding tone. Rock singers are especially prone to this.

And without good breath support and good placement, one runs the risk of doing permanent damage to one's vocal cords, especially if one sings a lot. Or tries to sing VERY LOUD. Or tries to sing in a range which their voice doesn't like. All of these things I've heard most folkies do.

And believe me, if you sing regularly, say off and on for five hours an evening, three evenings a week, or sing in a large auditorium with no amplification, you can burn your voice out very quickly if you are not using it efficiently.

I took voice lessons early on—even before I got interested in folk music—so I learned how to use breath support and correct placement. But I don't sound much like an opera singer. Nevertheless, I'm eighty-one years old and my singing voice is still strong and healthy.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Opera
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 06:27 PM

I don't remember anyone dissing opera when we had this wonderful thread about BEER'S NEPHEW singing on Canada's Got Talent.

Don, thanks for the links.

Here's one in English, The Ballad of Baby Doe, based on real people and events in Leadville, Colorado in the late 1880s. It is a delightful opera. Central City Opera put it on this summer. This recording and video is not the best, but you get the idea. The whole opera is available from that link. The LPs I have of it feature Beverly Sills as Baby Doe, recorded in the 50s.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 10:25 PM

The series that has started tonight is wonderful and was filmed in late 2010. Perhaps it has been broadcast before, here or elsewhere, but if so, I missed it. I'm enjoying it now.

Don, you forgot that Opera companies also have dancers on some occasions. My dad sent me money for my birthday the first year I was living in New York City and told me not to use it for subway tokens or groceries, I was to do something I couldn't otherwise afford. So I bought a ticket on the grand tier to the gala performance of Smetana's The Bartered Bride. A comic opera with everything Don listed PLUS dancers. :)

My roommate went along, she was able to get a much less expensive ticket in the nosebleed seats. We were dressed up more than usual, and as I paused to shift my long skirt as we walked up the stairs to the mezzanine, Kris bumped into me and I in turn bumped into an older man standing with a few others on the stairs.

At that moment people started applauding. I looked down at the entering crowds and they were looking up. I looked up at the various balconies above us and they were looking down. And then I looked at the man I'd just walked into. It was Rudolf Bing. The next day I called mom and dad and told them "Guess who I ran into!"

SRS

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 11:14 PM

The performances are for sale on DVD from the Met.

SRS

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 11:22 PM

My younger brother likes opera, so I bet he's recording this.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 11:46 PM

SRS, thank you for letting me know about PBS broadcasting The Ring Cycle. I was able to see the first two operas in HD at a movie theatre but could not see the last two operas. I have to say that I found the set to be distracting. I was always wondering how it would be twisted and turned next.

Elmore, I think Anna Netrebko is a delight. I also like Natalie Dessay and several others.

For anyone who thinks opera is too expensive, you might see if they are shown in HD in any movie theater near you. They are shown in many countries, not just the US. A link to that info is here. Even though it says US, on that page there are places to click for info for Canada and other countries. I usually go to the "Encores" which cost less than the "live" broadcasts. And yes, there are subtitles--even for the operas sung in English!
http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/liveinhd/unitedstates.aspx

The "Encores" cost about as much as most folk music concerts where I live. If that's too expensive, many are shown on PBS. In fact PBS designated a recent weekend as Opera Bash and showed many of the operas I had seen during the last few years. However, the reason I pay to see them at the movie theater is because when I watch at home I am too easily distracted. Also, I have a very small-screen TV and the subtitles are hard to read unless I sit very close to it.

Also you can see some operas for free on DVDs that most libraries own. Those are often not recent productions, library budgets being what they are.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: scouse
Date: 12 Sep 12 - 05:35 AM

And there's beautiful Women as well in opera Observe.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf42IP__ipw.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Sep 12 - 10:54 AM

Singers come in all weights and sizes. Since I hear opera most often on the radio (Saturday afternoons are standard for the Metropolitan Opera and other company broadcasts) I have to say that they're all handsome/beautiful!

Even if I don't know the story or get the words, there's something very satisfying in working around the house or out in the garage or greenhouse (I have radios everywhere) and letting the Saturday opera drift through the house and yard. I can't ever answer the opera quiz, but I'm interested in the answers.

SRS

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Newport Boy
Date: 12 Sep 12 - 01:12 PM

Re the comment about seat prices for opera - don't take Covent Garden or the Met as typical. Welsh National Opera are among the best companies and they have one of the very best theatres at Wales Millennium Centre. Tickets for the current production of La Boheme are priced at £5 to £40. I've been to folk concerts with higher prices, and I wish I could watch a Welsh Rugby International for £40!

We belong to an opera group, watching DVD on a big screen. Our programme for this year includes Puccini, Mozart, Jancek, Gershwin, Mascagni, Ravel, Verdi, Donizetti, Giordano & Mussorgsky (Boris Godunov - one of my favourites).

BTW, I liken Wagner to a poor fruit cake - you have to plough through a lot of stodge to find the sultanas!

Phil

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 12 Sep 12 - 03:13 PM

Thanks for the DVD link. I like to sit back and watch at my own pace, especially if the work is a long one.

The Ring set design by Robert Lepage, the Canadian Cirque du Soleil director, and his team. The set weighs in at 45 tons ("Valhalla Machine).". Design and modeling took place at their Québec City Studios.

It will be interesting to see the supporting singers and dancers actually flying (in harness).

I collect mostly baroque opera, and have dvds of most of the available Handel, Montiverdi, Vivaldi, Lully, et al., but I probably will buy this new Ring.

The Santa Fe Opera (http://www.santafeopera.org) has an imaginative building, open on two sides; one can watch the sun set over the Jemez and rolling country to the west if one seats early. The other side has large wind screens that are adjustable.
The seat backs have a small screen on which one can follow the libreto, in English or the original language.
The productions (in the summer) usually include a couple of old favorites, plus ones that are not well-known.
If one is able to attend the Santa Fe Opera, tickets must be obtained well in advance; people come from many areas to the country to experience the productions.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Don Firth
Date: 12 Sep 12 - 04:01 PM

Right, Maggie, when I was enumerating the factors that make the production costs of an opera pretty expensive, I missed that it often calls for dancers. A lot of French audiences early on didn't feel that an opera was complete unless it had a dance sequence in it. "Carmen," for example, often has a flamenco dance sequence in the act that takes place in Lillas Pastia's taverna, where smugglers and gypsies hung out.

This slopped over into Italian opera as well, partly because Italian opera composers wanted to be sure that their operas went over well in Paris as well as Milan. Hence, the dance sequence in the first act of "La Traviata," the Triumphal March followed by the Egyptian dance in "Aida," and so on. The trick was working the dance sequence into the plot so it seemed natural.

There are a couple of stories about Anna Netrebko and Natalie Dessay that are kinda cute:

The story goes that at a fairly tender age, Anna Netrebko was determined to be an opera singer. While taking lessons and studying up a storm at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, she felt she absolutely had to be IN an opera house, to soak up the ambiance. So at the age of 20, she got a job as part of the crew who cleaned the Mariinsky Theatre opera house.

Then, the manager declared auditions, so Anna signed up. After she sang her audition, conductor Valery Gergiev, who was attending the auditions, said, "You look familiar. Have I met you before?" To which she responded, "Yes. I'm the cleaning lady."

Gergiev became her vocal mentor, and under his guidance, she made her operatic debut at the Mariinsky Theater at age 22, as Susanna in "The Marriage of Figaro." Lead role! The rest is history.

For those benighted souls who think all operatic sopranos are nothing but very loud piles of lard (CLICKY), take a peek at :   Anna Netrebko!! (Yum!!)

Natalie Dessay (born in Lyon, France, original spelling of her last name was "Dessaix," and anticipating that non-French folks would screw up the pronunciation, changed it to the more phonetic "Dessay") knew from an early age that she wanted to be on stage. She took a shine to ballet, but soon discovered that she was (in her own words) "a klutz!" So she took a shot at acting. People kept remarking about her voice, so she started studying singing at the Conservatoire de Bordeaux, entered a singing competition, and was awarded a scholarship to the Paris Opera's Ecole d'Art Lyrique. She won more competitions, and was approached by a number of impresarios.

One of her first roles was as Olympia, the wind-up doll in "Tales of Hoffmann" (see my link in my first post above). Good actress, along with a top-drawer singing voice and a distinct flair for comedy. Cute, too: (CLICKY).

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 12 Sep 12 - 04:04 PM

I've enjoyed Wagner since junior high band days (c. 1961) when we performed the band overtures to "Die Meistersinger", "Lohengrin", "Parsifal" and others. Found (at a church rummage sale) and cherished a copy of Milton Cross's "Stories of the Great Operas".

Also enjoy Richard Strauss.

A good vocal performance (oh, especially of "Au fond du temple saint" from Bizet's "The Pearl Fishers") will make every hair on your body stand on end.

Linn

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Don Firth
Date: 12 Sep 12 - 06:01 PM

I, too, Linn. That duet from "The Pearl Fishers" has to be one of the true gems of opera.

Seattle Opera did "The Pearl Fishers" a couple of seasons ago, but, worse luck, I wasn't able to go. I did hear the full length opera once, played one evening on a local classical music station. One thing that struck me about the opera was the uncommon genius of George Bizet, most famous for his opera "Carmen." "The Pearl Fishers" takes place in Ceylon (now, Sri Lanka), and two of the pearl fishers fall in love at first with a Brahman priestess they see "in the depths of the temple." They have a falling out over her, then, realizing that, as a priestess, neither can have her. Then, they swear eternal friendship in the famous duet.

It turns out, however, that. . . .

To me, one of the ingenious things about the musical score of "The Pearl Fishers" is that, here we are with men who make their living out of the sea and with the sea itself ever-present. Almost all of the music in the opera has a sort of "undulating" quality to it. It permeates the entire opera. Like the ever-present waves of the sea. Kind of subtle, but there! Amazing piece of work! Bravo, Bizet!

Another tenor-baritone duet that I find stirring it the one in Verdi's "Don Carlo."

This duet is in the opera's second act. Don Carlo, son of Spain's King Philip II, is desolate over the fact that the woman he loves is now married to his father!   Carlo's friend Rodrigo, the Marquis of Posa, has just returned from Flanders. He asks Prince Carlo to help him ease the oppression and suffering of the Flemish people. Carlo reveals his secret: that he is in love with his stepmother, whom he met and fell in love with before her arranged marriage to his father. Rodrigo advises him to leave Spain and to go to Flanders. The two men vow to be friends forever in the duet Dio, "Dio, che nell' alma infondere" and strive for the freedom of the Flemish people.

Stirring!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 12 Sep 12 - 07:34 PM

Somewhere on a tape I have Jerry Hadley in duet with someone whose name escapes me in a RADIO performance of "Au fond du temple saint". It was absolutely amazing. That's the one that gives me goose bumps. And, I gather, it was never formally recorded (at least I can't find a recording of it). I got it from a friend. I've placed it on a tape with a number of other recordings of "Au fond du temple saint" (all I can lay my hands on) but right now I have no idea where the tape is.

I do have a recording (on LP) of the entire opera and a CD recording of Jerry Hadley (and someone not the someone in the radio performance) on a CD of duets.

Linn

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 12 Sep 12 - 07:37 PM

That CD recording is of Jerry Hadley and Thomas Hampson. Wish I could remember who the other performance was with.

Linn

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 12 Sep 12 - 07:45 PM

I don't believe this -- I just found it at YouTube. Looks like it was posted about a month ago.

Jerry Hadley and Alan Titus in 1986 -- New York City Opera Orchestra.

Jerry Hadley and Alan Titus, 1986

You have no idea how this has made my day!

Linn

Subject: RE: Opera
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 12 Sep 12 - 10:20 PM

That is a coincidence, and a nice one, too. Thank you for posting the link.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Songwronger
Date: 12 Sep 12 - 10:37 PM

A friend of mine went to Sicily a couple of years ago, and I suggested she go to the opera while she was in Palermo. She scoffed. A matinee would have been $20 or so. I looked it up later on the internet and they were performing something by Rossini. $20 to hear an opera by Rossini in the Teatro Massimo (incredible building, from pictures I've seen), but she passed on the opportunity. She loves football games, though. Sit through hours of a game with atom-sized figures running around on a field, but no Rossini. She looked at me like I was a toad when I suggested the opera.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Sep 12 - 01:40 AM

I'm enjoying this production. I think it gets a bit longer every night, so it's a good thing that it ends overnight on Friday, sometime before dawn . . . and I don't have to get up for work. ;-)

SRS

Subject: RE: Opera
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 13 Sep 12 - 06:56 AM

It's a myth that opera is impossibly expensive. Yes, they GO UP to daft prices, but they start at cheaper prices than some cinema tickets. Go to the Covent Garden website and look: their ticket prices start at £8.

How much is a ticket to a football match? How much is a ticket to see Lady Gaga at Wembley Arena? How much are two tickets to the cinema in Central London?

Subject: RE: Opera
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 13 Sep 12 - 07:02 AM

Re. Wagner, I'm not personally too keen on his music. I vastly prefer Strauss. Find Wagner a bit repetitive.

However I enjoyed watching the first part of the ring cycle on screen at Ritzy Picturehouse cinema last year. The scene with the dwarf and the teasing rhinemaiden is seminal: definitely the most powerful part (both dramatically and musically).

I was subjected to a performance of Wagner's "Lohengrin" at Covent Garden a year or two ago. Now that is a godawful and ridiculous piece of work. It's totally fascistic. Hitler was a big fan of it and you can see why. While watching it, I was thinking you could stage a tongue-in-cheek version of it that would be magnificent (satirising the idea of the charismatic totalitarian leader). But it kind of already is it's own parody.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Elmore
Date: 13 Sep 12 - 10:34 AM

Attn: Chantey Lass Thanks for pointing out that the "live" movie theater productions by the Met are available in countries other thanthe good old USA. Careless of me not to have noticed.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Sep 12 - 10:43 AM

In this version of the operas Eric Owens as Alberich is a fairly sympathetic character. I think that makes the whole thing much better - if he was just an ugly little git from beginning to end it might be easier to accept or justify Wotan's activity.

SRS

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Will Fly
Date: 13 Sep 12 - 11:06 AM

Seeing opera live can be a marvellous experience - and what wonderful tunes! From 'heavyweights' like the works of Wagner to the light and comic operas of Gilbert & Sullivan.

You may not care for the artificiality and stage artifice of some of it, but hundreds of the tunes - both instrumental and vocal are absolutely glorious. "Au Fond Du Temple Saint" has already been mentioned. The ones I love are too numerous to mention - "Oh Celeste Aida" - "Che Gelida Manina" - the Prelude to Act 3 of "Traviata" - "The Sun Whose Rays Are All Ablaze" - "M'Appari" - "Di Quella Pira" - "Va Pensiero" - the Prelude to Act 1 of "Traviata" - etc., etc.

Fabulous stuff. And if you haven't heard of the tunes I've listed above, do a little research and have a little listen...

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Will Fly
Date: 13 Sep 12 - 11:11 AM

Forgot to add: On a Wagner note, listen to the Overture to "Rienzi" - early Wagner and an excellent piece of music.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 Sep 12 - 11:15 AM

LOL. Bat Goddess, I was literally ready to post that link to youtube for you. Same one.:-)

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Sep 12 - 02:56 PM

I will have to buy the set.
Stayed up to watch Die Walküre and didn't make it to the end (2:30AM on the Spokane station). Too late for me.

Watched "Tales of Hoffman" Les Contes d'H...)" again recently. Always enjoyed this one, and the Barcarolle is an earworm I don't mind.

Hear Anna Netrebko and Elina Garanca sing it. Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuOM4CMq7uI

Caballé and Horne also on Youtube, and the young and beautiful Lordeschu's (sp?).

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Tootler
Date: 13 Sep 12 - 04:09 PM

While I think his language was a little OTT, I can sympathise with B3L's feelings.

I find that, on the whole, Opera leaves me cold. I do not find the singing style particularly attractive but that's simply a matter of personal taste.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Elmore
Date: 13 Sep 12 - 04:11 PM

Attn: SRS I agree with you about Eric Owens. I have some reservations about the sets, but not the singers.