Opera

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Don Firth
Date: 13 Sep 12 - 04:21 PM

Speaking of "Tales of Hoffmann. . . ."

"The Tales of Hoffmann" is a kind of weird opera, and I can't say that I really understand the motivation of the villain other than just being evil, but he tries to get Hoffmann to fall in love with various women, then works to frustrate him, even to the point of causing the death of one of the women. Nevertheless, it has some gorgeous music in it.

In 1951, a movie version of "Tales of Hoffmann" hit the art theaters. In a way, it tended to emphasize the convoluted plot over the music, but the music is definitely there.

One of Hoffmann's lady-loves, the ballerina, Stella, is portrayed by English dancer Moira Shearer, probably best known for her starring in an earlier movie about the world of ballet, "The Red Shoes." Moira Shearer does the "Olympia" character dance sequence (with someone else dubbing in the "Olympia's Song" part of it), which is beautifully done, but it doesn't approach the humor of Natalie Dessay's goofy version (posted above).

But in the movie, Moira Shearer and male dancer Edmond Audran perform a dance sequence called "The Enchanted Dragonfly." The villain (with the sinister eyes!) appears early in the clip, once again hell-bent on frustrating Hoffmann by intercepting a note to Hoffmann from Stella.

But does that woman have a bod, or does that woman have a bod!!?

NetFlix lists the 1951 movie.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Jack Campin
Date: 13 Sep 12 - 07:03 PM

A lot of opera makes MUCH more sense when you see it as intended, in a full staging. Wagner's timescale doesn't seem at all self-indulgent when the story's unfolding in front of you on stage, and Verdi's big setpieces for chorus and soloists don't seem over the top.

I could never make anything of Richard Strauss until I saw Ariadne auf Naxos on stage. It was mindblowing to see how all that intellectual cleverness, weird ironic humour, romantically self-parodying music, beautiful-but-not-quite-what-they-seemed set designs, mythological references and simple human emotion all fitted together in one coherent art work.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Sep 12 - 09:04 PM

Yes, full staging is best, but for those of us out in the "sticks," playing the DVD's on a modern TV often is the best we can do. I have some operas on cd, but a lot is missed.

The BBC Music Magazine reviews the new ones and that is a help, but I don't always agree. I think some of the new staging and story modernization is silly or goes too far, but the reviewer may have 4-5 starred it.

I sometimes end up with 2-3 versions.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Sep 12 - 12:04 PM

Getting all of this in one fell-swoop is one thing, but doing it over a long national holiday so no one has to get up the next morning would be helpful! I was nodding off as Siegfried and Wotan spoke and fought at the bottom of Brunnhilde's mountain, but perked up for the finale.

Wagner really did parse the issues in these - stating Fricka's case to Wotan as to why Sigmund must die, and then how Brunnhilde brought Wotan around to her way of thinking when she was placed asleep on the mountain - with the onscreen captions you could follow the progress and logic of the argument. I think the captions make all of the difference, even though I typically read the synopsis of each opera before I sit down to watch it. (Anyone else have the old books like The Concert Companion Wikipedia takes care of that research now. I have two or three of those older books from my parents' houses.)

SRS

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Sep 12 - 12:18 PM

The Ring really is a development from old sagas.
I would like someone to point out to me the anti-semitism or Fascism in the work. I can't see it.

The staging is excellent; LePage and the Cirque people did something that focuses on the singers as well as adding to the visual effect. I watched Siegfried, but nodded at times, so missed some of the connectios.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 Sep 12 - 02:49 PM

Got it!!

I got one of the regular monthly e-mails from KCTS, my local PBS station this morning containing highlights of their up-coming programming now that their seemingly perpetual pledge break is winding down.

They'll be running "The Ring Cycle" beginning at 1:00 p.m. this coming Sunday afternoon, then running the next three operas on consecutive Sundays.

Not the most convenient time for me, but wotthehell, I'll manage.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Opera
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 14 Sep 12 - 02:59 PM

In 1850, Wagner wrote "Das Judenthum in der Musik", which re-stated all the old(even at that time) anti-semitic cliches. Some say he didn't really mean it, and wrote it because he was jealous of his old friends Meyerbeer and Mendelsohn.

Be that as it may, the Nazis embraced his ideas, and, even more, they loved his music, and the nationalistic ideas that it embodied. They played it incessantly. Even at funerals. As a result, many Jews get very uncomfortable at the mention of Wagner. Can you blame them?

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Sep 12 - 04:08 PM

The fact that Wagner's operas use German myth doesn't make them nationalistic, any more than Britten's Peter Grimes or Philip Glass's 10,000 Airplanes on the Roof are (both use stories local to where the composers lived).

In fact the only one of his operas with a storyline out of conservative ideology is his first big success, Rienzi, based on a novel set in Italy by an Englishman and first promoted by a French Jew. (Hitler seems to have liked it, for reasons which nobody can make sense of).

There certainly were nationalistic operas in the 19th century - many of Verdi's and most of Smetana's. Verdi became a hero to the Italian Fascists. Wagner wasn't in the same line of business. You could argue that Verdi had it coming because he was so explicitly political, but not Wagner.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 Sep 12 - 05:46 PM

Verdi was, indeed, political, but there is no evidence that he was anti-Semitic. Nor was he, in any way, a Fascist. His particular cause was the freedom of Italy from the domination of the Austrian Empire—a cause very dear to the hearts of most Italians in the mid-1800s.

I can't remember offhand what city it occurred in, but sometime after the premier of Verdi's opera "Nabucco" (Nebuchadnezzar), a crowd of about a thousand Italians gathered in the city square spontaneously broke into one of the choral numbers in the opera: va pensiero, the "Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves," lamenting for their lost country.

It scared the socks off the Austrian occupiers!

Verdi was popular in his own right, but his name was seen everywhere, graffiti scrawled on walls. "Viva Verdi!" This appeared to be a great appreciation for the opera composer, but in addition, what the graffiti conveyed—

Verdi's name served as an acronym for "Victor Emmanuel, re d'Italia!" "Victor Emmanuel, king of Italy!" Italians wanted their own rightful king, not some Austrian overlord.

When the crowd gathered in the city square, the Austrian cavalry was there, sabers drawn, ready to ride out and quell the rioters. But they didn't riot. They sang!

CLICK.

Don Firth

P. S. The audience at this particular production kinda liked it. They insisted that they sing it again.

I kinda choke up whenever I hear this.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Sep 12 - 06:54 PM

I'm glad to see you'll get to watch this, Don. Be sure also to watch the first 2-hour program that gives an account of how they built this set and collected the singers for the performances. I missed taping part of that one.

SRS

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Joe_F
Date: 14 Sep 12 - 08:32 PM

In occasional dips into popular culture, I have noticed that opera seems to be, among the vulgar, the *opposite* of rock and roll. Why is that?

Subject: RE: Opera
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Sep 12 - 09:29 PM

I didn't want to do this, Jack, but you made me.

Here is a pedant explanation of the manner in which Nationalism was embodied in Herr Wagner work, and it's purpose, followed by a link to the Master's own rather overbearing essay on the matter. I don't recommend it, but to each his own.

Notes on German Unification
The "Spirit" of German Nationalism: Richard Wagner and the Ring Cycle Operas
Richard Wagner (1813-83) is one of the most controversial composers of the nineteenth century. His talent and place as one of the great romantic composers is often overshadowed by his virulent anti-Semitism, having claimed that Jews were "the evil conscience of our modern civilization." He was also an ardent German nationalist. The Ring Cycle operas, perhaps his greatest works, were composed and first staged in 1876, shortly after Germany unified. They were intended to develop a mythic national history for the new empire, which had no actual political history on which to construct a national identity. Early in his career, Wagner identified with the socialist movement and supported the Revolution of 1848 in Germany. Following the 1848 upheavals, Wagner penned his essay, "Art and Revolution," in which he argued that the task of the artist is to effect political change through artistic expression. The career and music of Richard Wagner offer a unique interdisciplinary approach to the romantic aspect of German nationalism. The full text of Wagner's essay is available online.

Wagner's "Art and Revolution"

Subject: RE: Opera
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 14 Sep 12 - 09:33 PM

That last was me.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 Sep 12 - 11:47 PM

I just pulled up the KCTS listing for Sunday's broadcast of the first opera!

Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel as "Wotan," the boss of the Norse gods!!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Bert
Date: 15 Sep 12 - 12:31 AM

It's kinda weird. I don't like opera but I like musicals. And I really don't know the difference between them.

Also, I don't like classical music, but the times that I've been to the symphony here in Colorado Springs, I have enjoyed it. Not for the music but for sharing the joy with the musicians.

I guess it's me that's kinda weird.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 Sep 12 - 01:21 AM

The line between musicals and opera can be pretty fuzzy, Bert. For example, "Porgy and Bess" was initially regarded as a musical. But Europeans, quite familiar with opera, unlike most Americans, regarded it as an opera. Now, even American opera companies consider it to be an opera rather than a "just" a musical.

Here's a thought experiment for you:   take one of your favorite musicals and imagine that you were hearing it, not in English, but in French, Italian, or German.

Some operas, such as "The Barber of Seville" or "Die Fledermaus" or "Don Pasquale" are comedies, and a real riot. Situations and bits of business can get real belly laughs out of an audience.

Actually, a musical like Bernstein's "West Side Story" (spoiler alert! Tragic ending) is darned ckose to an opera, and like "Porgy and Bess," may someday be generally regarded as one.

Very fuzzy line.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Sep 12 - 02:49 AM

Well, the fourth and final opera has finished. And I'm so impressed with the stamina of these people - some of them spent an incredible amount of time on stage.

I've read a few reviews, but I don't have the experience of so many live operas that I can claim any expertise in comparing and contrasting performances. It was wonderful!

SRS

Subject: RE: Opera
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 15 Sep 12 - 02:50 AM

Operas are written by classical composers and performed by Opera Companies, musicals are written by popular composers and lyricists, and performed on Broadway or in the West End. Except when Porgy and Bess is at the Metropolitan Opera, and La Boheme is on Broadway. At which time you just smile and hope no one asks you about Operettas.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Sep 12 - 06:58 AM

"The fact that Wagner's operas use German myth doesn't make them nationalistic, any more than Britten's Peter Grimes or Philip Glass's 10,000 Airplanes on the Roof are (both use stories local to where the composers lived).

In fact the only one of his operas with a storyline out of conservative ideology is his first big success, Rienzi, based on a novel set in Italy by an Englishman and first promoted by a French Jew. (Hitler seems to have liked it, for reasons which nobody can make sense of)."

I refer you to my post above, about "Lohengrin". Hitler loved that one too, and it's obvious why when you read the synopsis, or watch the opera. It's exactly the kind of narrative a fascist would love: the tale of a political coup that is supposedly legitimized by fate, led by a strong hero "destined" to lord it over everyone else, sweeping away the weak and ineffectual.

Pomposity (and, hence, ridiculousness) runs through almost every line of its libretto. The music's pretty crass too. I can't imagine how anyone could stage it without it seeming comical. (Which was certainly the case for the Covent Garden production I saw a year or two ago)

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Elmore
Date: 15 Sep 12 - 11:21 AM

This thread has begun to exceed my intellectual level. I enjoy the Ring Cycle greatly, but feel that due to his innate anti-semitism, and despite the fact that he had influential Jewish friends, Wagner depicted both Alberich and Mime as having stereotypical Jewish charecteristics. However that's just me.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Sep 12 - 11:37 AM

Elmore, one of the great things about Mudcat is that you can learn new things. Stick around! And guests, please use a consistent name when you post so we know who we're talking to as the conversation progresses. Thanks.

SRS

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Elmore
Date: 15 Sep 12 - 11:55 AM

Perhaps the first thing I could learn is how to spell characteristics.(see above)

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 15 Sep 12 - 12:42 PM

I've enjoyed Wagner's music since childhood -- long time before I knew of any controversy or non-musical objections to it, before I learned that Hitler liked it. I don't think it's even necessary for me to say I loathe Hitler and his beliefs. (But I DID have a great-grandfather return to Germany because he liked Kaiser Bill...he died on the boat on the way back.)

The first inkling I had of any controversy was when the organist at the Lutheran church I attended (I was maybe 10 at the time) refused to play the Wedding March ("Bridal Chorus" "Treulich geführt" -- usually referred to as "Here Comes the Bride") from Lohengrin because Wagner was an immoral man and, among other things, stole his best friend's wife. (That whole scandal was much more complicated, as I learned when I was older.)

Wagner was a German nationalist with socialist leanings (socialism is the exact opposite opposite of Nazism) who worked for the unification of Germany. He held some social views which, while I disagree with them, were common in the era in which he lived.

Linn

Subject: RE: Opera
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Sep 12 - 02:59 PM

Jack, just read this again, because it explains the situation. Whether you see it or not is really beside the point. It's kind of like the tempered scale in that way:-)

"He was also an ardent German nationalist. The Ring Cycle operas, perhaps his greatest works, were composed and first staged in 1876, shortly after Germany unified. They were intended to develop a mythic national history for the new empire, which had no actual political history on which to construct a national identity"

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 Sep 12 - 05:25 PM

During my career as a radio announcer, I worked for a time at a classical music station.

One afternoon the telephone rang, and it was an outraged listener. What caused his outrage was that I had played some "Nazi music!"

It turned out that just before he called, I had played something by Beethoven (one of the "Fidelio" overtures, I believe). And Beethoven (along with Wagner), he informed me, was one of Hitler's favorite composers.

I noted that the man had a distinct German accent, and his voice sounded like he was an older man, so I deduced that he'd probably had a rough time of it some decades back.

We chatted awhile, and I think I managed to convince him that it was not Beethoven's fault that Hitler liked his music, and that if we refused to listen to a piece of music because someone we dislike or disapprove of (no matter how justified we may be in our dislike or disapproval) likes it, we'd wind up with very little good music to listen to.

Beethoven was a surly s.o.b. and a very difficult person to deal with, but then Schubert was constantly broke, so he often ducked out of an apartment before the rent was due, and some believe that Mozart actually died of a venereal disease because he was an egregious womanizer.

Yet, they all wrote great music.

He was a bit mollified and said that perhaps he was allowing his memories of Hitler to rob him of much enjoyment, and that he would have a hard think on the matter.

I hesitate to bring this up because I don't want to divert the thread to a different discussion, but the principle is the same. Let me ask this:   Do you like Bob Dylan and his music? Why—considering that, early on, he lied his face off in a radio interview with Cynthia Gooding about who he was, where he came from, what he had done in his life (borrowing heavily from Woody Guthrie's autobiography), and—he owed a great deal to Joan Baez, who took him around on HER concert tours, introduced him and had him sing (and chewed the audience out when some of them booed him), and generally promoted his career. And then, when he finally got a concert tour of his own, he asked Joan to come with him. BUT, she found out, he didn't want her on stage with him, he wanted her to stay in the hotel room so she'd be handy for him he'd finished and wanted a little—recreation.

That kind of a person. And you still like his music?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Jack Campin
Date: 15 Sep 12 - 05:59 PM

The Ring Cycle operas, perhaps his greatest works, were composed and first staged in 1876, shortly after Germany unified

He started the story outline in 1848, composed it through the years to 1857, put it aside for 12 years and finished it in 1869. The premiere of the complete cycle was in 1876, but sponsored by Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria, who was not exactly motivated by bourgeois nationalism.

A nationalist reading of The Ring is way too reductive. The myths he used are found all over the Teutonic world, most explicitly in Scandinavia. There are no German placenames in it except for a mention of the Rhine. It just doesn't make any sort of statement about how Germans ought to pull together, in the way Verdi's operas do for Italians.

You might be able to argue that one initial impetus was the revolutions of 1848, but any political content got so transmogrified as the work progressed that no simple slogans are discernible in it.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 15 Sep 12 - 06:34 PM

As Linn observed, "that whole scandal was much more complicated" - all of them. Wagner was an egomaniac, not really political, even less so than Dylan. But he had a great instinct for dramatic constellations and developments. If required, he would even sacrifice his theories for them.

Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert were very respectable persons on the whole, as far as I know from the usual biogrphies. I think it was Schubert who is known to have died of Syphilis, caught from "all-inclusive housemaids".

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Jack Campin
Date: 15 Sep 12 - 06:39 PM

Schubert was also a paedophile.

And more relevant to this thread, a lousy opera composer.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Elmore
Date: 15 Sep 12 - 07:28 PM

Yeah, Beethoven was a nasty s.o.b. who had trouble getting dates. Schuman supposedly died of syphilis and was probably manic depressive. Did any of these guys lead happy lives?

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Elmore
Date: 15 Sep 12 - 07:33 PM

Tat's Robert Schumann, Clara's husband.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 15 Sep 12 - 09:31 PM

I think the point is that Wagner wanted to make those Teutonic myths Germanic myths, and create a sense that there was a deep, traditional, historic culture that united all those states that had been floating around loose since Napoleon had destroyed the Holy Roman Empire and subsequently was destroyed himself.

To be cruelly honest, I don't much care for Wagner, and think he made a mess of the Nieblungenlied and Parsival and harbor the suspicion that part of the reason Ludwig II was done in had to do with "artistic differences" about that sort of thing.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: framus
Date: 16 Sep 12 - 04:47 PM

Somebody famous said "Wagner has some WONDERFUL moments,unfortunately he has several terrible half hours!"
What relevance has Wagner's, generally acknowledged, anti semitism, to the quality of his music? Or the fact that the operas themselves contain any facistic tenor. He didn't write them, although he may have interpreted their meaning. I don't know, did he write the libretti?
For those who are fazed by the sheer size and power of the Ring, have a listen to the Siegfried Idyll, originally written for Cosima on the birth of his son.
Just a thought!
Davy.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 Sep 12 - 05:08 PM

If there is a message in the "Ring," it's that greed, skullduggery, and the lust for power ain't good. It brings about the destruction of Valhalla.

I don't see anything anti-Semitic, or fascistic there.

Don Firth

P. S. Watching it right now. Bryn Terfel makes a fantastic Wotan!

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Jack Campin
Date: 16 Sep 12 - 05:40 PM

did he write the libretti?

Yes - it was VERY important to him that he built the whole shebang himself. The story is his own redaction of the mediaeval sources. Look up "Gesamtkunstwerk".

He was probably the best own-libretto writer among all opera composers. Look at Michael Tippett or Harry Partch for some thoroughly cringeworthy moments in the text. The music covers these but at times you'd rather it was being sung in Uzbek. Wagner never sounds silly.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Sep 12 - 05:43 PM

von Schiller and Goerthe wrote a lot of librettos - or perhaps they wrote the original stories turned into librettos?

SRS

Subject: RE: Opera
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 16 Sep 12 - 11:27 PM

The only Harry Partch opera I know of is this---

Excerpts from Harry Partch's Oedipus

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Jack Campin
Date: 17 Sep 12 - 05:04 AM

Partch's other major opera is Delusion of the Fury. I've got the LP set that has the full libretto.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 17 Sep 12 - 12:31 PM

My daughter, going through my lps, found my copy of "Tremonisha," Scott Joplin's short opera, by the Houston Opera (1976 DG recording). It is OK, but the singers, except for one of the conjurors (can't remember), tend to forget the content and give the characters full, Italian-style operatic vocalization.

It has been redone, New World Records, but I haven't heard this new recording.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 17 Sep 12 - 01:50 PM

I haven't heard that, apparently your LP is a rather rare article. I found a clip on line but for some reason, couldn't create a link. I thought it was good.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Sep 12 - 02:38 PM

I lived in Temple, TX, from 1982-89, and around 1983 I went to a local concert set up to highlight the operatic couple, he was from Temple, who had performed two major roles in Tremonisha at the Met. I know there was a cast recording of the Met performance because I stumbled upon it a year later when I was in Arizona for a seasonal job. A fellow employee, who lived the rest of the year in Houston, had it and I heard it at her house.

In Temple it was a strange concert, to my northern ears, because most of the people who attended responded to operatic performances as if they were in church and shouted back up to the performers and swayed and clapped and shouted "Amen!" regularly. They were also mostly Texan (as in "southern") African Americans. I went expecting an opera-loving crowd who would listen and clap at the appropriate times. I hadn't been in Texas long, so it was an eye-opener.

SRS

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 17 Sep 12 - 04:41 PM

The Houston Opera performance on DG has been reissued.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Sep 12 - 05:00 PM

Wagner's antisemitism was frank, revolting and personal (he was scathing about Mendelssohn, for example). To him, Jews had no essence of the German spirit (how chilling a thought...), therefore could write trivial music only, designed to make money (note the stereotype coming out again). Hypocritically, he could say all this yet still count many Jews among his friends.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 19 Sep 12 - 07:05 AM

"He was probably the best own-libretto writer among all opera composers. Look at Michael Tippett or Harry Partch for some thoroughly cringeworthy moments in the text. The music covers these but at times you'd rather it was being sung in Uzbek. Wagner never sounds silly."

Again, I refer you to the Wagner opera "Lohengrin". Almost all of it sounds silly.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Jack Campin
Date: 19 Sep 12 - 08:52 AM

What's silly about this?

In fernem Land

libretto

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Sep 12 - 08:58 AM

Don, did you read any reviews of this series of performances online? They weren't all complimentary, one suggested Voight's Brunnhilde was "swinging at the high notes." I wouldn't say that, but I haven't listened to multiple performances to compare, and what I heard was lovely. In the stage and costume design department I will note that it's amazing the spark a bright red wig adds to the character (you'll note over the course of the performances that her hair gets a bit darker with each opera, kind of like Grace Kelly's garments in Dial M for Murder).

She herself in an interview said that as the first time she's played Brunnhilde it isn't as "fully fleshed out" a performance as it would be with successive performances, given time to consider the part with the eye of experience.

And this weekend I think you'll really enjoy Sigmund and Siglinda. :)

SRS

Subject: RE: Opera
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Sep 12 - 09:06 AM

"What's silly about this?

In fernem Land

libretto"

The endless "hail this, hail that", the pompous talk about Germany, that bit where everyone can't get over "The swan..." etc etc etc

Silliness is, de facto, a relative thing in opera, I'll give you that. In order to listen to opera, you do of course have to get past the fact that people will be singing often banal words, exposition etc, and giving them a projection that gives them a bathos that is inherently silly.
("how are you to-daaaaaaaaaaayy?" "Can't complain maaaaaaaaate!" "Thank you very muuuuuuuuch" "you-oo-oo-oo are most wwwwwwwelcome!" - I'm exaggerating for caricature, but not much).

But the stuff you linked to summarises in a nutshell precisely the sort of pompous silliness that characterises that opera for me. It's straight out of Monty Python.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Jack Campin
Date: 19 Sep 12 - 09:51 AM

There is no mention of Germany in the aria I linked to. The only placename is the mythological Montsalvat, whose name is meant to sound Catalan or Provencal.

The swan as an image of a king coming to the rescue features elsewhere in Europe, as in this Breton ballad:

An Alarc'h

Wagner was simply making an allusion to mediaeval myth.

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Sep 12 - 11:40 AM

Matt, rather than belabor the topic of how operatic performances are played out, it's obvious you're a candidate for theatrical drama in the form of plays.

Not everyone wants to suspend reality and accustom the ear to the stylized musical performance in opera.

SRS

Subject: RE: Opera
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 19 Sep 12 - 12:17 PM

Jack - here's a quote from the link you put up:

"THE KING
I thank you, good men of Brabant!
How my heart shall swell with pride
if on every acre of German soil I find
such mighteous throngs of troops!
Let the Empire's enemy now approach,
we will meet him with courage:
from the barren wastes of the East
he shall never dare attack again!
For German soil the German sword!
Thus shall the Empire's might be proved!"

"Not everyone wants to suspend reality and accustom the ear to the stylized musical performance in opera."

Happy to suspend reality (something one has to do with theatre of all kinds) and I'm happy to accustom my ear to stylized musical performances of all kinds. I like Napalm Death for instance and other growled death metal vocals, which have a lot in common with opera in terms of extremes of stylization.

I listen to a fair bit of opera and go maybe 2-3 times a year. (Used to go much more often when my girlfriend worked at Covent Garden opera house). But that doesn't stop me turning off the critical part of my brain that recognises the bathos in that discrepancy between the (necessary) projection/over-enunciation inherent in the form and the libretto: performance investing even the most slightest of libretto sentences with a disproportionate significance. I'm often surprised postwar composers haven't exploited this fact. (Suspect someone probably has, and that I'm just unaware of it.)

Subject: RE: Opera
From: Jack Campin
Date: 19 Sep 12 - 12:42 PM

That bit wasn't part of the aria I linked to. It isn't very different in thinking from a lot of Shakespeare.

The opera was written in 1846-8, so it predates any political expression of German nationalism. It's a love story set in a mediaeval wartime. The historical detail is overly complicated, but that's true of all the many historical romances written around Europe under the influence of Walter Scott. Wagner's later works greatly simplify the historical back-stories and the idea of nation barely features - does it really matter to the story of Tristan and Isolde that Marke is a king, or of where?