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My First Taste of Opera
Last night I went out to the local(ish) symphony, where they were doing what can best be called a “sampler platter” of opera music. A few talented soloists joined the choir and orchestra for this evening. Guided by the conductor with information on what we were about to hear, we glided through about a dozen selections.
I sat next to someone who turned out to be a past professional viola player, and we had some great conversations about the music, opera in general, and culture.
For me, I enjoyed the music thoroughly. The first two pieces brought to mind Bugs Bunny and cartoon factory music, likely because I have been playing those cartoons of my youth for my toddler. The opera pieces were powerful – I was filled with emotion during the duet in one of the pieces – but I imagined that I could have been brought to tears if I only understood Italian. The idea behind opera is enticing and fascinating, but I felt unable to experience it fully.
Yes, it was the language barrier that holds me back from wanting to further explore opera. Missing that connection with what was happening took too much from the experience for me.
Below are the pieces that were played for us. What are your thoughts on orchestral music, opera, and culture in general?
Rossini
Overture from William Tell
Verdi
Anvil Chorus from Il Trovatore
Puccini
Humming Chorus from Madama Butterfly
Verdi
“Povero Rigoletto” from Rigoletto
Puccini
“Che gelida manina” from La Bohème
Puccini
“Si, mi chiamano Mimi” from La Bohème
Puccini
“O soave Fanciulla” from La Bohème
Verdi
“Va, pensiero” (Chorus of the Hebrews) from Nabucco
Verdi
Triumphal March from Aida
Mascagni
Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana
Verdi
Prelude to Act III from La Traviata
Verdi
Act II, Scene II from La Traviata
Very nice, @Franco. My aforementioned first date opera happened to be La Boheme. Neither of us much likes it, though, try as we might for sentimental reasons. Except this aria. I can love the opera only if I think of it as the romance between Marcello and Musetta; Mimi and Rodolfo are just too wimpy. The clip is a perfect example of our Puccini complaint–too much continuo working up to the spectacular flashes. Nearly 3:30 minutes, in this case. That flash, though, is quite spectacular. Thank you for this particular version. Very nice!
Sounds like Vince would be a great addition to Ricochet on our good days. On our not so good days…
Sometime in the 1990’s I was visiting the National Museum of Art in Washington D.C. I walked past a guy I suddenly recognized and exclaimed “Papageno!” He didn’t seem to know what I meant at first, but then I said “Weren’t you in the Mozart movie? I recognized him as the half-man half-bird creature in the Amadeus movie scene about The Magic Flute opera. He later appeared out of costume in scenes with Mozart. He thanked me and moved on after a couple pleasantries.
Incredibly, that night in my hotel room, I turned on the TV and there was Charley Rose or some other boring interviewer, talking to the guy I had just run into at the museum. I yelled for my mom to come take a look. She said, “Oh, that’s Simon Callow, a writer.” She didn’t remember him from the movie, but he surely was in it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Callow
See, this is how I assumed they could look – full stage setup, chorus as surrounding characters, lots of room for gestures and such. It’s great!
…but now I just want to understand French… It’s missing something without me comprehending the language. Maybe it’s comparable to a symphony with only the strings present. Sure you get an idea of the piece being performed, but it’s missing context from all the other instrument groups being absent.
It ain’t Pavarotti, but as part of Billy Joel’s standard concert set, one of his band members sings that immediately prior to Scenes From An Italian Restaurant.
Awesome, and some of the great rock bands had some classical training.
Let’s hear it for ELO!
(Really off topic, but…)
Billy Joel puts on a hell of a show. And he still sounds like Billy Joel.
I watched some of Elton John’s farewell concert last night. It was ok, but his voice is just not the same as it was. It just sounded….off.
I nominate this as the best use of Wagner in a movie:
I love the smell of napalm in the morning.
Never underestimate the power of the classics. When you think, the world has gone to hell there might be someone who has a hidden life, and offers a sublime gift:
Live performances generally have subtitles so you can figure out what’s going on. So do some recorded performances such as this one of The Marriage of Figaro, which btw is a great celebration of marriage and fidelity.
I liked this too, but it was like Coppola was suggesting that Wagner was mostly useful for scaring the s*** out of the g**ks. But undeniably dramatic.
In Excalibur, they cut the movie to exactly match the changes in the music. For the first five times I saw it I thought it was the most beautiful music written for a movie. Then I saw the Ring Cycle and went Whoa, I recognize that leitmotif!
But still I can’t hear it without seeing Excalibur flying through the air and being caught by the strange woman lying about in ponds.
The same way I can never hear O Mio Babbino Caro without hearing “We love to hear Rush Lim…baaaaugh … “
Almost all opera companies have supertitles now. I remember when they first started to be used at the Met (in the back of the seat in front of you so you don’t see them over the stage), I was attending a performance of Don Carlos, an historical opera with magnificent duets. It ran almost 4 hours. I was joking with my father that all of the lyrics that advanced the story could have been fit on a 3 X 5 index card. The rest of the lyrics involved swearing to heaven about loyalty, honor and love.
I loved opera even before I understood the lyrics. It was due to Bugs Bunny and the Odd Couple that I started to recognize some of the songs and that was all I needed. But I don’t really like opera recitals, only performed operas, preferably grand opera. Everyone has their preferences I guess.
I’m going to send him this thread.
I guess I’m just a sucker for cheap musical tricks. Sometimes I should appreciate my naïveté. And I’m sorry, I’m not sitting through a live performance of The Ring anytime soon or ever.
I first got seduced into Opera was Franco Zefferellis La Boheme on PBS. The music was familiar from my childhood but is was no longer stodgy baritones and corpulent stationary sopranos.
But, as a performer myself, I have i unfathomable respect for the talent and discipline.
Well, it’s not classical opera. But it is drama that is nearly all sung, and in English.
It’s Les Miserables. Not classical but a story told in (mostly) song. The music is not Puccini, but it’s quite good. And the libretto is in English (among many other languages). My introduction to it was the 10th anniversary concert at the BBC. It was astonishingly good.
Then we went to Broadway (we lived in CT at the time) and saw it live on stage. It was an expensive night but well worth the cost.
I would say it’s a way to get into opera without all the barriers.
Every once in a while I feel compelled to play through the entire 16 hours of Wagner’s “Ring Cycle” while painting. I have no idea what they are saying but I like the music.
There is no major difference between Les Miserables and classical opera, even though they may label it as a “musical.” In fact all musicals have the same basic elements of opera or operetta (a light opera).
Caryn and I saw Les Miserables on Broadway with her mom in the early 2000’s. It’s her mother’s favorite musical, and one of my favorites, too. My absolute favorite is “Sweeney Todd,” a story about a guy who murders his enemies and feeds them to unknowing restaurant customers(!)
Yes! The first opera I went to was an operatic version of A Streetcar Named Desire. Now I wasn’t expecting Oh Streetcar from The Simpsons but I was completely taken aback when I realised they were singing every single line from the play. It was not an enjoyable experience hearing lines like I am ashamed I perspire! My shirt sticks to me!
Now a few years ago I visited Lviv and as it is easy and cheap to go hear classical music concerts in those Eastern European places my friend and I went. We saw the Merry Widow, I think it was sung in Ukrainian. Didn’t matter. I knew it was about romance somewhere along the way and the music was beautiful. You could figure out who was in love with each other and if we couldn’t understand the cause of the conflict we knew it would get resolved in the end.
Then, to foreshadow the coming tragedy, the chorus adds
“They should have worn their spectacles.”
“If they had only worn their spectacles they would have known.”
“The travel toothpaste was really a sample tube of hemorrhoid cream.”
Of course this is a summary. The text, as performed, would be approximately 20-30 lines.
My wife and I watched about a half-hour of Streetcar Named Desire by Andre Previn on TV, and couldn’t take it anymore. It was one of the worst operas we’d ever seen. To this day we joke about the lyrics “Stella, get me a beer!”
I liked your opera. I think I will set it to music.
— attributed to Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig was a beast.
I very much liked this:
https://www.audible.com/pd/How-to-Listen-to-and-Understand-Great-Music-3rd-Edition-Audiobook/B00DDVQIM2
… by the same guy.
Yes I adore some musicals, and dislike watching those in foreign languages. The broadcasting or otherwise subtitling with English does not cut it for me. Written script is nothing like passionately sung (or spoken) understandable dialect.
Just means a lot to me to hear and understand when it is sung I guess. I’ll revisit all this after checking out one of these primers on how to understand/enjoy opera.
The William Tell Overture is a great piece.
The evil Austrian Hapsburgs establish dominion over the Swiss.
A peaceful, contemplative rustic who is a crossbow marksman travels to the local town and encounters the tyrant set over his people.
And then the Lone Ranger shows up.
Schoen.
I believe we have all of Dr. Greenberg’s courses . . .
I saw Emily perform at my community orchestra’s October concert (in Washington, PA)! A beautiful young woman with a simply gorgeous voice. Our conductor was keen to have her back for a return performance (“while we can still afford her” he said), and I hope he manages to do so. A great talent, with a great future, her family must be very proud.
That’s fantastic! I’m going to pass that on to her.
Yes.