opera

Great, thanks a lot, it's appreciate!

Appreciated!

Pleased to report for the benefit of any future viewers of this thread who also might perhaps be aggravated by the Rigoletto version problem -- the thorn in my now almost complete Verdi collection's side for the past two months -- that I just got the 1964 Kubelik (w/Fischer-Dieskau in the title role) version on DG and it's acceptable! The voices still sometimes sound disproportionate to the instruments to a distressing degree, but the singers are much better balanced and the musicality of their sung melodies carry the tunes in those instances far better than the other versions I've spent time with. It's also an energetic and enthusiastic version. I hesitated to get this one because I have the same team doing Pelleas et Melisande circa 1971 and that version isn't particularly convincing (though it's not uninteresting because it is bone dry and the instruments sound really stark as opposed to the lush treatment Debussy usually gets) but their Rigoletto is totally worth 13$ or whatever relative pittance you can find it for used. It is similarly stark, crisp, and window-clear, but that works better I think for Verdi!

I also think it's worth reiterating that the early Verdi operas including but not limited to Stiffellio, Il Corsaro, I Lombardi, Ernani, I Masnedieri, Alzira, Attilla, Un Giorno di Regno, Giovanna d'Arco, Macbeth, Nabucco, Luisa Miller, and Le Battaglia de Legnano make for uniformly incredible music-listening and represent an absolutely outrageous unbroken run of masterpieces -- and this before he even gets to his canonical "mature" works!

Finally, I do think I understand now better why opera reviews always deal with the actors and have a "no duh" factor when it comes to the actual music -- it's like reviewing Shakespeare performances I guess? That kind of thing totally makes sense when it comes to the Bard or Euripides or something. It's unfortunate all the same though. I feel like so many more people would be huge on Verdi (or Monteverdi, or whomever) if it weren't for all that theatrical baggage; with all that baggage he and other opera composers get relegated to this exotic and eccentric extramusical ghetto of sorts. I guess I just wish I myself had known/realized the very real musical virtue of it a long time ago! I wish I had known it was safe and even profitable to ignore the visual/story side, that the translated lyrics and all that aren't in fact vital to the music's success! The more I listen the more I feel like while the story and theatrical aspects are a great reason/pretext for operas to exist at all, in the long run they just get in the way!

There's a Kubelik Pelleas et Melisande? Is it a live audience recording?

Yes to both, and no audience chatter/clapping; it's on the Orfeo label. It's probably worth checking out! Sounds pretty different from the other versions I have, and I believe it's sung in French too.

I like the idea of a super dry unblended pelleas recording

Right! It's pretty novel, you can like distinguish the cellos from the violins and hear the bowing texture, the timpani become prominent, and so on, ha! I listened to it again last night and had a lot of fun.

That one part where a chorus appears (and vanishes a few bars later if I remember rightly!) is even stranger!

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2019/apr/07/white-porgy-and-bess-cast-forced-to-say-they-identify-as-african-american

The fact that the debate is framed in explicitly fascist terms is hardly surprising in the land of Viktor Orban, but this is actually a fair point in Eastern Europe:

The opera house’s contention is that in a country such as Hungary, the all-black cast rule essentially makes the work impossible to perform.

Saw Davóne Tines _The Black Clown_ last night and it was absolute dynamite, one of the best things I've seen in a very good year. really hope it gets picked up for a longer run in a more appropriate theater.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/arts/music/langston-hughes-black-clown-mostly-mozart-lincoln-center.html

The first act of Akhnaten at the ENO was one of the best things I have seen in a while. The remaining two thirds contains altogether too much juggling but is still pretty good.

Good value tickets (£20) too.

― ShariVari, Monday, February 11, 2019 6:33 PM (eight months ago)

This is in NYC at the Met now, contemplating checking it out

saw it last night and enjoyed it but not as much as Satygraha at the Met a few years ago. main problem i think was my seats were too far away so the orchestra never got loud/ immersive enough. can confirm there is a lot of juggling, which i liked.

3 hrs of juggling though, I dunno... You were on one of the upper levels?

yeah pretty near the very top

it’s called the family circle for some reason.

Suggestions please, for a project: symphonic opera bangers with choir, rather than solo voices. Pieces that would be sample-friendly, in the manner of say these?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_a2pfwKjIY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AasJhhjpK4
(famously sampled by Big Boi of course)

I don't mean to dodge the question, I just came here to say Leontyne Price (^^^) is 95 years old today. Happy Birthday!!

Happy Birthday!

Question is so broad, hard to pick one.

Random thing that pops in my head is something from Eugene Onegin. Maybe this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6jhnNk3U9U
perhaps starting from the 2:40 mark? Maybe not banging enough for you.

Borodin - Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor
The banger starts at about 3:50
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqKclPhsK0o

Wagner - Sailors' Chorus from Der Fliegende Hollander
Chorus enters at about the minute mark
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60Ae1aUXANY

Verdi - Anvil Chorus from Il Trovatore
Literal banging at 1:15
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZN01_pAxro

Ha! This last was the most obvious choice

can somebody help me with a curious opera-related discrepancy? lately i've been listening to this rossini recording:

https://www.discogs.com/release/2836006-Rossini-Erich-LeinsdorfMetropolitan-Opera-And-Chorus-The-Barber-Of-Seville

and i was hoping to read the (italian) libretto along with what i was hearing. unfortunately i've misplaced the libretto that originally came with this box set. so i turned to the internet. the specific portion i wanted to track down is the last side of the last disc in the box: it's labeled "Act III (concl.)" so that's what i look for. well, it turns out that everywhere else on the internet specifies that "the barber of seville" is an opera in TWO acts!

does anybody know what's going on here?

There's another opera with the same title by Giovanni Paisiello, apparently?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Barber_of_Seville_(Paisiello)

In popular culture
The Count's serenade "Saper bramate" is used in Stanley Kubrick's period film Barry Lyndon.[citation needed]

Just got out of much ballyhooed production of AKHNATEN at The Met. Philip Glass came out and took a bow.

Not a repetitive series of bows lasting 58 minutes?

Ha, no. Just one or two.

https://playbill.com/article/countertenor-anthony-roth-costanzo-on-the-transformative-nature-of-philip-glass-akhnaten

Interview with Nerfertiti, Rihab Chaieb:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsFc4PTLY7s

Dima highlight reel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgetLghpOCc

A Renée/Dmitri duet just showed up in my Friday algorithm. Still missing that guy.