Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Met Opera

Rigoletto is broadcasted tomorrow from the Met.

=bengera

Questo e quello per me pari sono.

Didn't you mean "Questa o quella"? Oh wait... maybe you didn't.

One of my all time fave arias in any case!

You got me! I was too tired to edit and thought nobody would notice. But, that's the beauty of grand opera, you can do ANYthing as long as you sing it!

Rigoletto is no Tristan but the numbers are just marvelous, one after the other.

Anybody going to Berlin for the Ring? Or to Seattle later in the year?

Enjoy the Met. =Bengera

Love that name but is the Chat connected to music, or opera?

The name is connected to a revue theater in Oslo, the old Chat Noir, which was started by Bokken Lasson. She was also the voice teacher of the Norwegian contralto Eva Gustavson who can be heard as Amneris in Toscanini's "Aida" from 1949. That's the best opera connection I can come up with.

Good stuff.
Naturally, I thought it was French and I am Francophile.

Have not yet visited the new opera house Oslo. I saw La Traviatta in the old one some 10 years ago. U needed a new opera house (in case u are from Norway).
Recently, the New Yorker had an article about the new one.

The Met Rigoletto today was an amazing performance.

ChatNoir is French, Oslo "borrowed" it from the famous club in Paris. And yes, they really needed a new opera house, the old one was a movie theater converted to a teure Halle of song. I saw a Carmen there about 150 years ago. The new house is quite spectacular, and my friend Eva Gustavson was there for the inauguration.
As for Rigoletto, I missed it. But I understand it was set in Las Vegas in the 60's. Los Angeles did a Rigoletto ten years ago set in Hollywood in the 70's. It was the stupidest thing I have seen, and no doubt today's setting was equally stupid. Just imagine a modern Gilda sitting at home all day, only going to church on Sunday. HA!

Agree about the Oslo opera. I think they have the $$ now.

The production today was actually good (I saw the LA as well), but the singing was spectacular. They were all Slavs with a German Gilda and all sang marvelously. And it all seemed to come out naturally and easy.
I have no idea how a rather young and thin Sparafucile produced the unusual deep voice.

Opera is an obsession here but I am into Wagner. I feel the Italian genre is aging on me, still Verdi is unique.


I found pianoworld via Perri Knize and like it.But I find the book to be irritating. I live to travel, but to see yet another piano? So much to do in NYC besides pianos.
I guess it's a matter of taste of course.

I was considering going for Parsifal and then the Frick has a Piero exhibition, my favorite renaissance painter...maybe.

My favorite Wagner is usually channeled through Anna Russell.

Yuk. I have her CD but was never an admirer.
I have few friends who love that.

Wagner is definitely controversial but that is because the music is so complex.
Tristan and maybe Parsifal are the connection between classic and modern but it's hard to imagine that Tristan can be repeated, ever. Giant piece of art.
I have been studying the score lately...Wow!

But it's a matter of taste of course.

Listening to The Ring is like reading a James Clavell novel. Both Wagner and Clavell seem to be so in love with themselves and their creations that they drag it out to the max and torture their listeners/ readers instead of entertaining them. But, if you like suffering, these two should be ideal consumption. And to add to the confusion, I just love a good Tannhauser. (I'm not making this up, you know.)

G.B. Shaw described Wagner opera as some glorious moments separated by some boring half hours. Others are more able to connect it all together.

Some are never more alive than when on a roller coaster ride, others hang on like grim death til it's all over.

Was that Shaw? I have always attributed that quote to Verdi. Although I am pretty confident that Mark Twain said, "Wagner's music is better than it sounds."

Could be, Rich, I just did a quick search and found it attributed to Rossini and then, in reply to someone else's comment about Wagners glorious moments, Debussy made the addition about boring quarter hours. A lot of people were quoting each other in those days, Oscar Wilde once praised something Whistler had said, adding, "I wish I'd said that". Whistler replied "you will, Oscar, you will".

What I found when I googled "glorious moments" "boring" and "Wagner", the first entry was my own 6 hour old quote from right here on pianoworld. Out there for eternity, right or wrong.

A matter of taste.
By the end of the year, I will have seen maybe 20 Rings.
Monumental.

It is both Shaw and Rossini.

I think however that there is little doubt that Tristan is probably the greatest opera (maybe with Figaro), a piece that launched modern music.

But it's obviously a matter of taste.

Surprisingly, it seems that the world has forgotten that 2013 is also Verdi's bicentennial.
While there are tons of Wagner all year around, there is not much Verdi, which is a shame. I got 1 invitation from Parma but its just 2 opera's...

In the meantime, Tommasini placed Wagner after Verdi in the list of the greats because Wagner was a "lousy human being".
PC a la NYT.

Wilde is a favorite here, he did not need much help in the originality department.