Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Do you listen to opera?

I presume that most people on this bulletin board listen to a lot of classical music. Do you also listen to opera/attend operas? If so, do you find that you like works from the same time periods for opera and for other music?

I generally prefer Baroque and Classical Music to Romantic/Modern music, and my preferences are similar for opera (My tie for favorite opera: Magic Flute and Marriage of Figaro).

Yes. Mostly period performances- Lully, Cherubini, Handel, Purcell, Mozart (My wife is a classical singer doing these gigs, so I go and love them).

Yes, those are incredible works. The last scene of Figaro has some of my favorite musical moments of any composer.

There are also a lot of great post-Classical operas. Wagner's Parsifal. Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande. Schoenberg's Moses und Aron. Sometimes I think that some composers we think we know (Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky) we don't really know until we know their operas.

-J

Only in the form of piano transcriptions.

I love attending live opera performances, and my tastes are very broad.

I've never much been drawn to either audio or video recordings.

I once graded math exams during a Met opera rehearsal. Does that count?

I highly recommend listening to Puccini and Verdi. They were masters of the melodic line and I think pianists can learn a lot about making their own music "sing" if they listen to these operas.

What is wrong with you?

Indeed I do, from Handel to Wagner!

Piano students should be aware that Chopin encouraged his students to attend the opera to gain insight in how to play his (and other composers') melodic lines in a lyrical, vocal style. One can learn a great deal about phrasing, particularly - but not limited to - in the operas of the bel canto era : Bellini, Donizetti, Rossini, early Verdi, etc.

One can find such close parallels in the vocal lines of Bellini arias and the melody lines in Chopin. Sometimes the similarities are remarkable.

Regards,

I was surrounded by opera during my early years. My parents were huge opera buffs, so I've got a ton of arias swimming around in my head, even though I probably can't identify a single one! And like you, Morodiene, they believed the greatest operas (for them, the ONLY operas) came from Italy: Verdi, Puccini, Donizetti, Rossini. (And, of course, they would include a certain Frenchie named Bizet.) But German opera, forget it. They did enjoy Mozart's operas, but hated Wagner.

I guess there is one aria that I can identify (who can't?), "Un Bel Di", from "Madama Butterfly". Despite the fact I've heard it thousands of times, it never fails to reduce me to tears.

Brings back memories of a time when I'd spend winter Saturday afternoons with the Texaco opera on the radio. Poor person's entertainment, I called it. The SO was out working, my housework was done, and I'd lie there in the dark taking in the wonderful sounds.

Sadly, I do not live close to live performances anymore, but still recall a particular "Madama Butterfly" performance which left me in tears and I dared not leave my seat for a few minutes. In the final moments, during those final chords, he enters the room, she takes the plunge and the curtain also started to come down. Dramatic as all get out. I never forgot it.

Who else on this forum can boast recordings of all 27 Verdi operas (with scores of 26 of them (at the time, I could not find the score of Un Giorno di regno )) and all 12 of the Puccini operas, along with the scores?

I have only eight of the operas of Mozart on CD, however. When it comes to Donizetti (over 70 operas! forget about it) and of Bellini, five. All told 130 complete operas on CD; if only I had time to listen to them all regularly!

Cheers

A little. There are some passages hidden in Wagner for example which it would be pity for one to not know. I may not be musical enough to deeply enjoy most of classical music or any music, but I can tell the difference between unique music and something that's merely beautiful, and it is the former I'm interested in and find passages of in places like Don Giovanni (Mozart) and Wagner operas.

Wagner especially is a genius of unique moments, even if his operas are difficult to listen to from beginning to end for me personally.

I like attending live opera (except I'm not a big fan of the Italian romantics.)

I don't like listening to recordings. Listening to opera seems like a very incomplete experience to me.

(Same with musical theater. I like listening to shows I've done, but if I don't know the show, the music loses a lot of its meaning and charm.)

I guess that I should add that I not only listen to opera - my listening experience is quite different from that of Kreisler's - I also subscribe to the local opera company's performances. While POV (Pacific Opera Victoria) is a local company with no really big name stars on their roster, they have high production values, good direction with good (sometimes exceptionally good) singers, and their performances are accompanied by the VSO, our outstanding symphony orchestra.

With the current economic situation, POV gives us only three - instead of the previous four - productions a year, but those usually include two standards and one a little less known.

This year we heard Verdi's Macbeth, Britten's Albert Herring and Puccini's Tosca. The 2013-14 season will present Verdi's Falstaff, Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos and Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro - not bad for a local company!

Regards,

Aww you're missing out man!

I love opera! Attending it, watching video, or listening to recordings. I do agree with Kreisler, but I haven't experienced enough, so I want to do anything and everything.

I agree with the OP that I prefer Baroque and Classical opera, but I also love Romantic and Modern opera. Recently, I've gotten a little into Jake Heggie

Ok,

I don't like opera! At all! I'm not sure what's wrong with me, to be honest, but every time I've been in an opera house I fall asleep. And not only at a young age (which can be excusable).


I must be insane, given the fact that I'm a composer and a musician and blah blah, but in any case that's the bare truth.

It does make it an easier experience to watch opera on DVD or the occasional PBS broadcast.

Since I'm not fluent in whatever language the opera is written in I can at least follow what's going on with English subtitles (regardless of how bad and sometimes humorous the translations can be). I would be pretty lost just listening to the music.

I don't think you can really get an idea for Mozart's music without exposure to his operas. I've listened/watched the whole Wagner ring cycle more than a couple of times. It would be an interesting exercise to listen with the score.

Very cool. It's great to have a local opera company. Britten's Albert Herring is incredible. I love it.

Everything the mature Mozart wrote is operatic in nature, so I can't imagine any pianist who loves playing Mozart not having listened - at the very least - to the three Da Ponte operas.

And everything the mature Chopin wrote (his Nocturnes especially) is based on his ideal of bel canto operatic arias. One cannot know Chopin's piano style without having heard - at the very least - arias from Bellini and Donizetti operas.

Of course, there are composers like the three B's (Bach, Beethoven, Brahms) whose keyboard/piano writing have no influence from opera, but I believe that all pianists should have an all-round knowledge of classical genres - and that includes opera. Including even Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, whatever you think of the composer and/or his music.

For me, I can never get enough of Mozart's mature operas (including the Singspiel Die Zauberflöte), or Puccini's. And I always have a soft spot in my heart for Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel, and not just at Christmas.......

Don't worry. I concentrated mostly on the math tests so I didn't make any mistakes correcting them.

My favorite opera composer is Rossini. I don't like all of his operas; but I also like some of his non-opera works.
My favorite overall classical composer is Beethoven. But I prefer some of his symphonies, sonatas and concertos to his opera.

Basically: Composers wrote stuff I like and stuff I don't care about much. Sometimes I like their operas, sometimes I prefer other works.

Yes.

I also love opera (this has just started in recent years, actually) - enjoying both live opera, as well as opera DVDs.

Actually, opera is quite tough for me because usually I get confused whenever there are more than three characters... that's why it takes several sessions for me to really appreciate a plot (not even to speak of the music, of course!). I remember when I first saw Mozart's Figaro (my favorite) I was quite lost by the many mutual connections between the different characters, and their diverse agendas. Well, once I understood it, I really loved it more and more, and I think it's a wonderful work also by Da Ponte (well, I don't know how much he built on Beaumarchais) to make all the main characters so lively, individual, and non-stereotypical. And then, of course, the music! Every number in itself would be enough to make a composer immortal for history. And yet it all appears so effortless. For me, the emotional peaks are the two arias of the Countess (Porgi Amor and Dove Sono). Also of course the wonderful finale, and I love how in the end it evokes the nervously festive string figurations from the overture again, somehow closing a cycle...back to beginning? Btw, just a minor detail, I always wondered why the overture is notated in 4/4. If ever a movement would be with "alla breve" feeling, it would be this one, I think...

One composer I can't (yet) properly appreciate is Verdi. Maybe during this year of celebrations I will find my sympathy for his music?!

P.S. Anyone ever listened to some operas from the "second-tier" (from today's perspective; they used to be very famous in their times of course) composers of the classical era, for example Paisiello? I think it's quite worth it! I only "discovered" Paisiello because of the Beethoven variations

Treat yourself - try der Rosenkavalier!

Apart from R.Strauss, there's Britten, and what must be just about my favourite opera, The Rake's Progress.
And I know a tragic opera has to be, well, tragic, but Butterfly is on the verge of too much ... I start weeping at the beginning and just keep on going.

Just got back from Verdi's "Don Carlo" at Covent Garden. It's an immensely powerful work, and was superbly sung this evening.

I agree with you 100% - except that (dare I admit it?) I don't really like Puccini.

Not really, although maybe if I listened over and over, it might start to smell like a pile of my dirty socks.

Ah, you need to get into the groove......just wallow (and gasp in horror, and then weep) in that 'shabby little shocker', Tosca.......

I think you've been sneaking peeks at some other thread.

I like opera, but not that kind of opera devotee. My sister loves opera so much. I like the bel canto opera :- Bellini, Donizetti and opera by Verdi. But Wagner... not my cup of tea.
Not only my sister's influence that inspired me to the world of opera, but also the various transcription by Liszt and Thalberg.

Did you know that live operas are usually performed with are called "supertitles", which are like subtitles except they are displayed on a screen next to or above the stage? I did, however, go to a performance of Wagner's 4.5+ hour Tristan und Isolde last summer in Austria where there were none. I could read the synopsis during the intermissions and hope I remembered enough of it during the next act to figure out what was going on onstage.

I'm not particularly attracted to opera - there's singing, you know.

But, considering that, I've actually been to quite a few, mostly modern, and really enjoyed some. Loved Penderecki's Devils of Loudon, Berio's Opera, Stravinsky's Rake, Adams' Doctor Atomic. And, given that company, it surprises me that I really loved a production of Massenet's Werther I once saw. On the other hand, I saw Rossini's William Tell and it seemed to last for months - I thought it would never end.

Some opera on film/video I've liked very much are Adams' Death of Klinghoffer, Szymanowski's King Roger, Verdi's Falstaff, and Bergman's version of The Magic Flute.

A weird thing about opera for me is that I often can't remember the music very well afterwards, not in the way I remember concert music. There are too many distractions, I guess.

As a youngster I didn't care for opera but I think that was because of too much vibrato [ usually by women.] As I have musically grown I realize that the melodies in opera are probably the most beautiful music ever written.

rada

You'll be pleased to know that the wobbly sopranos of old are rather passé these days - even in Wagner......

Opera-goers today like to hear women singing all the right notes, not approximations .

I think it should be mentioned that this is somewhat of a return to the style of Wagner's time even if singers still sing too loudly and not enough like they would Schubert songs (probably because orchestras play too loudly, not being hidden under the floor like in Bayreuth).

"Wagner is a composer who has beautiful moments but awful quarter hours."
--Gioachino Rossini

And, while we're quoting Rossini:

"One can't judge Wagner's opera Lohengrin after a first hearing, and I certainly don't intend to hear it a second time."

I've put off opera until my old age, and now that I'm old, have started attending the Lyric, here in Chicago. Toward the end of Rigoletto, when Gilda decides to sacrifice herself to save the Duke who has deflowered and then abandoned her, I had a brilliant revelation: "THESE PEOPLE ARE ALL CRAZY!" They sure do sing well, though.

I LOVE Tosca!!!

You can watch the whole Royal Opera House production w/ Bryn Terfel, Jonas Kauffman, and Angel Gheorghiu on You tube. (excellent quality recording).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xXJyfe2qxo&list=FLAkr0qEE9cU4qrLZpQfNEMg

I do enjoy opera but it's it's a rare treat to attend a performance due to the expense, so I try to catch the performances on PBS, or, like this version of Tosca, on the internet.

Puccini is my favorite, but I enjoy a number of others composers as well. I find that opera provides a lot of beautiful music, not just singing.

Although, I usually have to be in just the right mood to listen to opera.

Regards,
c.

I wish I could listen to more opera, I have accompanied, and vocalists either pick something "hip and cool" jazz or broadway, or opera. I have a few blu rays of opera, Mozart and Wagner, but here in central Indiana not much opportunity to see variety.

I'm with Bruce. I love opera. My tastes range from Mozart through some Wagner. I have trouble embracing the Ring, as I often feel like the singers are getting in the way of some terrific orchestral writing.

I did come to opera rather late, when I was around 16 or so. I knew the Barber of Seville, but I didn't really know any of the "big" operas. I found a set of LPs mispriced at a record store and they sold them to me for $7.00. A bargain. It was the Sutherland/Pavarotti/Milnes recording of Rigoletto. Well, I was hooked.

I've accompanied many singers over the years, and I've played for operatic rehearsals. It's a lot of fun.

I wonder though, did Rossini ever listen to anything newer than Lohengrin? Most of all, I wonder whether he ever listened to Tristan und Isolde. While I personally don't enjoy listening to whole acts, Donald Francis Tovey said the third act of Tristan was, as a whole, of "overwhelming tragic power".

Also, he said the prelude to Parsifal (~15 minutes) was "one of the clearest examples of the sublime in music since Beethoven".

That is very true. A lot of operatic librettos have ridiculously melodramatic plots. It takes great music and performances to make it come all together into something that is watchable.

I saw this performance live at Covent Garden. It was pretty stunning. But it was so well acted and so powerful that I found it very hard to bear. I don't think I would want to put myself through that again in the near future.

My difficulty with Puccini stems perhaps from the undeserved tragic fates that befall his heroines; while this of course applies to heroines of all eras, Puccini's verismo style, and the "real life" nature of the plots, give these tragedies an unrelieved bleakness. It's undoubtedly powerful, but I don't enjoy misery where there seems nothing positive one can take from it.

The only Puccini opera that I really love is La Fanciulla del West. It has a sense of community that is very touching, and an optimism that seems unique in Puccini.

There is a Tosca story I cannot resist telling. It seems that in one production, the prima donna was terribly abusive to the stagehands. So, for the final performance, instead of a huge pile of featherbeds on which to throw herself, she was met with a trampoline. Perhaps apocryphal, but amusing.