I am looking to get into opera

Callas in La Traviata. Basic and lyrical.

La Boheme. Karajan, Pavarotti. A gateway opera, for sure.

Are you a soprano, alto, mezzo, or what, Miss OP?

Madama Butterfly.

That Callas Traviata is a classic but not for a newbie. You gotta work up to it. The Sills recording is easier on the nerves and either Gheorghiu or Netrebko for modern sound.

[quote] Are you a soprano, alto, mezzo, or what, Miss OP?

OP is Susan Alexander Kane.

Start with "Tosca". Great music, fast-paced drama that moves as quickly as a good play.

And for some fun, "The Barber of Seville"! I've been exploring Rossini operas on youtube, and his comic operas are just pure joy. Then "The Marriage of Figaro", which is a sequel to "Barber", but which was written by Mozard many years earlier, and which is a good introduction to the stellar operas of Mozard.

There, three painless top-quality operas, get going!

Castration is the only option OP. Let me get my good pinking shears.

Buy a ticket to the Family Circle.

As you slowly acclimated your can work down to the Grand Tier, but don’t rush things!!

I thought we just did this thread

Voice lessons.

Mozart is easy listening. Verdi is great, there is always one great solo you heard before. Try to listen to it in the, original language. Go see it live at an opera house. Today it is common they show you the, libretto, vulgo the, lyrics as a subtitle on a screen at the stage. It also helps to know the story. Have fun, opera is a great thing to listen.

[quote] That Callas Traviata is a classic but not for a newbie. You gotta work up to it.

I completely agree with this.

Callas's harsh, plangent tone is for when you've become more used to opera and can appreciate what she's doing differently from singers with sweeter voices. I would start off with "Traviata" with Sutherland and Pavarotti.

"Traviata" is a good operas to start with--I always recommend people start with operas with very familiar melodies and great simple stories, and with star singers with approachable voices. Besides "Traviata," "Carmen" is a good one to start with, and so is "La Boheme." For newbies to "Carmen," I recommend Teresa Berganza and Placido Domingo, with Abbado conducting; and for "La Boheme" for newbies I recommend Mirella Freni and Luciano Pavarotti, with Herbert von Karajan conducting.

Eventually you might really like Callas's recordings of "Traviata" and "Carmen," but she's best appreciated when you have more to contrast her with, and see what choices she's making that are so different from more standard opera stars.

Carmen!

Hated La Boheme. No catchy melodies at all.

And Tosca is a shabby little shocker, I suppose?

I think Marie Osmond might be about your level.

Here you go, OP.

Thank me later.

It depends, OP. What type of music do you typically like? Are you familiar with classical music and the classical singing style? It's not always accessible to someone who's not familiar at all with the idiom, so take some time to get used to it if you need to.

Are you into heavier music (hard rock, heavy metal etc.)? Then read up on Wagner, and start with something like Lohengrin. Work your way up to Parsifal and the Ring -- very massive musical experiences.

If you're more a pop type, something like Rossini would be a better entry. The Barber of Seville is always a hit -- lots of great hummable melodies, and a fun story. Then you can progress to bel canto, with Donizetti and Bellini. Great melodies there too.

My very favorite opera is Rigoletto, by Verdi, but wherever you start, if you're new to the genre, read up on the plot and the background of the opera first. Also, any Sutherland + Pavarotti productions are sure to sound great.

But if you have the opportunity, please try to attend the opera in person and watch it live. It's a much different experience than just hearing it.

Opera sometimes challenges cisgender conventions through trouser roles.

buy tickets?

Manon Lescaut (Puccini). It was my first one, at 13, and I was hooked.

OP, if you really are just starting out, the place to start is youtube.

Shit-tons of full operas up, for free! You get to see the whole opera as it should be seen, you get to listen to the music, see the story unfold, probably read the subtitles so you know what's going on, see the acting or non-acting, watch the story unfold through the music and not just listen to the music. If you like it, then absolutely find live opera performances once the fucking pandemic dies down, but live performances probably aren't available to you year-round. I live near a big city with a top-quality opera company, and they just have a season in the fall and a few performances in the summer.

So get going. Youtube. If you're really a beginner, then "Tosca", "Barber of Seville", "Marriage of Figaro". In that order.

I don’t care for that shit.

YouTube is great. But nothing beats the excitement of a live performance. Think of the things that could go wrong!

When you listen to Callas you will need a bottle of sea-sickness pills.

It’s hard to tell what someone will respond to. The opera that won me over was Monteverdi’s “L’Incoronazione di Poppea,” which is 378 years old and darkly cynical in a way few operas are. Go figure. YouTube is a fantastic resource, pretty much everything is available, but make sure that you have decent speakers.

"Mozard"

Oh, dear!

"It’s hard to tell what someone will respond to."

Yeah, well, the first opera I ever saw live was WAgner's "Parsifal"! For real! Yeah, Wagner's longest and least popular opera, and I was completely swept away. But then, I'd been listening to recorded operas for years.

OP, if you have a classical radio station in your area, find out if they play "Live from the Met" on Saturdays. Live broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera Saturday matinee performance.

I’m cranky-pated

"Looking to get into."

I demand a commitment.

[quote] Shit-tons

an ugly word.

There are better ways of spending your time. Like getting into French baroque organ music.

[quote] I demand a commitment. —Maria Callas

Οχι.

Full opera with Pavarotti/Freni, OP.

Anything with Callas in it. Start by watching on Youtube most Puccini operas. La Boheme, Madama Butterfly, Tosca and Turandot.

I recommend anything in your native language. Even better if it was written in the last 100 years.

[quote] Opera fans, what would you suggest for a novice like me?

Why are you a novice, OP?

What have you been doing for the last 40 years?

Listen to me, OP.

Carmen is the only opera that everyone can like. It's beautiful, it's haunting, it has melodies and songs that are being used today in all kinds of ways.

Don't let the others lead you astray. Carmen is the opera all beginners should try.

La Boheme.

And when you're feeling bold, Wagner's Tristan and Isolde. The "Liebestod," is probably the most powerful, and devastatingly beautiful, aria even written.

It starts at the 7:50 mark, if you don't listen to the whole thing then at the very least listen to the last four minutes. You'll thank me later..

True R40, but steep for beginners.

I always tell people that the key to loving opera is to treat it like musical theater. Make sure you know what they’re singing, and what the story is about. YouTube videos with subtitles are a great idea. Also, pick one of the operas suggested here, and just have it playing all day. In your apartment, on your drive to work.

[quote] The opera that won me over was Monteverdi’s “L’Incoronazione di Poppea,” which is 378 years old and darkly cynical in a way few operas are.

That’s the most unlikely opera gateway I’ve ever heard! But bravo to you!

1. Listen to some opera on the radio or a friend's CDs.

2. Do NOT pay big money for bad seats and listen to second-rate performers in your local opera house. You will hate it so much you will vow to never listen to opera again!

Montiverdi is wonderful, I wish I had discovered him earlier. ‘I’ll Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria” is also great.

Montiverdi is better at home.

My introduction to opera was equally bizarre: my mother loved Beverly Sills, and when we went to NYC in the 70s for the first time my father surprised her with tickets for all of us to see her in [italic]Thaïs[/italic] at the Metropolitan Opera. I had no idea that Sills was long past her prime or that the opera is a religious-erotic mess and now considered obscure, or that the production was disparaged as cheesy. I thought at age eleven it was the most incredibly glamorous thing I had ever seen in my life, that the costumes were spectacular, and that the music was melodiously gorgeous.

To this day, I still love Massenet.

Don’t bother!

“Thais“ has the famous meditation, one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written….

Buy a ticket.

I love Thais! Werther is my favorite, though.

This is my favorite YouTube opera. Technicolor for both eye and ear.

Mostly there are introductions to the opera you are about to see. Go and listen to them, they are mostly free. And just go, a couple of times or get a season card. You will find you like some operas more than others. That's okay. You explore and continue from there.

Listen to anything by Leontyne Price. The sheer beauty of her voice and her excellent sense of vocal drama will hook you

Marry me, R54!

Start with the Ponelle Figaro movie. Best film version of an opera ever made.

And the Joseph Losey DON GIOVANNI is great, also with Dame K.

I agree with R56. The Marriage of Figaro is simply gorgeous, and the Ponnelle version is outstanding.

OP, if you give me an email address, I'll contact you to send you Le Nozze di Figaro. I have three or four I don't listen to anymore.

And it’s free on YouTube in full length,OP and R56!

It’s always better to go see an opera in person— everything is on full display as is was meant to be—singing, sets, costumes, live orchestra.

You will “get it” immediately.

You will only “get it” if you're in good seats.

The best opera on film without argument is Bergman's The Magic Flute.

Watch it OP. It is a joy.

I must say though I loved Ponelle's Figaro on stage along with his Manon and Clemenza.

Can someone explain the plot of the Magic Flute without it containing the words “utter gobbledygook”?

Lots of good suggestions here.

Carmen. Boheme, Rigoletto, Tosca, Barber of Seville all great places to start.

Opera on video or the Met simulcasts at the movies aren't the same as seeing it live.

Buy tickets to your local opera company. They need patronage and you may see a star in the making.

But it’s in SWEDISH, R63!! Tamino is cute though. Watching him an falling in love with him as an 8 year old is one of my earliest gay memories…

R64. Queen hires handsome prince to free her daughter from her evil ex husband. Prince finds her, realizes Queen is evil and Ex is noble. Three drag queens are lusting after said Prince, a guy in a bird costume sings the praise of the nuclear family , a dragon gets slain, and three boys sing from a suspended balloon. Somehow a flute is involved. Questions?

[quote] Somehow a flute is involved. Questions?

Is the flute magic in any way?

Yes, R68. Whenever the plot is stuck it appears and everybody starts dancing.

[quote] Queen is evil

[quote] Questions?

Is she queen of all phases of the 24-hour cycle?

Make an effort to see the Magic Flute live on stage, as has been suggested above. There is a 27% chance that the Queen of the Night will fuck up the high notes of her first aria and refuse to appear for the second. It creates enormous suspense.

Buy a ticket. Don't wear a shiny gown. Or a bouffant.

Why pay big money for a ticket to hear second-rate singers make mistakes when you get the world's best at home on disc?

What about making love?

Nobody said The Magic Flute is a documentary.

and, duh, it is musical theatre...

and learn a romance language first.

RFLOL at R67, R69 and R71. The greatness of the plot in the Magic Flute is that its apparent silliness will delight children, while adults who understand Masonry will marvel at its depth.

Thanks R78. I have seen it about 20 times. The Met production with the Julie Taymor set was actually very nice.

You can never go wrong with Verdi as a first opera--tons of gorgeous melodies that just meld into each other--keeps you interested the whole time.

The top 4 produced operas are: Carmen, Aida, Tosca, and La Boheme. All are great crowd pleasers

You'll need to gain weight and take singing lessons.

Do your peaches smell like piss?

No, my piss smells like peaches! Executioner, if you please!

Sing out, Louise!!!!…..

R82, R83 I don't understand what you mean. Is there some connection between peaches and opera?

"You can never go wrong with Verdi as a first opera"

I disagree, it took me maybe 20 years of opera appreciation to get into Verdi. I thought he was crude and bombastic for ages, it took me forever to learn to appreciate his straightforward musical language. No subtlety there, just hitting you right in the face with the appropriate feeling, seasoned with the camp value of his ludicrous plots!

I'd recommend the novice start with Mozart, Rossini, "Carmen", or Beethoven's "Fidelio".

r 86 = Mid-century modern house with books artfully placed.

It took you 20 years to get into Verdi? Never but never admit that to someone you know personally.

Been there, done that, OP.

I was afraid of Wagner for so much of my opera going life—then I tried it and WOW.

Start out with Lohengrin. You’ll be at the edge of your seat the whole night

As people are saying on this thread, all kinds of operas from Massenet to Monteverdi got them interested in opera. There is no magical opera that gets everyone into it, although i would say the best bet is still "Carmen" since almost everyone knows the tunes (if only from the episode of :"Gilligan's Island" where they put on the musical version of "Hamlet" and mostly use tunes from "Carmen").

Puccini's "Turandot" did it for me. You might want to start in the middle, when Turandot finally starts singing. The melodies of the Riddle Scene, "Nessun Dorma" and Liu's arias hooked me immediately.

Musically risky, R92. If you start Turandot at Turandot’s In Questa Regia aria, you miss the first appearance of all of the climax music, particularly the massive Act I “Principessa!” melody with the trumpet fanfare and the incredible swell after the “O mondo” end of Ping/Pang/Pong trio during Act 2. Also, you miss the emperor trying to talk dumbass Calaf out of doing what he’s doing. There may not be much story there, but why skip that exhilarating music?

Yes R90 Lohengrin is amazing. Wagner’s music is just amongst the most beautiful ever written. The “Ortrun wo bist du” scene sends shivers down my spine.

Her name is Ortrud.

Turandot has as its hero and heroine two of the most evil people in opera and at the end you're supposed to cheer their love. It really is about as bizarro a plot as you'll find in opera. Trovatore makes perfect sense in comparison.

no an opera, but classical music : le carnaval des animaux - Saint Saëns

You start where you’re meant to start OP babe!!😘

As a younger person not raised in high culture and being a recent opera novice myself, I just got started by watching fairly modern recordings of obscure shows, which caught my interest by chance on the fyp or due to mentions in other media.

My cherry was popped by Rameau, more specifically a DVD of the 2004 production of his LES PALADINS by Theatre du Chatelet. Probably helped that I already had a passing interest in French baroque/imperial culture, and in the bucolic. I went on to stream 21st Century productions of Lully’s ATYS, Charpentier’s DAVID ET JONATHAS, Handel’s SEMELE (though pretentious purists and gatekeepers will insist “ACTUallY nOT an oPErA it’S a musICaL dRA-MAH ORatORIo!!”), and another by Rameau in PLATÉE—none conventional shows for the neophyte. I selected each one based on whether I felt the story & character would interest me personally, and whether the look of the production appealed, which probably strikes some as a shallow uneducated approach, but as I don’t yet have the knowledge or metric to judge I have to go off something😅

Just follow your own nose, is probably sound advice for starting anything. If you want to start a discussion thread for posters new to Opera, I’d be glad to contribute to that.

^^forgot to say also that if anyone has suggestions for operas I’d like based on what I’ve seen so far, please lmk!

On my watchlist rn I have Da Ponte’s hits (read his life story! he’s a madman I love him already), Purcell’s KING ARTHUR (I’m a Brit pagan, there’s no choice), Rossini’s WILLIAM TELL (have been informed the ballets are sublime), Donizetti’s LA FILLE DU RÉGIMENT (honestly this is another shallow choice I’m just very obsessed with a pants-role), and Korsakov’s THE GOLDEN COCKEREL (the podcast ‘Opera After Dark’ roasted the plot in one episode, and it sounds like my kind of ludicrous feudal batshittery).

Scarlatti’s work has also been recommended to me, but looking into it, barely any of his opera survive intact, and besides that his plots & libretti all seem too heavy-handed for my tastes on the Christian moralising, so I think I’ll pass on him😔

Meanwhile OP please enjoy the sounds my dream wife Steph d’Oustrac😍😍😍

[quote] TURANDOT has as its hero and heroine two of the most evil people in opera and at the end you're supposed to cheer their love. It really is about as bizarro a plot as you'll find.

yes exactly??!! nasty pricks deserve each other

nd anyway who else would have them?

R94, it is lovely. I was first introduced to the wind dominated “Gesegnet will die schreiten” passage of Act II during high school via the Lucien Calliet band transcription “Elsa’s Procession to the Cathedral”. The entire opera is so gorgeous. The only Wagner work that I love more than Die Walküre.

My first opera was The Magic Flute and it was enough to get me interested, even though others said the Queen of the Night was very subpar. But when you're new to opera you don't really know, so the spectacle of it all can still pull you in.

Once you are experienced listener, live opera can be underwhelming unless you have access to a top tier company. And even in the top ranked opera houses there's really nobody who can sing Turandot or Norma.

R101 must have gone to a very good school. The only substantial musical education I got at my decent but underfunded and provincial grammar-school was a skimming over Bach and the other Big Classicals.

[quote] others said the Queen of the Night was very subpar.

Is there a compelling and genuinely legit reason why so many aficionados think this? Or is it merely contagious snobbery?

There probably isn't a Turandot or Norma anywhere in the world today.

R95 yes, thank you! Respect on her Pagan name! That bitch Elsa deserved what was coming to her!

Avoid Maria Callas. An acquired taste, if your taste runs to STRANGLED CHICKEN SOUNDS

I’ve had great success taking friends to Turandot as their first opera. The story is simple and the music is gorgeous.

Everyone usually enjoys that a fat lady sings the main role

Sorry, R95. Ach Gott!

Because her two coloratura arias are fiendishly difficult, R104. They are impossible to sing if you are not supremely self confident. Check our Damrau in this role, she is incredible.

Thanks R103! It wasn’t a great HS, but the music program was pretty good.

This kinda off topic and probably TMI, but “Elsa’s” was basically the only major classical transcription we would play. It’s a “war horse” as my director used to tell me, a tune that’s been played by famous bands (like the Eastman Wind Ensemble or UM) for decades, similar to Grainger’s Lincolnshire Posy, Holst’s Suites for band, or the standard cache of marches like Washington Post, Trombone King, Barnum & Bailey’s Favorite, or In Storm and Sunshine.

Good times.

As a young gay, I too forced myself to like opera. I figured there must be something to it since it has such adoring fans. Every time a Live from the MET would should up on TV, I’d force myself to watch. I’d usually fall asleep near the end but I never gave up.

One day it clicked and I became a lifelong fan.

R99, I predict you'd like Stravinsky's "melodrama" PERSEPHONE. One of his lesser-known 'neo-classical' pieces, little performed because it requires a huge orchestra, piano, children's and adult choirs, several operatic singers, and a ballet company to perform. It's only about 40 minutes long, and spectacularly beautiful music. Here is the 1st part:

Are you friends with the other poster who put up something about looking to get into Oprah?? Now--THAT would sound like a much more challenging, interesting, and width-challenging goal!

OP whatsamatta, can’t find the front door?

stick to curling, Francine, you'll never get it

Well, OP, if you haven't been training since you were a kid, I'd suggest you check out joining a choir instead. Opera is hard.

Watching this OP will give you an appreciation of what makes opera great.

Verdi is actually one of the WORST opera composers with whom to begin. Suggest Puccini, Mozart, or Rossini. Ease yourself into the genre and then expand from there. It took me 20+ years to come around to Wagner. I still prefer Wagner to Verdi; Verdi is a bit too "Um-Pah-Pah" for me.

[quote]"Parsifal"! For real! Yeah, Wagner's longest and least popular opera

NOPE. Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is Wagner's longest opera. Rienzi is doubtless his least popular opera.

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is longer than the 100 Years War.

La Traviata is a wonderful opera to get to know opera by. The melodies are sweeping and lush.

watching my fave sportsball men enter their flop era is mi trada quell’alma ingrata mood😔

R122 wonder how many people were introduced to the world of opera and specifically Trav via the first U.S. adaptation of ‘Queer As Folk’?

It acts as a thematic allusion through the tortured slow-burn romance arc for the characters Ted & Blake.

I find Mozart (except Marriage of Figaro) and Rossini a bore. They go on and on and on

Cosi Fan Tutte is probably my favorite opera. I don't know how many recordings of it I have. La Clemenza di Tito is another at the very top.

[quote] "Parsifal"! For real! Yeah, Wagner's longest and least popular opera

For me, a massive part of the problem with PARSIFAL is not the music or the libretti itself, but the inherently dreary and neutered subject matter.

Parsifal/Perceval/whatever you want to call him is a sanctimonious proselytizing bore of a male lead; the only one of Arthur’s knights who didn’t fuck, and who put God before everything including the lived experience of cutting up. Like, come on—even Francis of Assisi had a period of cavorting around naked and scaring the local populace with batshit visions of a bacchanalian utopia.

One could I suppose argue that his ‘Grail’ is in the an ardent albeit fruitless search for a metaphysical meaning or an Absolute Idea, but, if we take the desired effect of drama to be a communal synthesis of human strife that is universally felt, then there’s no getting away from the fact that Parsifal is just a horrible choice of character on whom to centre a dramatic work.

As an OT aside for those interested, the chivalric round table knights we know so well from Medieval romaunce arise from more ancient myths from the British Isles and from Gaul, in particular textual evidence from monks who transcribed oral traditions of Welsh lore in which we find stories of ferocious lusty warriors imbued with supernatural gifts & qualifies. Christians got their lilywhite hands on this folklore and utterly defanged it for use in their thousand-year propaganda campaign.

R127, opera becomes a bore when discussing the supposed philosophy behind them.

They’re entertainment. Let’s leave them that way.

And I fucking clap after the first act.

Clapping after the first act shows you're a rube. And the second act of Parsifal is the single worst act in all of opera. People have been known to sit it out and have their fingernails removed with pliers.

R128 thanks for reiterating what I said, only in a worse and less substantial way. Defo needed a man to wade in and Cliffnotes, then try to take credit for my original point.

I’ve seen 2 recent productions of Parsifal. At Bayreuth. People clapped after the end of each act. Although at the end of the opera there would be a long, respectful silence for what just happened. And finally the clapping. I think you can safely assume that if the Bayreuth public, the most highly “Wagner versed” public in the world, claps for Parsifal, then it’s ok to do so in any other house.

It is universally acknowledged that considering what now happens on stage at Bayreuth the public there is the least "Wagner versed" in the world.

R132 what happens? Don’t leave us newbies hanging on in suspense.

I saw a Parsifal at the Chicago Lyric which ended with everyone drinking Kool-Aid. At AUSCHWITZ.

R133, they have SINGING MICE at Bayreuth. Ok, it’s singers dressed as mice, in Lohengrin. It starts at about 3:09 on this video.

R128 Opera becomes a bore when discussing the supposed philosophy behind them. They’re entertainment.

Is Sondheim entertainment?

What’s Opera, Doc?

Merciful God killed the director of those mice yesterday.

I hope it was very slow and miserable.

A friend just told me in the Bayreuth Tannhauser Wolfram locks Elisabeth in a gas chamber and then turns on the gas.

I’m waiting for the Bayreuth Götterdämmerung where Gunther’s spear is a giant dildo.

^

The dildo happened back in the 80s.

Wagner's grandson was a real wag.

Puccini is the most accessible: Boheme, Butterfly, Turandot, Manon. Then go to Italian opera including Mozart, plus Carmen.

[quote] Is Sondheim entertainment?

Absolutely

[quote] Puccini is the most accessible: Boheme, Butterfly, Turandot, Manon.

um....

The whole "don't clap after the first act of Parsifal" nonsense was apparently started by Wagner himself.

He thought his composing was so otherworldly that the audience should remain in a heavenly trance.

You guys are hilarious. I’ve been a regular Bayreuth go-er for 11 years now. In fact, I go every 2 years. Yes, the productions are hit and miss. In particular that Tannhauser staging in a shit factory was god awful. Courtesy of that lunatic Katarina Wagner who would treat the festival as her personal playground and systematically invite the most controversial directors in Germany just as some sort of deranged dare. Thankfully she’s now gone.

However, I have also seen productions of unbelievable beauty and poetry. I saw that Lohengrin with the rats. Guess what? Don’t believe a 5min YouTube video clip. It was superb and ,yes, thought provoking. Those 2 Parsifal I saw were awesome. The last one which is still the current production left me in tears in the end. And yes, the Bayreuth public know their Wagner. They don’t go to his festival to show off. I’ve had amazing Wagner centric discussions with random strangers at the pretzels queue. You don’t actively manage a 10-year waiting list without being passionate by the subject.

Any production can be good if the singing and conducting are good.

Set Madama Butterfly in someone’s butthole. If you have a great conductor and singers, it’ll be a good show

This would have been fun.

At the risk of being christened 'The Janacek Troll' don't forget Janacek. Maybe The Cunning Little Vixen first? The courtship scene is so beautiful, and the Forrester's monologue at the end is sublime. I'm tearing up as I type (I know - Mary!).

I've seen three of Janacek's operas on stage and they aren't very operatic, IMHO.

His beautiful music is best appreciated at home.

Montserrat Caballé? Was she a great big fat person?

I’m actually surprised how much I enjoy Janacek when I see an opera live

R151, she was but what a voice—a pure miracle

Yes, Mdme Caballe was plus-sized. They said that she had thyroid problems and I am inclined to believe it. She was an incredible singer and an admirable person. Her warm personality and generousness are renowned. This is a recital from Madrid, in 1979. Particularly good in it is Vivaldi's Sposa Non Disprezzata (the aria heard at the end of the famous Sopranos episode, "The Pine Barrens").

The moment Caballe' became famous. Singing "Casta Diva" from Norma, outdoors at a performance of Norma in Orange, in France, when the mistral picked up something fierce and had delayed the show. She knocked their socks off.

I agree r152, but I can understand r150. Janacek does not always give us soaring lyrical writing, as you would expect of vocal lines derived from speech fragments, but when he does it's like sunlight through clouds. What makes his operas work is they tell stories in a largely modern way. We don't have to go to Verdi world or planet Wagner to get them, even though those journeys are very rewarding. They are short, his purpose is always very obvious, and his characters are very full. They are accessible to us, and we get what they are about.

R155, Caballe considers that her single greatest performance

R156, you’re so right. In fact I’ll watch a Janacek and think “I wish that line were held longer”

OperaMouse on Twitch is really cute. She's a trained, young singer, but to entertain followers and get hits she channels her voice through a little anime avatar character.

Hard to tell what her range is, sounds like a lyrical soprano? Or a soubrette?

I know it was written a while ago but I have to agree with the poster about the second act of Parsifal. It is pure torture. But the first and third acts are sublime.

[quote] Yes, the productions are hit and miss. In particular that Tannhauser staging in a shit factory was god awful.

A factory just for the production of shit?

Isn't that what cows are for?

[quote] Rienzi is doubtless his least popular opera.

No: [italic]Die Feen[/italic] is.

R160 I like to think that PARSIFAL mirrors the masochistic Xtian condition--secretly, devotees of the One True God all *want* to suffer emotional misery and endure boredom,

A friend of a friend adored Wagner and went every year to Bayreuth. She stopped because she could no longer sit through the productions.

Breath control. Assuming you were blessed with vocal ability, then it's all in the breathing. Master breathing to achieve optimum air to diaphram expenditure, and all else falls into place with little to no effort. You'll become like a player piano. It'll be as if you're an instrument being played by some unseen force. It's magic. Hone your intrument to it's apex and just sing the song, baby.

La Boheme was recommended to me as a pup forty years ago. I make the same recommendation to others who ask me today.

[quote] Mdme Caballe was an incredible singer and an admirable person. Her warm personality and generousness are renowned. This is a recital from Madrid, in 1979. Particularly good in it is Vivaldi's Sposa Non Disprezzata (the aria heard at the end of the famous Sopranos episode, "The Pine Barrens").

R154 perhaps it's just my novice perception, but to me it seems as if Vivaldi's opera don't get as much play or talked about as often as those from other composers.

Am currently enjoying a first listen to Farnace. I do find the urgency of the continuo pleasing and engaging, and the melodies intricate as they are beautiful. That said, so far I'm not feeling the distress of a defeated marauding shamefaced King who's sending his family to die. Maybe I'm not skilled enough an ear to pick out the musical cues of that? Or the contemporaneous sense of that emotion is lost on today's listener?

R17, Marie looks good there.

Can anyone recommend an entertaining forum or blog for opera chat? I learn and take in more about artforms when I can have back-and-forth about it online.

Anything by Verdi.

R167, recordings of Vivaldi can be hard to take—every aria seems to be nothing but thousands of notes firing at you in rapid bursts. It’s virtuosic but cold. Or that’s what I thought until I heard a live performance of one of his oratorios. It was incredibly beautiful and moving. For some reason, when those notes have air around them, when they can bounce off walls, they make sense.

R171 that's a beautiful and succinct and insightful way to put it. I shall remember that always when I hear Vivaldi.

Florence Foster Jenkins

OP, just wave them the tickets dramatically about and I'm sure they'll let you in!

OP--practise, man, practise!

[quote] I am looking to get into opera

Just show up at the stage door. Many opera companies take walk-ons.

So’s Stedman! Jajajajajaja

Novice classical/opera listener here, trying to listen to Ades 'Power Her Face'....am confused. There's probably a lot of nuance, context and technical knowledge I'm missing to understand this, right?

R178, I think Ades's operas only work if you see them staged, which you can easily do on YouTube.

R179 thank you for the link, you are a star! Off to watch now.

Had been assuming that full-length video uploads of opera were hard to find, perhaps because of the exclusivity of the artform. Nice to know that's not the case.

Tommy, Jesus Christ Superstar...most of the others are just too much work.