Opera -- Where to Start?

[monafam]

One more question for the board...

I've never really appreciated opera, but I wonder if there might be something I am missing in that genre. 

I am looking for any recommendations.  Just so you know -- I tend to like the entire thing (unabridged books, the entire sporting event rather than highlights -- and for music, the entire work as opposed to excerpts).   I also am looking more at the era and unsung composers that this board focuses on.   

Thanks as always in advance for any recommendations/suggestions/discussion, etc.

[mbhaub]

This is opening a Pandora's box. There is a wide gulf between opera lovers and symphony lovers. Many people who go to opera regularly never set foot in the concert hall, and the converse is true, too. I prefer orchestral music, but I do collect a lot of opera, but do seek out less well-known operas, since the really famous ones are never going to go away.

Some people will tell you to start with the big, famous works from Mozart, Wagner, Verdi, et al. I say don't go there -- instead I try to start people off with one-act operas which usually are on one disk. It doesn't try your patience like a 5 hour Wagner. It also doesn't ruin the bank account like many 3 or 4 disk operas can do.

I don't know what era or style you're interested in, but here are a few suggestions of things I loan to people to see if they're really interested.

For Italian verismo, emotional, great orchestral writing:
1) Mascagni, Cavalleria Rusticana
2) Leoncavallo, Il Pagliacci (these two you can get cheap in a 2-disk set with Karajan -- unbeatable.)
3) Puccini, Gianni Schicci. A comedy, but great, great fun.

For German/Austrian school -- dark, brooding:
4) Korngold, Violanta
5) Zemlinsky - the Dwarf (Der Zwerg)
6) Humperdinck: Hansel und Gretel. Ok, they're all 2-disks, but not taxing. Delightful, joyous opera anyone can appreciate. Cluytens is my favorite.

From the Russians:
7) Rachmaninoff: Francesca da Rimini
Rimsky-Korsakov: Katschei the Immortal



Better yet, if you live a place that has an opera house -- go! Opera needs to been seen as well as heard. Great scenery and staging works miracles.

[JimL]

If I'm not mistaken, monafam, didn't you say you're in Omaha?  I don't recall that Nebraska is any great shakes in the opera department, and I'm not too sure where Omaha is geographically vis-a-vis Lincoln or Tulsa, but if you don't have access to a good civic opera, I'm sure there are music departments at U of N or Tulsa University that put on at least one fair-to-middlin' opera production a year.  I recall from my days at UCLA that we put on a pretty decent production of La Boheme one year and gave the world premiere of a one-act opera by one of the faculty composers the next year.

[monafam]

Some people will tell you to start with the big, famous works from Mozart, Wagner, Verdi, et al. I say don't go there -- instead I try to start people off with one-act operas which usually are on one disk. It doesn't try your patience like a 5 hour Wagner. It also doesn't ruin the bank account like many 3 or 4 disk operas can do.

Thanks so much.  I'll start looking for some of these.   I also like to go for the lesser-known works, because, as you said, the famous ones never really go away.

I would certainly say I prefer orchestral works, and have struggled with a full appreciation of operatic vocals, but I am certainly wanting to expand my horizons a bit!

Thanks again!

[monafam]

JimL:

Your post came right as I was replying to another one.

It looks like we have an "Opera Omaha" here in well...Omaha.  It looks like we recently had-- "The Blizzard Voices", "The Pirates of the Penzance", "La Boheme"....in 2010 they have "The Marriage of Figarro" and "Pagliacci."

Lincoln is only 45 minutes from Omaha (which has it's own University of Nebraska) so it's possible one of those may do something like this as well.

[Mark Thomas]

I started, for some reason, with French opera: Massenet's Esclarmonde and Meyerbeer's Les Huguenôts. Both with Sutherland, both still available and both featuring immediately memorable melodies and plenty of them, vocal gymnastics from the soloists, thumping great choruses and orchestral fireworks. I still love them after thirty years..

[Steve B]

Monofam,

a mixture of knowns and unknowns and somewhere-in-the-middle-known:

Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana(Bjoerling)

Puccini: La Boheme

Marschner: The Vampyr(there is, as well as at least 2 complete sets,an amusing English set of highlights, from the BBC TV staging!)

Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor(his best; sometimes so bad its good; often, just good, one of his best- try the very final scene-tears your heart out). Lily Pons' Lucia version is mad. Includes highest recorded musical note in the "mad Scene"(startlingly flat!)

Verdi: Aida. O.T.T

Paderewski: Manru(uneven, but some lovely melodies). On Dux cd

Bellini: Norma

Wagner: Flying Dutchman, a good introduction to the big W.

Humperdinck: Hansel und Gretel a perfect opera

Ponchielli:La Gioconda. Much better than often cracked up to be! Big tunes; best with Callas.

Steve

[Kevin Pearson]

As I have stated in another thread "I hate opera"! I have only one exception and that is....PUCCINI! He was a master craftsman of melody. I have heard many operas, even though I don't care for them, but Puccini stands heads above any other opera composer in my book.

Kevin

[Alan Howe]

Start with Puccini: Boheme, Tosca.
Then Verdi: Traviata, Trovatore, Rigoletto, Don Carlos, Aida, Otello.
Or Massenet: Manon, Werther, Esclarmonde.
Or Wagner: Walküre Act 1 (Karajan).
Unsung: Goldmark Queen of Sheba (Hungaroton).

[John H White]

I suspect that opera in general, being just as much a visual art as a musical art, is best seen in the flesh. Failing this, it would be much better to collect video recordings than purely audio ones. Personally, I'm afraid that, lacking as I am in foreign language skills, my appreciation of opera is mainly confined to those of Gilbert & Sullivan-----how low brow can I get?!

[Amphissa]

My comments are based on my own limited experience with opera. I never cared much for opera. I did not have the patience to sit listening with libretto in hand trying to follow the action, unable to visualize what was going on. And frankly, the brief "cliff notes" summaries of most operas I read about just didn't interest me.

But during vacation a few years ago, I wanted to go to the symphony, and ithe only thing available was a staged performance of Stravinsky's  Le Rossignol by the San Francisco Symphony. I was fascinated. The overall effect of music, dance and vocals (with running translation of the libretto) was interesting, and the "fantasy" story line was much more to my liking than the traditional romances I had looked up.

I was disappointed to discover that the only video (at that time) of Le Rossignol was a mostly animated thing, which was not nearly as interesting to me as the San Francisco Symphony's staged production. But I love the music of Rimsky-Korsakov and enjoy the music from his various suites drawn from operas. And when I looked up summaries of those, I was intrigued.

So I ordered DVDs of Mlada and Sadko and The Golden Cockerel. These were splendid! The combination of fantasy, spectacular visual staging, great music, singing and dance, with English subtitles, was perfect.

Then I decided to try other composers. An obvious, natural choice was Mozart's Die Zauberflöte. Another happy hit, and there are quite a number of videos of this to choose from.

Of course, the greatest of the "fantasy" operas is the Wagner Ring cycle. I had always disliked this stuff on CD/LP. Bellowing Brunhildas, meandering music. Blech! I cannot say that I love the Ring operas, but I gained much better appreciation for them when I could actually see people and sets and follow the "action" in subtitles. I was also less enchanted with Debussy's Pelléas and Mélisande.

I've also begun going to the opera on occasion. There's really nothing going on where I live, but when I travel, I always look for concerts to attend. So, in the last year I have seen Madam Butterfly at the Metropolitan Opera in NY and Rossini's La Cenerentola (Cinderella), and this fall will see Aida in NY.

This is all a long-winded way of making a couple of points. As someone new to opera, and a rather skeptical initiate at that, this is what worked for me.

1. Seeing opera makes all the difference. As John also noted, the visual of video or attending live performances was the key for me. I still cannot sit and listen to opera on the radio or my stereo. And a good video (to me) is an excellent first introduction to an opera, because I can stop, back up, pause, watch the documentary features, etc.

2. Stories are important. Opera is theater. If the story being played out is uninteresting, I feel like I'm wasting time and money sitting there watching it. I like fantasy stories. And personally, I like it when dance is integrated into the opera. That was what grabbed me with Le Rossignol, and one of the aspects of Rimsky-Korsakov's operas that keep me coming back to them.

3. Production makes a difference. I don't care for a lot of the modern, spartan staging with political contexts, etc. In other words, I want to see the traditional staging that fits the story.

Well, okay, that's my story so far. Since I love Russian music, the next operas on my list are Tchaikovsky's.

I hope you find your own successful path into opera.
 

[mbhaub]

... lacking as I am in foreign language skills, my appreciation of opera is mainly confined to those of Gilbert & Sullivan-----how low brow can I get?!

That's not low brow! G & S is great stuff. Many opera companies in the US are now doing one G & S each year -- it draws crowds, it doesn't require as large of an orchestra ($$$) as Puccini or Wagner, and it's just delightful. This past season I saw the best Mikado of my life. The "list song" was utterly brilliant, being done in a nasty, wicked way just weeks after the US Presidential election.

If the language is a problem, there's that excellent series of Opera in English on Chandos. True story: years ago I was working in an auditorium and an opera company comes through town. I left the office and went to the sound booth and listened and watched for about five minutes. Hard as I tried I couldn't place the language. It sure wasnt' German or Italian or French. But it didn't sound Russian either. Czech or Polish? Were there any Norwegian or Tagalog operas? I gave up and asked a technie what language was this written in? He laughed -- "ENGLISH!". The singers' diction was very sadly lacking.

[Alan Howe]

For me it's the music - and the quality of the singing - that does it. All the visuals in the world cannot compensate for mediocre singers. Of course the story and production do matter - and when singing, conducting, playing, story and production all come together, then you have an overwhelming total experience. For me, this was when Carlos Kleiber conducted Otello at Covent Garden with Placido Domingo. Stunning. But for me the music must come first.

[John H White]

One thing I do like about Sullivan apart from his genius for fitting just right tunes to Gilbert words, is his brilliant orchestration. Thus, when I attend a live performance of one of the Savoy operas, I tend to watch the players just as much as the actor/singers. I think this is especially true of the "kitchen" department.

[Amphissa]

The first time my wife and I watched The Mikado, we were howling in laughter and replaying songs to sing along. Having watched other G&S operettas, this one remains our favorite.

I went out of my way to acquire the DVD of the performance from the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. It is by far the best video performance of The Mikado (IMO).

http://www.stratfordfestival.ca/merchandise/index.cfm?shelf=32

Their online store is currently being worked on but they will take phone and email orders. Netflix lists it here http://www.netflix.com/Movie/The_Mikado/27667088, but I tried to get it from them and they said they actually don't have it. That was a couple f years ago. If you subscribe to Netflix, I guess you could try them.