Hi


I've never seen a full opera and I'm making a promise to myself that I will go and see Scottish Opera perform at least "The Elixir of Love" and " La Boheme" in their new season to get started.

The opera I would just love to see would be "La Nozze Di Figaro" since hearing Emma Johnson playing her clarinet arrangement of Voi Che Sapete, and seeing Cecilia Bartolli sing it on Youtube. I also played a few of the arias arranged as flute duets from it like Sull'Aria (the Letter Duet) which was lovely and Piu Andrai.

I'll be looking out for performances of it in the future.


Does anyone have a favourite opera or aria from an opera?

I'd have to say my favourite aria is Voi Che Sapete.

Have some opera singers!

I love so many but one at the top of my list isn't an opera but a Serenata. Handel's Acis and Galatea. I am rather madly in love with Cosi and Fidelio too. As to favourite arias, I don't think that I can narrow that down to a sensible answer until the allergy tabs that I took for wasp stings have worn off. I am too drowsy.

Have a look:


Voi che sapete

and


Sull'Aria


They're lovely!

Two of my favourites! Do you know the lovely trio from Cosi, Saove il vento? If anyone wants to sing that in a forum bash count me in.

i don't know it but I will in 10min once i've youtubed it.


Wow. It's beautiful. Especially when the male voice comes back in towards the end. Thats another one to add to my list of favourites, allbeit a short list.

The Elixir of Love is the only opera I've seen in full as yet. You'll enjoy it. Listen out for the tenor aria... Una Furtiva Lagrima



Yes, this is lovely too.

The aria I first heard and never tire of is Casta Diva, from Bellini's Norma. As sung by Maria Callas.

Musn't forget the beautiful When I Am Laid in Earth (aka Dido's Lament) by Purcell.

The first opera I ever saw was "The Flying Dutchman", and I still have a soft spot for it. The best bit is where the Dutchman actually appears and sings "Den Fliegende Hollaender nennt man mich!"

I also have a very soft spot for Tosca.

My favourite is Turandot - I have done Calaf in concert and also Aida I played Radames - evern the elephants were better looking than me in that one

Cav and Pag - I have sung numerous Canios - I make a perfect Canio as the girls always go for the baritone who has prettier music

I love playing in the pit for opera, which I haven't done nearly enough of of late, but would be hard pressed to choose a favourite. However, I have recently discovered Lemeshev as a singer and fallen in love, especially his earlier recordings such as this Pearl Fishers from before he got TB

This Lensky is a bit later, but superb and comes across as a soliloquy rather than a show off.

Ooh yes..love the Pearl Fishers. IMO the version by Robert Merrill and Jussi Burling is the best..



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PYt2HlBuyI

Its so difficult to choose but I think my favourite opera is La Traviata. When everyone goes quiet in the opera house and you get that first moment of the prelude from the strings it gives me such a thrill. And the story has got everything you could ever want from an opera plot - intrigue, seduction, a beautiful heroine dying from TB. La Boheme, Cosi fan Tutte and Die Zauberflote are close runners up. Cosi is strange and wonderful with so much insincerity in the plot and so much genuine music. Love it!
My favourite piece from an opera has to be the Papageno/Papagena duet - its so much fun!

x

I'm not an opera buff, having seen only 5.

But I just love 'Che Gelida Manina' from 'La Boheme'

Favourite opera? There's only one option, I have it on DVD but its very rarely performed:

The Abduction of Figaro

P D Q Bach! Love that one!

You must have a favourite aria though, Vectis?

Cheesy though it is, I still love singing (and get shivers when listening to great singers sing...) una furtiva lagrima - just the opening bars get me right away.

I'm a bit of a Donizetti groupie, to be honest, but I'll pretty much swoon at anything by Puccini too (e lucevan le stelle is another major favorite).

Not a huge Mozart fan, although one of my sopranos just won a competition with Porgi Amor, so I've learned to love that too.

I find this really difficult, because the ones I like most are usually the ones I sing myself - which I sometimes don't like at all before I start singing them if that makes any sense ...

I am not a big Mozart fan in general, but some of the arias I love most are the ones I performed myself when I was still mainly singing classical. I performed Sesto and Cherubino several times, that's why "Deh per questo istante solo", "Parto, parto" and the two Cherubino arias are the ones I still love the most (Sesto more than Cherubino though). Visually, I was always very much the pants role Mezzo anyway, vocally maybe just when I was in my mid-20s

"Soave sia il vento" from Cosi is also a favourite since I have done Dorabella in a students' production (unless you have a bass-baritone who lets you and the soprano die by taking time in his cantilena). I am not too keen on the other Dorabella arias though (mind you, "Smanie implacabili" is very good to let your inner diva hang out ). Like Mozart in general, they don't sit particularly well in my voice. When I was still younger and the voice a bit lighter, I sort of got by (although I already found it quite hard work), but the more my voice matures, the less I like singing Mozart myself. Still, like Rossini, an incredible training tool though.

I absolutely love the Dalila arias (all three), but I fear I have taken a different path, so I won't sing them anywhere apart from in my own four walls
I also love "Carmen", but mainly the Card Scene ...

Tant pis! (nah, not really )

Jerry Springer The Opera

Lovely song. Don't know why I didn't put that in.

Yes beautiful

So many arias:

Mon coeur s'ouvre a ta voix - Samson et Dalila
Cortese damigella - Manon Lescaut
Donna Non Vidi Mai - Manon Lescaut
O ma babbino caro - Gianni Schicci
The love duet - Madama Butterfly
Mario, Mario, Mario - Tosca
O suave fanciulla - La Boheme
Liebestod - Tristan and Isolde
The Easter Hymn (does that count as an aria?) - Cavalleria Rusticana
Un di al azurra - Andre Chenier

and lots more, and that's without the preludes, intermezzos, choruses...

Ah - one of my singers started this one today - very nice indeed. Strangely, this is hardly ever performed in France... I don't know why. I haven't seen it as a recital piece, or even the opera itself - everything seems to be Italian, Russian, German or Czech (lord preserve us - I'm almost certain that I'm allergic to Czech opera).

We just don't seem to put on any French works here any more...

You have excellent taste DC (and I'll pass on your kind comment to Maria when I next see her). Mole likes Una Voce Poco Fa from Barbiere, [but what does he know about music?]

Norma-Lee Moore-Seine

How difficult to pick a favourite! I think that some of my favourite chorus work comes in Magic Flute. I wonder why Fidelio is not more often performed. That is surely one of the greatest ever written.

Have to agree with you there, Henry. Are you a fan of Beethoven?

And thank you very much, Norma!

Hello DaisyChain. Yes, I love Beethoven, but I suppose that I love Mozart even more. My best moments have happened when performing Mozart.

I suspect most would go for Mozart out of the two. (Never mind, eh? ) Have you ever performed Mozart's Requiem? Lovely piece isn't it?

I'm definitely a Mozart fan - and I'm taking my wife through Voi Che Sapete at present! And like Rosfrog (see earlier post) I get a kick from singing Una Furtiva Lagrima.

I really love Queen of the night

I bought The marriage of figaro a couple of weeks ago. I can now officially say I have seen an opera in its entirety (not live though ). It was performed by Zurich Opera and I think it will now have a special place in my heart.

Looking forward to "The elixir of love" in September now!

I've just got back from a performance of Tristan und Isolde, so have a head full of Wagner. Oh, such a shame

<sings Mild und leise &c>

I could listen to the Dies Irae all day... wish it wasn't so short

Elixir is lovely to sing. I came to the end of a run of Elixirs a couple of months ago. I am busy learning Butterfly and Traviata choruses now so I have a very easy time ahead for a few days.

(Sorry, I pressed the wrong smile and don't know how to change it for another. )

I wonder for which company that might be?



Press the "Edit" button, delete the smiley in question, then replace it with the one you want

Debs? Surely not the same lady?

No, it seems not. I see now that you are a clarinet player. Very sorry about that.

Henry.

Well, it depends...

However, I note from some of your previous posts that you are a baritone

How about Rusalka?

When I saw Opera North do this one I felt sorry for the poor girl who had to sing with her legs tied together. At least you don't have to that in AB exams - or do you?

And at the end of Tosca my husband remarked that he wished she had done that earlier and saved us all the bother. Tsk!

The one where she was bandaged up on a hospital trolley and the nymphs were in gymslips?

... and I'd so been looking forward to it ...



The one where someone sat on top of the wardrobe all the way through, without speaking or taking any part in it?


I'd love to know whether the result of Opera North's wacko productions is a net gain or a net deficit in opera-goers...

I heard Rusalka at Glyndebourne last month, and wept buckets at the end. I was fine until the Prince sang "Kiss me, kiss me, and to hell with the consequences".


Depends on the examiner!


There are a few operas like that...
Tristan und Isolde: Oi, Brangane, don't swap those potions around!
Der Ring des Nibelungen: Oi, Rhinemaidens, for goodness sakes, don't let Alberich have the gold!

Incidentally Opera North are staging this same production at the Grand Theatre Leeds next May. In case anyone is thinking of going expecting an ethereal tale of wood nymphs and sprites, be prepared for a rude awakening. Especially if you're not keen on the sight of blood (when they chop her mermaid's tail off)...

I understand that these productions will not be to everyone's tastes but without new and fresh ideas opera would become stale. Opera North are an interesting and innovative company. I really enjoy their work.

I seem to recall the audience's reaction to the first performance of 'The Rite of Spring'....

From 1913? How old must you be?

A wacko production in itself though is not laudable just by virtue of the fact that it's designed to shock (is it? ). If you take another innovative arts company which has its base in Leeds, the Northern Ballet Theatre, they've done loads of updated productions, some of which have had the shock factor but it's been done in - to my mind - a more clever way than Opera North has done. To give just a few examples, they set Giselle in the midst of the 2nd World War and the allusions were more subtle than the allusions in Rusalka. In Cinderella, there was a scene which was similar to the chopping off of Rusalka's tail when the "wicked stepmother" chopped off her daughter's toes so that they would fit the slipper. I remember the audience gasping with shock and then laughing with nervous relief (like you do ) but they kept the audience with them instead of alienating them. And they did a fantastic production of Swan Lake which was set in a "banana republic", the end scene of which portrayed all the swans being shots by rifles and their bodies dragged into a huge pile in the centre of the stage. It was an awesome scene which I still remember many years later. So I'm very much not against updated productions if they're relevant and clever. But sitting someone on top of a wardrobe, to me, is just wacko for wacko's sake.

Great to have a discussion about opera productions

Nice one Henry.
Actually Henry, if you look at the Members' profiles you can read a lot about them.

I don't think that HG is quite that old.

Such a lot of time, money and effort goes into putting a new production together form drawing board to stage that I don't think that any of it is done just for "wacko" value. I find it fascinating reading through programme notes about the staging of new works, or new productions of old faithfuls. It really does give an insight into the way that the designer's mind was working when it was planned. Rather like modern art, to use a blanket term. Some of it will appeal and some of it will appear to be a load of old rubbish. Listen to the artist giving a talk about the work and it will make a lot of sense usually. Of course you may not like it any better but at least you will understand what the artist had in mind and how they tried to achieve it. Some of it will be a load of old rubbish still but at least the boundaries will have been stretched a little. That can be no bad thing. Some of the most enjoyable productions that I have seen have been updated and rather unconventional and have been all the better for that.

I think this is the problem most of the time - you can't normally find out what's in the mind of the creator and I agree that if you could, it would give the experience some meaning. To stay with the example of the person sitting on top of the cupboard throughout Opera North's production of Tosca, I would love to know what the meaning of that was. There were various other *apparently* nonsensical things about that production, and in many other of Opera North's productions, and without the benefit of understanding what the producer is trying to convey, it's difficult to appreciate the finer points of the production. It's as if the producer is making an "in" joke which the audience isn't invited to share. If art in any its forms is supposed to communicate a message, I personally see little point in that message being couched in language which is incomprehensible. Northern Ballet Theatre have managed to push boundaries and be unconventional but have done it in such a way that the message is still understood by the audience, which (to my mind) is a more enriching experience than being baffled and slightly irritated at something which just *seems* to have been introduced to cause controversy for its own sake. And on a commercial front, I've seen Christopher Gable's groundbreaking version of Swan Lake for NBT on several occasions and would love to see it several more times. But I doubt if I'll go back to see Opera North's version of Rusalka because (for me) the interpretion lacks the intelligence and sensitivity which Christopher Gable (artistic director at NBT until his untimely demise ) brought to his highly unconventional productions.

Henry, HG, petrat - which Opera North's productions have you seen and what did you think of them?

I expect the guy on top of the cupboard was the Director - or maybe the prompter?

I'd be here all day if I noted all the arias I loved. I keep thinking of more!

I think it heavily depends on who one first hears singing an aria though. No matter how beautiful an aria, if it's sung badly, it can make you think you hate the piece!

I'm beginning to wonder now if it was Opera North! The production I saw was exquisitely staged and the mermaid-ness was 'suggested' by several yards of silk loosely wrapped around her lower half. (Still an awkward way to have to sing!)

The Magic Flute was also free of whackiness - apart from the surreal story, that is.

The only other companies that set foot in this benighted city are Ellen Kent Productions (they did the Tosca - and I'm not sure if they are a company per se)

Perhaps we should have a sub-category of Most Uncomfortable Aria i.e dressed as a fish, lying on a deathbed, hanging from a noose......

Can I change to Kristin Chenoweth singing Glitter and be gay?

Its brilliant.......and i love the coloratura

(cos i love it anyway)

Favourite Opera, I'm going for "Peter Grimes".

Aria - well from Peter Grimes there are "Now the Great Bear and Pleiades" and Peter's "mad scene" at the end, but it's probably better for the chorus stuff.

I think my favourite aria, which I have a copy of Dawn Upshaw singing, is "No word from Tom" from Stravinsky's "Rake's Progress".