Opera: Who Is the Greatest?

Gounod

ok over Verdi and Puccini and Bizet? some splaining to do my stormy friend

If Beethoven's there then Mussorgsky should be.

But the real crime is the lack of baroque opera composers, specifically Monteverdi, Handel and Purcell for me, but also Vivaldi, A. Scarlatti, Gluck..

If anyone thinks they can't be moved by baroque opeera they need to check out Monteverdi's Poppea, and Handel's Guilio Cesare.

So from that list, I will betray my first love Mozart by going for Wagner. Once you really get in to him there's no going back.

ha, was just being a dick, aero. While I've spent the last two years heavily consuming the classical tradition (seeing Boulez conduct Mahler's 7th with the CSO is seriously top 5 concerts of the last two years), opera remains a bit of an enigma for me.

Listened to an entire performance of Gounod's 'Faust' on the radio earlier this year and it blew me away! I keep trying....

and yeah, it's tough to fuck with Wagner -- 'Tristan und Isolde' is a beast

If anyone thinks they can't be moved by baroque opeera they need to check out Monteverdi's Poppea, and Handel's Guilio Cesare.

yeah I left off all early opera just figuring there weren't likely to be many partisans for it - like my initial impulse was just to put Puccini, Rossini, Verdi & Wagner but then I thought, both Beethoven & Mozart wrote operas, they get in just by virtue of being Beethoven & Mozart (plus I dig Fidelio though I haven't heard it in years) - left out the Russians for pretty much the same reason, they're all maybe-one-vote dudes. So is Berg but he's a titan imo

sue me, I hate polls that list every. possible. option

btw I haven't voted yet and will probably spend this week revisiting stuff (I fucking adore Carmen) but initial impulse is Verdi, Aida is just one of the most beautiful things ever, especially that spectral chorus

but re: late inclusion of Mozart, isn't 'The Magic Flute' considered one of the best? again, I am total newbie...

Opera is a huge blindspot for me but I probably would've voted for Rameau if he was an option. In his stead, I'll go for Mozart.

so tempted to vote Adams, "Nixon In China" is a BEAST

probably would have voted Weill for "Mahagonny"

Would've voted Weill, otherwise it's between Mozart and Britten for me.

This is the one sector of "classical" I still fuck with...barely but it's an important progenitor of the musical so I have to keep it in my life. And like the musical (and rock 'n' roll), you can shellac a shit-stirring prog narrative on to it.

Mozart is opera's pop ideal, its Cole Porter, its Chuck Berry. He had the highest number of great pop songs put into relief all the more brilliantly by the recitatives. And I need those recitatives there for that very reason (as well as many others but that's too much to get into now). So Mozart gets the vote from poptimist me. But then opera gets nervous about its artistic standing, decides recitatives are an amelodic waste of time (which, admittedly, they kinda are), and in general gets too big for its britches. Already the Italians above are getting way too proggy for my tastes. Aida's pretty amazing overall, esp. that gut-wrenching ending. But his Otello is a prog rock horror and all Mozart's Requiem (side one, that is) can say to Verdi's is "bitch, please!". All of which culminates in Wagner, of course, who ruins everything. After Him, operas had to be a Complete Work of Art just like Sgt. Pepper. Or Oklahoma (or Show Boat depending on who you listen to). Which leads to crappy music - prog, Andrew Lloyd Weber, Otello, etc.

Of course this ignores the Baroque era (although the few operas I've heard have been zzzz) and, um, the 20th century. And the same thing happens when you apply Focillon's experimental-classical-refined-baroque model of genre development to opera which gets especially confusing since he uses music terms. The baroque era is experimental, Mozart is classical (that works!), Wagner is refined, and then we've been stuck in the baroque era (of genre development) ever since. So yeah, a bunch of bullshit here. But if it pisses off classical music dorks, I'm down.

P.S. Fidelio is crappy. And just to prove I have some distance from Mozart, La finta giardiniera is crappy too as are most of the pre-Idomeneo operas I've heard.

Mozart is tempting, so's Wagner, so's Britten. I really like the Handel operas I've heard/seen.

(I have no idea why KJB thinks its funny to be aggro and small c crass about awesome music but moving right along.)

So I'm torn between those first 3 guys, for breadth of work. There are other things outside their orbit I might like as much or more - Dido and Aeneas, maybe Rigoletto and Tosca, a nod to Nixon in China, Saint François d'Assise - but those first 3 have swathes of awesome. I will probly still vote Mozart cos y'know Figaro + Don Giovanni + Magic Flute but I always worry I'm marking down Wagner for his personal shitheadness and devaluing Britten cos his canvas feels narrower.

Not decided yet.

btw i don't often fuck with ILX group activity but an opera listening/viewing club wd probably be awesome if we went after it at a sedate pace.

listened to all of Turandot this morning (Sutherland/Pavarotti/Mehta) with the libretto at hand following closely and had such an amazing time...Puccini is kind of Eddie Said's dream of a text-productive composer, right? Planning on listening to Madame Butterfly for the first time in some time tomorrow, I think I'm going to go heavy on opera this week. Still haven't voted in this, I love Carmen inordinately but am pretty ignorant on Bizet otherwise. I'm inclined to go with Verdi just because some of his arias are so gorgeous but that thought sort of made me realize I break down this question like this to an extent: who writes the best arias? whose operas move the best dramatically? (this is hard to know on just recordings, but still you can get a sense of it) Whose cohere best musically? Number of ways to approach it, but I think I do begin with "whose melodies stick hardest in my craw" - which gives Verdi & Bizet & Puccini a healthy lead for me - the "What's love?" melody from Carmen is so iconic and amazing.

Anyway yeah this morning did a no-internet-or-distractions listen to Turandot & just gonna try to get in one a day all week which will be fun. Debating whether to pick up new ones or go with what's here in the house. I left out Cherubini, who Beethoven loved! Cherubini's Medea is smokin'!

Want to see Lucia later this month or next month at the Lyric

my classical listening lately has been heavily weighted to texture and "ambience" so in theory Britten wd be my instant choice but again that seems like a false weighting.

man, an opera a day sounds like it would be really fun

Voted other for Purcell.

Winfrey

I have no idea why KJB thinks its funny to be aggro and small c crass about awesome music

Ah yes nothing like classical music to soothe the suggest banning beast.

I get pretty small c crass on the subject of musicals.

kevin doubtless scorns your small c

do you want to c my little c?

and yes K you are an awesome dude but WHO are you trying to piss off here?

[....]But if it pisses off classical music dorks, I'm down.[.......]

― Kevin John Bozelka, Sunday, 2 October 2011 19:20 (Yesterday)

kevin's clunky superimposition of pop/vernacular music discourse onto classical history reminds me of a certain norwegian ilxor

what exactly is "proggy" about Italian opera and how does that appellation make any kind of sense whatsoever given what happened to opera in the 20th century

hildegaard = delia derbyshire
machaut = esquivel
palestrina = brian wilson
buxtehude = ray manzarek
js bach = peter gabriel, high priest of complexity
mozart = george mcartney, " " " melody
beethoven = paul weller
les six = ocean colour scene, the longpigs, republica....
schoenberg = public enemy

Copland = Jellyfish

think i might vote for wagner itp. 'judenthum in der musik' was controversial but on the other hand who can forget 'ride of the valkyries', which changed the way many people think about helicopters.

I love this Rameau aria:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reCeKLkIIZ8

Other for Handel.

'lieux funestes...' is so so great

still getting a foothold on opera for the most part - loved pretty much everything i've heard of verdi but am probably abstaining from voting either way

(small c crass was a lol punk joek btw)

but re: late inclusion of Mozart, isn't 'The Magic Flute' considered one of the best? again, I am total newbie...

― Stormy Davis, Saturday, October 1, 2011 9:16 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark

Yeah, Mozart is still widely considered the finest opera composer of all time, mostly on the back of Don Giovanni, La Nozze Di Figaro and Cosi in addition to The Magic Flute. It's not just that his operas are crammed with brilliant 'numbers', he was very cunning in the overall musical layout of each opera, and in the way he made the music carry and comment on the drama.

Mozart, Verdi, Wagner and Britten all run it pretty close for me personally. I also ADORE Pelleas et Melisande-- Debussy probs does not need to be in this poll as that was effectively his only opera but it really, really changed the game. Also, if I vote OTHER that means I'm voting JANACEK.

just coming into the overture to Act III of Madama Butterfy this afternoon...man I haven't listened to this one in forever. It's so modern to me, thematically there's so much going on - musically it feels so enormous to me - not in the orchestration, but in how all these gestures & scenes that can sound almost unrelated come together to paint the bigger picture. That opening scene...the ugliness of both Sharpless and Pinkerton in it. The "Let me read you this letter" scene, just so human. And these chorales in the Act III overture - if there's one thing I'm a total sucker for, it's choral opera scenes, something so moving about all those human voices joining with an orchestra in mid-story.

Puccini's such a believer in the power of a story! I feel Verdi more musically, though. I think I might go pick up Bartok's Duke Bluebeard's Castle later. This put-time-aside-to-do-the-whole-opera-with-the-libretto thing is seriously day-makingly great.

Aero have you ever had a good listen to Peter Grimes?

I haven't!

have always dug Britten though, Ceremony of Carols gets a lot of play from me

whaaaaat listen to Peter Grimes now

^^^

last time I listened to Britten I thought "you know who I bet goes ape for BB is Owen"

whaaaaat listen to Peter Grimes now

OTM.

On Saturday, I was playing footage of Sarah Connolly's performance of "Dido's Lament" (from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas natch) for my Intro to Music class from an online "Opera on Video" database. While she was collapsing on the pyre, tearing her life apart, and preparing for suicide, the clip kept pausing to buffer. Epic frustration.

Opera is probably the common-practice genre I resisted the longest but I really think that aria has to be one of the most moving pieces in art music history.

Only opera that i know at all well is by Debussy, so I'm gonna have to vote Mozart based on what limited familiarity I have with all the fellows on this list.

I was an alternate to go spend 6 weeks in Japan as a choral ringer for a production of "Peter Grimes", still furious I wasn't chosen to go for real

What's crazy is that he lived a very full and long life at 76 years, he just decided to retire at age 38.

wanted to concentrate on his eating iirc

Does that Grimes come with a libretto? I have that recording as part of the Philips Duo series which only gives you a plot summary. I mean it's sung in English but can be pretty damn tricky to decipher by ear...

If that Colin Davis is the 1981 production I've got a video of it and the diction is pretty clear tbf

Sorry to get snippy, y'all. Classical (Romantic, New, Modern, etc.) music brings it out of me. Will avoid said threads to avoid harshing anyone's groove (unless someone does an Opera: Who's The Gayest poll).

Snippy perhaps but right on re: Mozart.

Naw. KJB made it sound like Mozart's all brilliant choon after brilliant choon, and he is that, but the brilliance and acuity also extends to the overall drama and the larger musical structures too. The choons are just so brilliant that you think 'well damn what a master of surfaces!' and leave it at that.

Does that Grimes come with a libretto? I have that recording as part of the Philips Duo series which only gives you a plot summary. I mean it's sung in English but can be pretty damn tricky to decipher by ear..

no, it doesn't - it's the you you cite - and I'm kicking myself for not checking harder. ditto the Strauss, which is shocking, it's a 3-CD set and I'll be pretty lost without a German-English libretto to hand. I can hunt down the Britten online, although part of the joy of listening to operas yesterday & today was not staring at a computer screen. Presently pursuing pdfs. Meanwhile Bartók will probably run up to the front of the queue because the libretto booklet is gorgeous & interesting. Here I come 20th century!!

J0hn I can only assume by your omission of ANY Russian composer that you have "The Snow Maiden", "Kashchei the Immortal", "Prince Igor", "Love for three oranges" and god-in-heaven-bloody "Boris Gudenov" ahead of you in your listening list.

Berg wrote my #1 opera ever (Wozzeck) but Mozart wrote #2-6, so...

And I love Britten's schtick but I think his importance to me is more of an 'English language' + 'really gay' thing.

Oh, yeah, so I voted Mozart.

But anybody who doubts Berg's total mastery of life and everything should only compare the original Woyzeck play with his self-penned libretto, it's really quite astonishing the transformation he gave it.

I feel like Berg and Debussy are similar wrt opera, very small amount of work but shatteringly significant...

Verdi's my favorite, but I don't know enough to make an argument that he's the best. All I know is that his stuff jams.

Want to see Lucia later this month or next month at the Lyric

― corey, Sunday, October 2, 2011 2:34 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

Do you have tickets yet? If you go in November and want company, I'll go with you.

Berg wrote my #1 opera ever (Wozzeck) but Mozart wrote #2-6, so...

I think I need to listen to more of Mozart's operas. I actually went to La Clemenza di Tito earlier this year when Opera Atelier put it on (more to see Measha Brueggergosman than because we knew anything about that particular opera). Not sure what my feelings are about it musically, in the end...seemed a bit slight - is it one of your top six, Owen? Thinking I'd probably like Don Giovanni more, from everything I've heard about it.

J0hn I can only assume by your omission of ANY Russian composer that you have "The Snow Maiden", "Kashchei the Immortal", "Prince Igor", "Love for three oranges" and god-in-heaven-bloody "Boris Gudenov" ahead of you in your listening list.

I'm just terrible at making polls. I have Kaschei actually and The Love for Three Oranges - and I left Dvorak out, which, I mean, yes, he's a minor composer, but Rusalka is a player for sure. should have gone w/my initial "who do you pick: Verdi, Puccini, or Bizet?" impulse

Do you have tickets yet? If you go in November and want company, I'll go with you.

― pullapartsquirrel (Jenny), Monday, October 3, 2011 6:02 PM (2 hours ago)

Not yet! I'm waiting until I get paid later this week to get them. It pretty much has to be on a weekend as I'm in class every other day.

Okay, holler at me. I like weekends better unless is skip out of work for a matinee bc it's hard to stay up that late on a weeknight. LOLold.

I not is… whatever just email me.

Will let you know once I get tix.

Best opera is Don Giovanni, best opera composer Verdi.

you know what is kind of underrated/forgotten about, is Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia"

So aero, how did it go last night with ol' Blaubart?

it must be WAGNER.

So aero, how did it go last night with ol' Blaubart?

really loved it - very different experience from listening to broad-canvas three-act operas that I've heard at least once before; it's a single act with very concentrated action on one of my favorite horror stories from childhood, so I was pretty rapt about the libretto. The music is fantastic but I'm never sure that I understand the melodic vocabulary of more modern stuff - it varies from artist to artist, but often with modern composers I'm unclear how I'm supposed to take their stuff. You know? This is one reason Scriabin has been such a revelation for me: he's pretty opaque, melodically, but I get it, it lands right on me. So doMichael Hersch & Elliot Carter, weirdly for me because a lot dissonant/post-serialist moves don't usually "land" on me: I can take pleasure in them, but it's often a pretty secondary level of pleasure, not as immediately satisfying as Beethoven say. (Then again if I devote my attention to Berg I can really get into it but it's an all-or-nothing deal.)

So Bluebeard, melodically (harmonically maybe?) - it's in that 20th-century-intervals mode, the vocal melodies aren't the sort of thing I'll find myself whistling, but the dramatic action is fantastic imo, and some of the musical reveals - when she opens the door that has nature behind it and there's this downward-cascading sound that really seems to mimic sunlight on water, just breathtaking - are awesome. The build is incredible. But I'm not sure I understand it right! Which is always a challenge for me. Because, like, Carmen - that, I just instinctively respond to, feel like I'm understanding the composer's intention (which I know oughtn't be important, or isn't supposed to be, but it often is, to me). Bartók I feel like I'm listening to somebody speaking in a language where I know a lot of the words but not the grammar. Still, moments of great vision & I'm looking forward to knowing it better.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Definitely listen to Bartók's string quartets. The last three are total outer-space music.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Just saw a performance of Don Giovanni over the weekend. For some reason I'd always got the impression that it was a tragedy (the whole Giovanni going to hell thing and the snippet of it in Amadeus, probably) but goddamn if I didn't laugh my tits off. (Plus the music was incredible, of course.)

pretty much only wanna listen to opera lately. It's becoming a sort of idle life goal to be more satisfied with my general knowledge of opera, with my ability to think about it. Scoopin' up books about it when I'm away from home. I know this means eventually I gotta get down w/Wagner up-close but so be it I guess. Yesterday was Un Ballo In Maschera for the kitchen-listening and an old recording of Gounod's Romeo and Juliet in the car (Bidu Sayao & Jussi Björling) and it's just...this is the music I want to be hearing, that I want to be inside of.

Current kitchen listening (I spend a lot of time in the kitchen working and reading and laptopping etc) is Norma...man I love the hell out of this one, so many amazing melodies - tunes!! I wanna call them, they're so much fun and so full of feeling

any particular good book recs? i'm "new" to opera and love it on a surface-level but a better appreciation of what i'm listening to would be cool

You MUST read Wayne Koestenbaum's The Queen's Throat: Opera, Homosexuality and the Mystery of Desire. Incredible book.

awesome thread. i don't know much about opera but i listen to the opera channel on XM and explore a little more on spotify if i want to. XM carried a live recording of Carmen yesterday, which was a great way to spend a car ride (i'd heard carmen before and loved it)

yeah "Carmen" is super great; I also dig large chunks of "The Magic Flute"

if you are willing to go very modern there are many transcendental moments in "Nixon In China"

ha i read that post and couldn't tell if you were joking. as an opera noob i'm not going to turn up my nose at much though

curious about this met staging of 'rigoletto' set in modern-day vegas

btw if anyone has sirius/XM radio the opera channel i mentioned is pretty sweet - they play full recorded performances from the met (modern and earlier, lots of them are from the 50s/60s/70s) all day, interspersed with various recorded arias. on saturdays they livestream (!) the matinee, right now they're playing wagner's parsifal

oh awesome they even have a schedule

http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/broadcast/siriusxm.aspx

http://cc.pbsstatic.com/l/04/8704/9780964378704.jpg

I heard that Parsifal this afternoon while putting dinner together - kind of a heavy listening adjustment because I've been on a steady diet of Verdi all week but still awesome. also there's a very intense sentimental aspect to opera on the radio for me

A friend saw it earlier this week. Wanted to listen today but couldn't quite get to it.

I heard that Parsifal this afternoon while putting dinner together - kind of a heavy listening adjustment because I've been on a steady diet of Verdi all week but still awesome. also there's a very intense sentimental aspect to opera on the radio for me

― available for sporting events (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Saturday, March 2, 2013 8:37 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the commentary was really something, those two were so into it - the dynamic of their voices and the applause once the curtain came up was redolent of like, watching olympic ice dancing or the masters or something. there was just this feeling of importance, of tension.

parsifal is LONG btw. the ending is really magnificent too - lol recency bias but the final instrumentation almost reminded me of "wonder 2" minus the plane sounds

should be a good broadcast of la traviata in a few mins

lol at self for forgetting Strauss
I just bought two complete recordings of Salome at Jerry's for $3 each *yessss*

Opera Fanatic is a great film BTW. My favourite opera right now is Pelleas.

getting into Rossini for winter

I still see that list and think wot no Monteverdi and Purcell

haha looked at the poll again, thought 'where's gounod?', and the very first comment...

the met has done some very fine productions of berg's wozzeck and lulu in the past few years. lulu i esp recommend, directed by the same guy who did that awesome version of shostakovich's the nose a couple of years back. i think you can find it on torrent sites. in any case the met has a streaming service for their met in hd shows, it's a fucking treasure chest obv. i keep meaning to take some week off and just exploit their free trial subscription.

this is still mozart for me.

getting into Rossini for winter

Sorry. Just came back from seeing rarely performed Bizet.