And before mine too Glad to introduce you to them...
I've been introduced to lots of new singers on this thread my own thread is fairly quiet at the moment, until Strictly starts, but I find I'm spending even more time on the computer because of all these wonderful clips
An interesting question, well a question, crossed my mind the other day...
It's fair to say that some people are put off by not understanding the language, will those same people be put off Ballet where there is no speech at all?
well, I love all sorts of dancing, especially the salsa, but have no interest in ballet at all, have only been to see two but I nearly fell asleep on both occasions
Hmmm....I did actually spend some time yesterday writing a (probably rather too long anyway) message re the goings on at Baden-Baden, but it seems to have disappeared into the ether without troubling anyone's pixels.
well, I love all sorts of dancing, especially the salsa, but have no interest in ballet at all, have only been to see two but I nearly fell asleep on both occasions
I went with an ex girlfriend when I was younger and DID fall asleep... it didn't go down well
I should have guessed. Thank you for the alternate link that brings me a
Now there's a singer I haven't heard in an awful long time, great voice and I assume the connection is Mexico...
You guessed it right!
La Bohème is one of mine too, but another of mine is a more unusual choice - Martha and I hope this link works for you because it's a somewhat different interpretation of The Last Rose...
Absolutely!
I didn't know there was an opera called Martha and this song is from that opera. You enlightened me
According to the Wiki (lazy me goes there too often!), it is a poem by Thomas Moore and Beethoven also composed Op. 105 based on this song. I should check this out this weekend.
:)This intrigued me, so I Googled a bit. Thomas Allen, too, is "only" CBE, And so are various other opera singers. Kiri Te Kanawa's a favourite of the Royals, I think. Joan Sutherland was, simply, an Institution... and she was Order of Merit, so, I suppose, also a favourite.
He was here two days ago, participating in Toronto Summer Music. There was the most favourable review in Toronto Star (note: The Star here is equivalent of The Guardian in The UK) yesterday but I can’t find it online. The article starts by saying, “The first concert in Toronto Summer Music’s new Art of Song component filled Koerner Hall with pure musical magic on Tuesday night.”
I couldn’t be there as I had other commitments that day, but here’s YouTube to comfort me.
Your friend wanders alone in the garden of spring,
Gently bathed in lovely magical light,
Which shimmers through the swaying branches of flowers:
Adelaide!
In the reflection of the river, in the snows of the Alps,
In the golden clouds of sinking day,
In the fields of stars thy face beams forth,
Adelaide!
Evening breezes whisper through the tender leaves
The silver bells at Maytime rustle in the grass,
Waves roar and nightingales sing,
Adelaide!
Some day, o miracle! a flower will blossom,
Upon my grave from the ashes of my heart;
And clearly on every violet petal will shine:
Adelaide!
Blimey, I hadn't looked in here for a few days and ... Wheeeee!! ... the place is heaving with wonders. Thanks for sharing all the links, though of course none of them can quite eclipse asitis' Woody Woodpecker. :cool:
Hmmm… I set up the earworm trap with a warning sign then you step in
Keep the favourite operas coming too, I'm enjoying those and picking out clips to post from them
will do that on the weekend
.........................
ETA: I was going to make a separate post re Don Giovanni Unmasked, but I don’t want to fill entire page with my posts. :eek: Assuming no one else is going to buy the DVD (doesn’t it sound discouraging?), here we go.
The film is basically a one man show. DH’s singing and acting is great in this. Everything else is meh and meh. To me the worst part of this film is Donna Elvira whose voice possesses no flexibility whatsoever. The special features do not include any interviews. If I had to pick one interesting scene, there are threee alternate takes of one scene in the special features where DH had to eat chicken and sing at the same time that made me feel like running to KFC. Oh, by the way, I thought he could make a pretty good actor. Really!
Absolutely!
I didn't know there was an opera called Martha and this song is from that opera. You enlightened me
According to the Wiki (lazy me goes there too often!), it is a poem by Thomas Moore and Beethoven also composed Op. 105 based on this song. I should check this out this weekend.
Martha is an absolutely delightful opera, it's a huge pity that there are so few video recordings of it...
It's not always easy to describe emotions when regarding wondrous art, prose, poetry or in particular music. What else evokes a smile, awe, a pensive tear, nostalgia perhaps or even a feeling which I can only describe as almost spiritual.
Martha is one of those rarely performed operas that, in spite of having an absolutely gorgeous, and very audience friendly, score rarely seems to be performed.
Korngold's Die Tote Stadt falls into the same category, and also Gomes' Il Guarany (anyone who saw Domingo's "Tales from the Opera" series many years ago might recall one of the episodes relating to him singing the tenor lead in Il Guarany in Bonn.
Hmmm....I did actually spend some time yesterday writing a (probably rather too long anyway) message re the goings on at Baden-Baden, but it seems to have disappeared into the ether without troubling anyone's pixels.
I'll try again later when I have more time, but in the meantime let me just say.......... AWESOME!!!!!
Finally getting around to catching up on this...what can I say? Without exception, the entire cast vocally was absolutely sensational.
Joyce DD - check (oh, yeah, oh yeah )
Diana Damrau - check (oh, and by the way, her son Alexander is just the cutest little boy you've ever seen!!!)
Ildebrando d'Arcangelo - CHECK!!!!!!!
Rolando - chekka chekka
Luca Pisaroni - check
Ildebrando d'Arcangelo surprised me the most actually. I've seen and heard him before, but not in this kind of voice. His Don G was huge!! Absolutely fantastic sound that shook everybody's ribcage right to the back of the hall.
Rolando was awesome in his first ever Don Ottavio too, and the crowd loved him.
If I say too much about Joyce I'll probably drool over my keyboard, and that's not a good thing. Joyce, you were incredible!
I suppose if I was being super critical, one thing that did let it down in the most minor possible way was that, because it was being sung as a concert performance, with scores on lecterns and no costumes, and because it was being recorded too, sometimes it came across as a public recording session rather than a performance. On the odd occasion, it was clear that the singers were singing to the sound recordists rather than the audience, but what they were singing was just sensational.
Standing ovations all round, and it was fully 45mins after the performance finished that we finally left the hall.
I was speaking to someone who had also been at the previous performance some days earlier, and he was telling me that they were all in identical dresses/suits, so I did wonder if it was being recorded for DVD as well, with identical outfits to provide continuity. I didn't see any cameras, so probably not, and Joyce said it was for CD rather than DVD, so maybe they just only brought one outfit each for the three performances.
Martha is one of those rarely performed operas that, in spite of having an absolutely gorgeous, and very audience friendly, score rarely seems to be performed.
Korngold's Die Tote Stadt falls into the same category, and also Gomes' Il Guarany (anyone who saw Domingo's "Tales from the Opera" series many years ago might recall one of the episodes relating to him singing the tenor lead in Il Guarany in Bonn.
The first clip certainly goes along at a bit of gallop, really quite different renditions... I've added them both to my YouTube Martha collection!
I have to admit I'm not familiar with either of those works although having looked them up I did at least recognise a couple of the arias... so thank you for the recommendations, I'll keep an eye out for them.
I was speaking to someone who had also been at the previous performance some days earlier, and he was telling me that they were all in identical dresses/suits, so I did wonder if it was being recorded for DVD as well, with identical outfits to provide continuity. I didn't see any cameras, so probably not, and Joyce said it was for CD rather than DVD, so maybe they just only brought one outfit each for the three performances.
I really hope it's recorded for DVD... I'm a huge fan of these concert performances.
It wasn't for want of trying, she was offered an audition by the Met at the age of 15 and they closely followed her throughout her career.
It was reported that Deanna was to sing Violetta with Jan Peerce at the Hollywood Bowl in 1948, but it never happened and this is as close as she got - singing here with Jan Peerce himself http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_XrVALotec
Considering she retired at an age when most sopranos are only just considered fully developed I think she would have been phenomenal had she gone on the pursue an operatic career.
I hope the quote doesn't look too peculiar! Mention of Peerce sent me through endless tunnels: from Peerce - the Met via a Belarusian stetl and Radio City - to the astonishing Richard Tucker (his bro-in-law) to George London to Robert Merrell to Beverley Stills to Ljuba Welitsch's Salome. Then, of course there was Corelli singing Recondita Armonia better(?) I think, than Placido my lovely. Oh dear I'm disappearing again...
The first clip certainly goes along at a bit of gallop, really quite different renditions... I've added them both to my YouTube Martha collection!
I have to admit I'm not familiar with either of those works although having looked them up I did at least recognise a couple of the arias... so thank you for the recommendations, I'll keep an eye out for them.
They've both got very strong soprano parts, so you'll love them :-)
Die Tote Stadt is like Cavalleria Rusticana in that it's relatively short and just doesn't have an ugly note in the score. Its very reminiscent of a lot of Richard Strauss's music
It's set in Bruges (the dead city of the title) at the turn of the century, and tells the story of a young man failing to come to terms with the recent death of his wife, and coming across someone, Marietta, who looks like her. Indeed he believes that Marietta is his dead wife, Marie.
A quick search for "Marietta's Lied" will yield all sorts of yummy results for the soprano's lead aria (actually a duet with the tenor in the opera, although its often sung as a soprano solo in concerts and recitals), from people like Renee Fleming, Kiri te Kanawa, Leontyne Price, Beverley Sills and others. Fill yer boots! I actually really like the simplicity and intimacy of this one, even though it has some longer instrumental passages where the tenor's vocals are missing
Il Guarany, although written by a Brazilian - Gomes - , was actually premiered at La Scala, and Verdi was a big fan. It's set in Brazil but was written in Italian. It was a big hit all over Europe and was performed by Caruso, Del Monaco and others, but fell out of favour until Domingo came along and decided to sing it. There's also a recording of the tenor/soprano duet with Caballe and Carreras.
I saw the Domingo production in Bonn (and a second show, after he'd left, with the tenor who'd replaced him*) and it's very accessible stuff and not too challenging. Could easily have been written by a young Verdi.
The soprano in the original Domingo production was Veronica Villarroel and there was a great baritone performance by a relatively unknown Carlos Alvarez, who went on to sing Rigoletto at La Scala. Very very good singing, and I think it's available on DVD
* I was watching this with Mrs DFI, who hadn't seen the first show that I did, and we were both wondering what the shouting was that was to be heard frequently from the front of the house.
Eventually we realised that it was the prompter, who was off stage because the Bonn Opera House doesn't have a prompt box set into the stage, and she wasn't always in the wings on the same side of the stage as the tenor, so she often had to shout 'cos he clearly wasn't all that confident in his knowledge of the libretto
Then, the end of the opera has a few pyrotechnics as a prison is blown up with flares and stuff and the roof comes crashing in on stage on top of the singers. In the first one with Domingo I saw it all went off spiffingly.
In the second one, the timing was off and the "boulders" from the collapsing prison came crashing in out of the roof just before the flares went off that were supposed to be the explosions that caused them to fall in the first place. A couple of them landed on the detonating flares and caught fire on the stage, resulting in a couple of stage hands having to come on, in a prison in the middle of the Brazilian rainforest, with fire extinguishers to put out the fires while the singers desperately tried to carry on singing the climax of the opera. Some of the content of one of the extinguishers rebounded off the blazing boulder into the face of one of the singers who started coughing and spluttering then ran offstage just before the curtain came down.
I hope the quote doesn't look too peculiar! Mention of Peerce sent me through endless tunnels: from Peerce - the Met via a Belarusian stetl and Radio City - to the astonishing Richard Tucker (his bro-in-law) to George London to Robert Merrell to Beverley Stills to Ljuba Welitsch's Salome. Then, of course there was Corelli singing Recondita Armonia better(?) I think, than Placido my lovely. Oh dear I'm disappearing again...
There are worse places to get lost in than Tucker, Merrill and Sills. Could easily spend hours in there......
Apropos of nothing... Here I am, listening to La Forza del Destino and mooching around the internet to find out more about the history of the thing. Here's a gem, designed to delight the bloodthirsty amongst us -- and DFI in particular since it involves an early/tragic/sudden operatic death. Apparently the opera is cursed. Do you think it's safe to listen to it?
'On March 4, 1960 at the Metropolitan Opera, in a performance of La Forza del Destino with Renata Tebaldi and tenor Richard Tucker, the American baritone Leonard Warren was about to launch into the vigorous cabaletta to Don Carlo's Act 3 aria, which begins "Morir, tremenda cosa" ("to die, a momentous thing"). Rudolf Bing reports that Warren simply went silent and fell face-forward to the floor. Others state that he started coughing and gasping, and that he cried out "Help me, help me!" before falling to the floor, remaining motionless. A few minutes later he was pronounced dead of a massive cerebral hemorrhage, and the rest of the performance was canceled. Warren was only 48.'
(My learned source: Wikipedia)
Spelunking, grand prix driving, mercenary work -- is there any profession so dangerous as that of the opera singer?
PS I've been caught up in work for a week or so (I think) and now find this thread richly, brilliantly, SCARILY full of links and stuff, reviews, craziness etc. It's going to be a long long afternoon to catch up methinks. :eek:
PS 2 Hello to everyone and sorry for being MIA so long. Terrific to see the thread is thriving! :)
Apropos of nothing... Here I am, listening to La Forza del Destino and mooching around the internet to find out more about the history of the thing. Here's a gem, designed to delight the bloodthirsty amongst us -- and DFI in particular since it involves an early/tragic/sudden operatic death. Apparently the opera is cursed. Do you think it's safe to listen to it?
One of my favourite operas indeed. Quite safe to listen to as long as you're not operating any heavy machinery at the same time
'On March 4, 1960 at the Metropolitan Opera, in a performance of La Forza del Destino with Renata Tebaldi and tenor Richard Tucker, the American baritone Leonard Warren was about to launch into the vigorous cabaletta to Don Carlo's Act 3 aria, which begins "Morir, tremenda cosa" ("to die, a momentous thing"). Rudolf Bing reports that Warren simply went silent and fell face-forward to the floor. Others state that he started coughing and gasping, and that he cried out "Help me, help me!" before falling to the floor, remaining motionless. A few minutes later he was pronounced dead of a massive cerebral hemorrhage, and the rest of the performance was canceled. Warren was only 48.'
(My learned source: Wikipedia)
Spelunking, grand prix driving, mercenary work -- is there any profession so dangerous as that of the opera singer?
A friend of mine who lives in Noo Yawk was there that night - he said it was extremely distressing, amd it was obvious that Warren was dead before the curtain came down.
He was also present (maybe he's the jinx!) at the Met in 1996 when the tenor Richard Versalle died during a performance of The Makropolous Case. He was climbing a ladder as part of the production when he had a heart attack and fell to the stage, literally seconds after the curtain went up. Again the performance was cancelled. I think there was some brouhaha over the fact that one of the cast members, who shall remain nameless, apparently insisted on still being paid for the performance, whereas everyone else wasn't bothered
I believe that a performance of Gneiss's favourite opera, Martha also had an on stage death. If I recall correctly, that performance resumed after the death with a replacement singer taking over!
He was here two days ago, participating in Toronto Summer Music. There was the most favourable review in Toronto Star (note: The Star here is equivalent of The Guardian in The UK) yesterday but I can’t find it online. The article starts by saying, “The first concert in Toronto Summer Music’s new Art of Song component filled Koerner Hall with pure musical magic on Tuesday night.”
Just catching up a bit as I have been motorising my dish and adding new satellites... so hopefully more opera will be within my grasp and my wife gets some of the French channels she was after.
The paper version is even better as the title of the article reads: “Magic and marvel from British baritone” “Sir Thomas Allen kicks off Art of Song with power and charm”
From what I hear, I can tell John Terauds calls it a 'magic' for a good reason. His beautiful singing and impeccable stage presence totally charmed the audience from the start to the end. Then, the two rather unusual encore choices were very much loved by all. Imagine his deep voice calmly singing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wte1uk4A5eU and then http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX-b1Ksetcc
Everybody left the concert hall, feeling romantically wooed.
Embarassingly enough, I actually have records with that aria (a set of '10 Great Tenors' Jussi Bjorling, Del Monaco, Caruso…etc. all sang it) that I don’t remember when I last played.
I just finished listening to the full opera (Berlin Classics with Peter Anders and Erna Berger). Besides the solo arias, the duets and quartets are lovely and uplifting. I really enjoyed it and was surprised to recognize many parts of it. Btw, DVD of this opera seems to be rare stuff.
Re Die Tote Stadt, if you like Bluebeard’s Castle by Bartók, you might like Tote Stadt. Disregarding other compositions by the two composers, to me, there is a certain degree of musical similarities between these two operas. I personally prefer Bartok’s music to Korngold’s in general though, Korngold was undeniably talented.
....................................
Clips from some of my favourite operas if anybody has got time to kill.
It's not always easy to describe emotions when regarding wondrous art, prose, poetry or in particular music. What else evokes a smile, awe, a pensive tear, nostalgia perhaps or even a feeling which I can only describe as almost spiritual.
I often get an feeling of intense nostalgia when I listen to music, without that music having any other significance in my life that I'm aware of...
Indeed in the case of opera I really didn't like it as a child.
I often get an feeling of intense nostalgia when I listen to music, without that music having any other significance in my life that I'm aware of...
Indeed in the case of opera I really didn't like it as a child.
Listening to Asitis' Wagner selections and sobbing into my supper though not sentimentally but rather with the particularly piercing existential anguish that music always invokes in me, I recall all the concerts and operas I have blubbed audibly through. Perhaps my most humiliating and memorable was snivelling through La Boheme or was it Trav?(a WNO production, I think) in the late 50s early 60s. Afterwards the wondrous John Shirley Quirk told me that he had heard every gulp, sob and gasp. Gosh, he was ridiculously handsome...
Finally getting around to catching up on this...what can I say? Without exception, the entire cast vocally was absolutely sensational.
Joyce DD - check (oh, yeah, oh yeah )
Diana Damrau - check (oh, and by the way, her son Alexander is just the cutest little boy you've ever seen!!!)
Ildebrando d'Arcangelo - CHECK!!!!!!!
Rolando - chekka chekka
Luca Pisaroni - check
Ildebrando d'Arcangelo surprised me the most actually. I've seen and heard him before, but not in this kind of voice. His Don G was huge!! Absolutely fantastic sound that shook everybody's ribcage right to the back of the hall.
Rolando was awesome in his first ever Don Ottavio too, and the crowd loved him.
If I say too much about Joyce I'll probably drool over my keyboard, and that's not a good thing. Joyce, you were incredible!
I suppose if I was being super critical, one thing that did let it down in the most minor possible way was that, because it was being sung as a concert performance, with scores on lecterns and no costumes, and because it was being recorded too, sometimes it came across as a public recording session rather than a performance. On the odd occasion, it was clear that the singers were singing to the sound recordists rather than the audience, but what they were singing was just sensational.
Standing ovations all round, and it was fully 45mins after the performance finished that we finally left the hall.
Ahhhh... the lost post! Thanks so much for this.
Those poor sound recordists. Think of them. It's the last night, their last chance. Everything's set up... all's ready... But just when they hope things will go perfectly... there's this unearthly shrieking from deep in the bowels of the auditorium: 'Oh yeah... Oh YEAH!'
Mark my words, when the cd comes out they'll have to credit DFI somewhere on the sleeve, for turning it into a soul classic. :cool:
Comments
Was he watching The Wicker Man as well?
If he was he didn't tell me - and I'd really rather not dwell on his orgasmic experiences.
I've been introduced to lots of new singers on this thread
well, I love all sorts of dancing, especially the salsa, but have no interest in ballet at all, have only been to see two but I nearly fell asleep on both occasions
this really made me laugh for some reason
I went with an ex girlfriend when I was younger and DID fall asleep... it didn't go down well
You guessed it right!
Absolutely!
I didn't know there was an opera called Martha and this song is from that opera. You enlightened me
According to the Wiki (lazy me goes there too often!), it is a poem by Thomas Moore and Beethoven also composed Op. 105 based on this song. I should check this out this weekend.
He was here two days ago, participating in Toronto Summer Music. There was the most favourable review in Toronto Star (note: The Star here is equivalent of The Guardian in The UK) yesterday but I can’t find it online. The article starts by saying, “The first concert in Toronto Summer Music’s new Art of Song component filled Koerner Hall with pure musical magic on Tuesday night.”
I couldn’t be there as I had other commitments that day, but here’s YouTube to comfort me.
He sang one of my favourites http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0oblFJunyc
Your friend wanders alone in the garden of spring,
Gently bathed in lovely magical light,
Which shimmers through the swaying branches of flowers:
Adelaide!
In the reflection of the river, in the snows of the Alps,
In the golden clouds of sinking day,
In the fields of stars thy face beams forth,
Adelaide!
Evening breezes whisper through the tender leaves
The silver bells at Maytime rustle in the grass,
Waves roar and nightingales sing,
Adelaide!
Some day, o miracle! a flower will blossom,
Upon my grave from the ashes of my heart;
And clearly on every violet petal will shine:
Adelaide!
Hmmm… I set up the earworm trap with a warning sign then you step in
will do that on the weekend
.........................
ETA: I was going to make a separate post re Don Giovanni Unmasked, but I don’t want to fill entire page with my posts. :eek: Assuming no one else is going to buy the DVD (doesn’t it sound discouraging?), here we go.
The film is basically a one man show. DH’s singing and acting is great in this. Everything else is meh and meh. To me the worst part of this film is Donna Elvira whose voice possesses no flexibility whatsoever. The special features do not include any interviews. If I had to pick one interesting scene, there are threee alternate takes of one scene in the special features where DH had to eat chicken and sing at the same time that made me feel like running to KFC. Oh, by the way, I thought he could make a pretty good actor. Really!
... aside from the last rose the melody from which runs through a lot of the opera it also has this famous piece
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAW-R0K1U5Y
You probably knew I'd do this, but on the basis that there are very few arias that weren't sung better by Fritz Wunderlich...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPbgSUHBdqs
And, since Pet will probably jump in with Di Stefano, I'll save her the trouble
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pIGoyyJLJk&feature=related
Martha is one of those rarely performed operas that, in spite of having an absolutely gorgeous, and very audience friendly, score rarely seems to be performed.
Korngold's Die Tote Stadt falls into the same category, and also Gomes' Il Guarany (anyone who saw Domingo's "Tales from the Opera" series many years ago might recall one of the episodes relating to him singing the tenor lead in Il Guarany in Bonn.
Finally getting around to catching up on this...what can I say? Without exception, the entire cast vocally was absolutely sensational.
Joyce DD - check (oh, yeah, oh yeah
Diana Damrau - check (oh, and by the way, her son Alexander is just the cutest little boy you've ever seen!!!)
Ildebrando d'Arcangelo - CHECK!!!!!!!
Rolando - chekka chekka
Luca Pisaroni - check
Ildebrando d'Arcangelo surprised me the most actually. I've seen and heard him before, but not in this kind of voice. His Don G was huge!! Absolutely fantastic sound that shook everybody's ribcage right to the back of the hall.
Rolando was awesome in his first ever Don Ottavio too, and the crowd loved him.
If I say too much about Joyce I'll probably drool over my keyboard, and that's not a good thing. Joyce, you were incredible!
I suppose if I was being super critical, one thing that did let it down in the most minor possible way was that, because it was being sung as a concert performance, with scores on lecterns and no costumes, and because it was being recorded too, sometimes it came across as a public recording session rather than a performance. On the odd occasion, it was clear that the singers were singing to the sound recordists rather than the audience, but what they were singing was just sensational.
Standing ovations all round, and it was fully 45mins after the performance finished that we finally left the hall.
I was speaking to someone who had also been at the previous performance some days earlier, and he was telling me that they were all in identical dresses/suits, so I did wonder if it was being recorded for DVD as well, with identical outfits to provide continuity. I didn't see any cameras, so probably not, and Joyce said it was for CD rather than DVD, so maybe they just only brought one outfit each for the three performances.
I have to admit I'm not familiar with either of those works although having looked them up I did at least recognise a couple of the arias... so thank you for the recommendations, I'll keep an eye out for them.
I really hope it's recorded for DVD... I'm a huge fan of these concert performances.
I hope the quote doesn't look too peculiar! Mention of Peerce sent me through endless tunnels: from Peerce - the Met via a Belarusian stetl and Radio City - to the astonishing Richard Tucker (his bro-in-law) to George London to Robert Merrell to Beverley Stills to Ljuba Welitsch's Salome. Then, of course there was Corelli singing Recondita Armonia better(?) I think, than Placido my lovely. Oh dear I'm disappearing again...
They've both got very strong soprano parts, so you'll love them :-)
Die Tote Stadt is like Cavalleria Rusticana in that it's relatively short and just doesn't have an ugly note in the score. Its very reminiscent of a lot of Richard Strauss's music
It's set in Bruges (the dead city of the title) at the turn of the century, and tells the story of a young man failing to come to terms with the recent death of his wife, and coming across someone, Marietta, who looks like her. Indeed he believes that Marietta is his dead wife, Marie.
A quick search for "Marietta's Lied" will yield all sorts of yummy results for the soprano's lead aria (actually a duet with the tenor in the opera, although its often sung as a soprano solo in concerts and recitals), from people like Renee Fleming, Kiri te Kanawa, Leontyne Price, Beverley Sills and others. Fill yer boots! I actually really like the simplicity and intimacy of this one, even though it has some longer instrumental passages where the tenor's vocals are missing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN_vsAUEE8s
Il Guarany, although written by a Brazilian - Gomes - , was actually premiered at La Scala, and Verdi was a big fan. It's set in Brazil but was written in Italian. It was a big hit all over Europe and was performed by Caruso, Del Monaco and others, but fell out of favour until Domingo came along and decided to sing it. There's also a recording of the tenor/soprano duet with Caballe and Carreras.
I saw the Domingo production in Bonn (and a second show, after he'd left, with the tenor who'd replaced him*) and it's very accessible stuff and not too challenging. Could easily have been written by a young Verdi.
The soprano in the original Domingo production was Veronica Villarroel and there was a great baritone performance by a relatively unknown Carlos Alvarez, who went on to sing Rigoletto at La Scala. Very very good singing, and I think it's available on DVD
* I was watching this with Mrs DFI, who hadn't seen the first show that I did, and we were both wondering what the shouting was that was to be heard frequently from the front of the house.
Eventually we realised that it was the prompter, who was off stage because the Bonn Opera House doesn't have a prompt box set into the stage, and she wasn't always in the wings on the same side of the stage as the tenor, so she often had to shout 'cos he clearly wasn't all that confident in his knowledge of the libretto
Then, the end of the opera has a few pyrotechnics as a prison is blown up with flares and stuff and the roof comes crashing in on stage on top of the singers. In the first one with Domingo I saw it all went off spiffingly.
In the second one, the timing was off and the "boulders" from the collapsing prison came crashing in out of the roof just before the flares went off that were supposed to be the explosions that caused them to fall in the first place. A couple of them landed on the detonating flares and caught fire on the stage, resulting in a couple of stage hands having to come on, in a prison in the middle of the Brazilian rainforest, with fire extinguishers to put out the fires while the singers desperately tried to carry on singing the climax of the opera. Some of the content of one of the extinguishers rebounded off the blazing boulder into the face of one of the singers who started coughing and spluttering then ran offstage just before the curtain came down.
I'm really not making this up, you know.........
There are worse places to get lost in than Tucker, Merrill and Sills. Could easily spend hours in there......
'On March 4, 1960 at the Metropolitan Opera, in a performance of La Forza del Destino with Renata Tebaldi and tenor Richard Tucker, the American baritone Leonard Warren was about to launch into the vigorous cabaletta to Don Carlo's Act 3 aria, which begins "Morir, tremenda cosa" ("to die, a momentous thing"). Rudolf Bing reports that Warren simply went silent and fell face-forward to the floor. Others state that he started coughing and gasping, and that he cried out "Help me, help me!" before falling to the floor, remaining motionless. A few minutes later he was pronounced dead of a massive cerebral hemorrhage, and the rest of the performance was canceled. Warren was only 48.'
(My learned source: Wikipedia)
Spelunking, grand prix driving, mercenary work -- is there any profession so dangerous as that of the opera singer?
PS I've been caught up in work for a week or so (I think) and now find this thread richly, brilliantly, SCARILY full of links and stuff, reviews, craziness etc. It's going to be a long long afternoon to catch up methinks. :eek:
PS 2 Hello to everyone and sorry for being MIA so long. Terrific to see the thread is thriving!
Now to attempt the catch-up...
One of my favourite operas indeed. Quite safe to listen to as long as you're not operating any heavy machinery at the same time
A friend of mine who lives in Noo Yawk was there that night - he said it was extremely distressing, amd it was obvious that Warren was dead before the curtain came down.
He was also present (maybe he's the jinx!) at the Met in 1996 when the tenor Richard Versalle died during a performance of The Makropolous Case. He was climbing a ladder as part of the production when he had a heart attack and fell to the stage, literally seconds after the curtain went up. Again the performance was cancelled. I think there was some brouhaha over the fact that one of the cast members, who shall remain nameless, apparently insisted on still being paid for the performance, whereas everyone else wasn't bothered
I believe that a performance of Gneiss's favourite opera, Martha also had an on stage death. If I recall correctly, that performance resumed after the death with a replacement singer taking over!
I managed to find it. Thank you.
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/1031087--english-baritone-fills-koerner-hall-with-magic
I do like his singing. Here's his The Roses of Picardy (I'm feeling very sentimental today)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5j5S8vgUfw&feature=related
That’s the one! Thank you Clemmati
The paper version is even better as the title of the article reads: “Magic and marvel from British baritone” “Sir Thomas Allen kicks off Art of Song with power and charm”
From what I hear, I can tell John Terauds calls it a 'magic' for a good reason. His beautiful singing and impeccable stage presence totally charmed the audience from the start to the end. Then, the two rather unusual encore choices were very much loved by all. Imagine his deep voice calmly singing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wte1uk4A5eU and then http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX-b1Ksetcc
Everybody left the concert hall, feeling romantically wooed.
Embarassingly enough, I actually have records with that aria (a set of '10 Great Tenors' Jussi Bjorling, Del Monaco, Caruso…etc. all sang it) that I don’t remember when I last played.
I just finished listening to the full opera (Berlin Classics with Peter Anders and Erna Berger). Besides the solo arias, the duets and quartets are lovely and uplifting. I really enjoyed it
Re Die Tote Stadt, if you like Bluebeard’s Castle by Bartók, you might like Tote Stadt. Disregarding other compositions by the two composers, to me, there is a certain degree of musical similarities between these two operas. I personally prefer Bartok’s music to Korngold’s in general though, Korngold was undeniably talented.
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Clips from some of my favourite operas if anybody has got time to kill.
O dieu! Que de bijoux!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNwtDPubJbk
Le veau d'or est toujours debout!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td09sC428_E
The fantastic Carlos Kleiber making another master piece
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTLAVsNrE88
From 2:30 on gives me wet eyes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2c-McR2qxU&
Is a singing vixen allowed in cats' thread? If not, how about Thomas Allen with a weapon?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiQggEYSrxQ
The last scene
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv9LSINiLtA
Indeed in the case of opera I really didn't like it as a child.
Listening to Asitis' Wagner selections and sobbing into my supper though not sentimentally but rather with the particularly piercing existential anguish that music always invokes in me, I recall all the concerts and operas I have blubbed audibly through. Perhaps my most humiliating and memorable was snivelling through La Boheme or was it Trav?(a WNO production, I think) in the late 50s early 60s. Afterwards the wondrous John Shirley Quirk told me that he had heard every gulp, sob and gasp. Gosh, he was ridiculously handsome...
Ahhhh... the lost post! Thanks so much for this.
Those poor sound recordists. Think of them. It's the last night, their last chance. Everything's set up... all's ready... But just when they hope things will go perfectly... there's this unearthly shrieking from deep in the bowels of the auditorium: 'Oh yeah... Oh YEAH!'
Mark my words, when the cd comes out they'll have to credit DFI somewhere on the sleeve, for turning it into a soul classic. :cool:
Autographed copies?