# Best "Brava" caught on record



## Tuoksu (Sep 3, 2015)

I love an overenthusiastic well-deserved "Brava!"

I'll start with some obvious material:











What are some of the most memorable "Brava"s you've heard?


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Those Corelli performances in Parma! (Parma opera house has been known for its audience participation for some time.)

N.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Luckily I was the first person to acquire this rare pirate of Magda Olivero 1976 at the age of 65 singing L'altra notte" in_ Mefistofele_ at Newark Opera.
The audience went wild in its effusiveness.


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## Azol (Jan 25, 2015)

Correct link to the above Magda Olivero video should be


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Oops! My naughty computer recorded the one before it that was meant for another opera forum. (Actually, that scene also got the audience in a frenzy so it really is pertinent anyway.)
Thank you Azol.
Next time I will check what I sent before ticking the post button.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Callas in Tosca, Metropolitan Opera, March 19, 1965


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Dame Joan Sutherland - Home! Sweet Home, Sydney Opera House farewell performance


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

JOAN SUTHERLAND "Her Final Farewell"


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

I find the most exciting 'bravas' are those that happen in the middle of the opera (sometimes in the middle of a scene! Often these are quickly followed by a barrage of sushing.) They tend to happen in performances in Italy.

N.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

I enjoy the bis requests during performances. Some exciting ones were Villazon bissing "Una furtiva lagrima" in _L'elisir d'amore_
And a last minute substitution during _La fille du regiment_ when Javier Camarena bissed "Ah! Mes amis"


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

The Conte said:


> I find the most exciting 'bravas' are those that happen in the middle of the opera (sometimes in the middle of a scene! Often these are quickly followed by a barrage of sushing.) They tend to happen in performances in Italy.
> 
> N.


There's this story, I don't know to what extent it's true, that during one of the first performances in Bayreuth Wagner himself cried "Bravo!" during the second act of _Parsifal_, only to be hissed by the audience. I can but imagine what a heresy crying brava during a performance at Bayreuth would be :lol:. I wonder whether anyone has tried..?


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

This is thrilling. Callas builds up such a level of intensity that the audience just erupts at her exit after _Amami, Alfredo_, unable to hold back any longer.






Then there is this at the end of _Al dolce guidami_ just over nine minutes into this clip (and remember the aria was practically unknown back then).


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

annaw said:


> There's this story, I don't know to what extent it's true, that during one of the first performances in Bayreuth Wagner himself cried "Bravo!" during the second act of _Parsifal_, only to be hissed by the audience. I can but imagine what a heresy crying brava during a performance at Bayreuth would be :lol:. I wonder whether anyone has tried..?


It's practically de rigour there nowadays!

(Only kidding, but there was so much audience participation in the Rheingold I saw at Bayreuth - coughing etc. I began to wonder whether it was part of the production.)

Another audience noise during Rheingold story:
At the first performance in Munich, the audience were so unused to Wagner's new through composed style that they gave an ovation to Loge's monologue because it was the closest thing to an aria in the opera!

I have to say that I would consider Erda's scene pretty much an aria.

N.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Tsaraslondon said:


> This is thrilling. Callas builds up such a level of intensity that the audience just erupts at her exit after _Amami, Alfredo_, unable to hold back any longer.


Just before that clip where there is the passage for orchestra alone whilst Violetta writes her letter you can hear Callas' tears as she writes it and the breathes and gasps from the audience whilst she does so. I find that moment as telling as any of the visual documents of what a fine actress Callas was and as thrilling as any of these 'Brava!' examples.

N.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Ok, here is my favourite. "Son io"/"It is I", how a great artist can make a simple three note phrase mean so much.

(You have to go to 4.00 minutes in.)






N.


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## VitellioScarpia (Aug 27, 2017)

Tsaraslondon said:


> This is thrilling. Callas builds up such a level of intensity that the audience just erupts at her exit after _Amami, Alfredo_, unable to hold back any longer.


Callas knew so well how to build that moment. At the time, she knew how to sound with _lacrime nella voce_ and then by stretching the _sempre, sempre tra quei fior_ and that magnificent portamento (just at the very last second) she explodes with the _Amami Alfredo_. All surely painfully rehearsed with Giulini but sounding spontaneous and in the moment. And then she builds to greater heights by increasing the intensity when reaching the repeat and extended _Amami_ to express the desperation and searing pain Violetta feels at leaving the unsuspecting Alfredo.

Callas "ruined" this moment for me because she is alone in realizing with her singing how difficult and painful is her renunciation of love and Alfredo. She embodies what a great woman Violetta is in purely musical terms. Genius.


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

The Conte said:


> It's practically de rigour there nowadays!
> 
> (Only kidding, but there was so much audience participation in the Rheingold I saw at Bayreuth - coughing etc. I began to wonder whether it was part of the production.)
> 
> ...


Yes!! In Wagner's operas the arias are just called monologues .


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

VitellioScarpia said:


> Callas knew so well how to build that moment. At the time, she knew how to sound with _lacrime nella voce_ and then by stretching the _sempre, sempre tra quei fior_ and that magnificent portamento (just at the very last second) she explodes with the _Amami Alfredo_. All surely painfully rehearsed with Giulini but sounding spontaneous and in the moment. And then she builds to greater heights by increasing the intensity when reaching the repeat and extended _Amami_ to express the desperation and searing pain Violetta feels at leaving the unsuspecting Alfredo.
> 
> Callas "ruined" this moment for me because she is alone in realizing with her singing how difficult and painful is her renunciation of love and Alfredo. She embodies what a great woman Violetta is in purely musical terms. Genius.


The moment is caught in the photograph above. Piero Tosi, the designer, recalls,



> Slowly, with her arms outstretched, Callas, walked towrds him. As the lovers enfolded each other, overcome with passion, he sank onto the hassock, she to her knees, pouring out her heart in the invocation, "Amami, Alfredo". Callas sang not to the public but with her face to the floor, all but buried in Alfredo's embrace. Her cry was that of a desperate soul, one that wished to annul itself. Then, in tears, she ran from the garden.


Such naturalistic acting must have been a revelation back then.

Callas has basically "ruined" the whole opera for me. I like the Kleiber with Cotrubas, and the Serafin with De Los Angeles, but neither of them has quite the lascerating effect of Callas in the role. Whether it be at Covent Garden or Lisbon in 1958, La Scala in 1955, the Cetra recording of 1952 or even the Mexico performances of 1951 and 1952, she is so far ahead of the competition as to make questions of recorded sound negligible.

The only singers who have managed to make me temporarily forget Maria, and then only live in the theatre, are Cotrubas (in the old Covent Garden Visconti production) and Gheorghiu (in her role debut) at Covent Garden.


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## Tuoksu (Sep 3, 2015)

The Conte said:


> Ok, here is my favourite. "Son io"/"It is I", how a great artist can make a simple three note phrase mean so much.
> 
> (You have to go to 4.00 minutes in.)
> 
> ...


Amazing moment! :tiphat:


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## Tuoksu (Sep 3, 2015)

VitellioScarpia said:


> Callas knew so well how to build that moment. At the time, she knew how to sound with _lacrime nella voce_ and then by stretching the _sempre, sempre tra quei fior_ and that magnificent portamento (just at the very last second) she explodes with the _Amami Alfredo_. All surely painfully rehearsed with Giulini but sounding spontaneous and in the moment. And then she builds to greater heights by increasing the intensity when reaching the repeat and extended _Amami_ to express the desperation and searing pain Violetta feels at leaving the unsuspecting Alfredo.
> 
> Callas "ruined" this moment for me because she is alone in realizing with her singing how difficult and painful is her renunciation of love and Alfredo. She embodies what a great woman Violetta is in purely musical terms. Genius.


Amen to that! :tiphat:


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

In the second Act of *Die Walküre* in San Francisco in the early 1980s, after her confrontation with Wotan, in which Helga Dernesch had sung with such beauty and passion, that a young man standing next to me quietly cried, "yeah!" and as she slowly and regally walked upstage, the audience erupted in a spontaneous ovation. We all know, that this is very rare - to applaud in the middle of a scene, especially in a Wagner opera!


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

MAS said:


> In the second Act of *Die Walküre* in San Francisco in the early 1980s, after her confrontation with Wotan, which Helga Dernesch had sung with such beauty and passion, that a young man standing next to me quietly cried, "yeah!" and as she slowly and regally walked upstage, the audience erupted in a spontaneous ovation. We all know, that this is very rare - to applaud in the middle of a scene, especially in a Wagner opera!
> 
> View attachment 138074


Fabulous photo of Dernesch. In her soperano days, she was responsible for two of my most memorable evenings in the theatre. Leonore in *Fidelio* and the Marschallin in *Der Rosenkvalier*, both for Scottish Opera.


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## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

The guy who yells into my ear while listening to Halévy's _Charles VI_. Stage was several feet away, microphone / tape recorder was right next to him - so opera is pianissimo, audience reaction FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF.


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## Tuoksu (Sep 3, 2015)

Here after this incredibly beautiful and flawless "si, mi chiamano Mimi", one can only expect this hysterical, well-deserved "bravaaa bravaaa biiis biiiis" reaction:


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## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

Callas returned to La Scala in 1960 after 3.5 (?) years.

At 23 mins in, guess who is coming on stage....


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## Tuoksu (Sep 3, 2015)

Belowpar said:


> Callas returned to La Scala in 1960 after 3.5 (?) years.
> 
> At 23 mins in, guess who is coming on stage....


Those "Mariaaa!" <3 Thank you for sharing this.


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## Tuoksu (Sep 3, 2015)

There is this girl hear who screams "Brava" with all her soul, guts and lungs: 



That would have been me!


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