# What's your favorite opera story?



## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

What's your favorite story? :tiphat:


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Just one? 
Okay, Don Carlo then,
closely followed by La Travatia


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## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

Many opera tragedies just seem to run headlong into death, even the twist devices are just bumps in the road.

La Fanciulla del West has a pretty good story line, and the clever plotting of Falstaff always works.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I must admit that I've never considered how much I like opera plots apart from their music, but I suppose I like stories with a bit of strangeness, mystery and fantasy. Wagner's fill the bill nicely, as do some of Rimsky-Korsakov's and Britten's, Weber's _Der Freischutz_, Debussy's _Pelleas,_ Bartok's _Bluebeard,_ and Dukas's treatment of the same subject, _Ariane et Barbe-Bleu. _

The plots of Baroque and Classical operas bore and confuse me, as do some of Verdi's; I can never remember whose son is in love with his cousin's aunt, who has vowed to take revenge on whom before sundown, and whose baby got barbecued by the mezzo.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

I always liked Fidelio's story.

And of course the Ring for its complexity
and psychologies.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Just to name one, "The Passenger" by Mieczysław Weinberg.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

I love psychological stories so I think it is a toss up between Billy Budd and Otello, with Wozzeck trailing right behind.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

If it's an uplifting story then Fidelio

If a comedy then Falstaff

If a study of humanity then Figaro


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

From Wagner: Tristan und Isolde (then Tannhäuser)
From Verdi: Aida (then Il trovatore, then Don Carlo)
From Puccini: never cared enough. The music is too good.
From R. Strauss: Elektra

If I have to stay with one, it has to be the uneasy, suicidal psychology I read in Tristan, from *Tristan und Isolde.*


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## Lensky (May 8, 2016)

*Norma* & _Don Carlo_, and I enjoy very much _Macbeth_


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Flotow's *Martha* (a.k.a., The Market at Richmond)

Even thought of changing my user name to Lyonel or Plunkett, but nobody would recognize it.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Interesting, I read the OP and immediately started thinking about Opera anecdotes...


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## Faustian (Feb 8, 2015)

I've always felt that Der Rosenkavlier had a unique, almost literary quality about it. In fact Joseph Kerman identified it as a special category of opera as sung play, and I think he was onto something. The libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal is a finely crafted, subtle drama full of wit and energy; indeed, I am almost tempted to say the typical relationship of text to music in an opera is flipped on its head in this case as in no other I can think of, and that it is the intelligence and comic resourcefulness of Hofmannsthal's poetic vision that is the main source of the audience's enjoyment to the action on stage, as opposed to Strauss' music which varies from brilliant to facsimile note spinning.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

RIGOLETTO, probably.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

An opera worth mentioning is Gösta Nystroem´s Herr Arnes Penningar based on Selma Lagerlöf´s novel with the same name.

It have:

A massacre
Ghosts
A soprano killing herself


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Two sopranos and a tenor walk into a bar...

N.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Carmen. 
All that passion - I can't resist it.


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## josquindesprez (Aug 20, 2017)

Anything Strauss written by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, but Die Frau ohne Schatten is my favorite.

Peter Grimes is a well-written story, too.


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## RichieWagon (Sep 20, 2017)

Der Ring des Nibelungen has got to be the greatest and most complex opera story, and quite honestly one of the greatest works of fiction there is.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Can I give a honourable mention to the ridiculous Lucrezia Borgia story, gorgeous music though.


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## Marinera (May 13, 2016)

Probably not the type of opera OP inquired about, but for me, it's Glass - Akhnaten. Both for the music and narrative of course. I am not interested in stories with the too much romantic angle and lots of romantic angst, who loves who or who wants to seduce whom, elope with, jealous of and so on. I like how Akhnaten is an epic anthology, the sort of birds view with only important events seen on the narrative landscape so to speak, with some abstractions, the same reason I like Satyagraha, but its narrative framework departs even more from personal into an abstract territory of beliefs, ideas, events, actions and reactions based on them. An abstract anthological overview, from 'birds eye' again. I like that they're both based on historical events and personalities. This is one of the reason's I like Handel's Giulio Cesare as well. I'm not much into romantic overtones though I like Gluck's Orpheo and Euridice perhaps the most from what I've seen. Firstly, it's nice that it ends well, and secondly, I like the idea of that sort of loyalty, with single-mindedness and dedication, to back up that loyalty, to go literally through hell (ok underworld) for someone or something ( like a higher idea or ideal. The main character being Orpheo, you can easily imagine Gandhi in his place). plus Orpheo is probably my favourite mythological character. The reason for this liking being that he represents the higher, elevated side of humanity, the way his music tamed the beasts, plus his actions in this opera.


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## davidleonard (Oct 15, 2017)

*Hi Bellinilover do u by any chance recall?*



Bellinilover said:


> RIGOLETTO, probably.


... a visceral televised Rigoletto where R is duped into believing the drugged seducer is inside the
sack. He falls upon it with a knife, only to hear the strains of donna immobili from above? A truly shocking end! Most grateful for any info.
davidleonard


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## davidglasgow (Aug 19, 2017)

There is a lot of "they fall in love and die" when you think about it... I like La Boheme's plot because the characters interact and have some fun as well as the obvious romance and tragedy. Butterfly is stereotypical with geisha and Yankee Vagabondo which can grate but still seems like great theatre as it carries you along. Revenge plots as with Cherubini's Medea can be great for the protagonist because everything feeds into this hate but it does mean characters like Glauce can just seem incidental: you know their on borrowed time!

Conversely, La Sonnambula must have one of the weakest plots but the best melodies


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## Taplow (Aug 13, 2017)

If "opera story" = plot, then Tannhäuser - he's such an idiot, but the pilgrims running on with the pope's staff sprouting green leaves at the end, signalling divine forgiveness and the errant knight's salvation, gets me every time.

If "opera story" = a tale about opera, then I'd have to go with the 1960 performance of Tosca in New York where the stage hands replaced the diva's soft mattress upon which she was to fling herself at the end with a trampoline! And up she bounced, and then once again, each time coming up above the castle walls, sometimes upside down, sometimes right way up, always horrified, much to the delight of the audience. In fact, the audience remembered this night on subsequent performances so that they would break out in laughter even before Cavaradossi was shot. I truly wish I'd been there.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

^^^
Same opera not so long ago : Kaufmann and Gheorgiu doing Tosca, Kaufmann has to wait endless before Gheorgiu turning up in the last act after E lucevan le stelle , at one time he says: I am missing the soprano.......


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