# What is your pick/picks for the "darkest" opera ever?



## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

As above............
:tiphat:


----------



## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

_Lulu_ or _Wozzeck_?


----------



## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

_Dialogues of the Carmelites_? Sorta' like _The Sound of Music_, but the nuns all die.


----------



## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

_Licht_

I know, I know


----------



## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

amfortas said:


> _Dialogues of the Carmelites_? Sorta' like _The Sound of Music_, but the nuns all die.


These are a few of my favorite things? Salve *THWACK* Regina *THWACK*


----------



## Bonetan (Dec 22, 2016)

My knowledge of the repertoire is not deep, but Salome & Elektra are rather dark


----------



## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Britten's _Turn of the Screw_. The feeling that something's not quite right is there at the start and, as the title suggests, the mood ratchets up from initial unease (the governess dwelling over the unusual terms of her assignment) through to menace (when the appearance of the two ghosts begin to affect the two children's behaviour) and finally to pure evil (when it's obvious that the children are possessed).


----------



## davidglasgow (Aug 19, 2017)

Wozzeck or Elektra jump out to me in terms of complete works... having said that, some of the great artists like Jon Vickers, Maria Callas and Tito Gobbi conveyed so much angst and anger and sadism in the parts of Otello, Madama Butterfly and Scarpia (and others roles) that the operas seem grander, darker and more menacing than before or since. Conductors, of course, play their part - Karajan for instance with slower tempi made the Te Deum in Tosca exceptionally brooding and his approach in Cav/Pag revealed an unusual degree of suspense as well as beauty.


----------



## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

NickFuller said:


> These are a few of my favorite things? Salve *THWACK* Regina *THWACK*


THAT'S how you solve a problem like Maria.


----------



## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Licht (Light), subtitled "The Seven Days of the Week," is a cycle of seven operas composed by Karlheinz Stockhausen between 1977 and 2003.


----------



## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Dialogues des Carmelites


----------



## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

maybe one of the Faustian operas?


----------



## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> maybe one of the Faustian operas?


Maybe Busoni's or Boito's?

Not Berlioz's; the Course à l'Abîme and the descent into Pandemonium can be cataclysmic, but the work isn't grimdark - too much Berliozian vitality and imagination.





Gounod's is less the Damnation of Faust than the Salvation of Marguerite.


----------



## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

I was joking with Stockhausen's _Licht_, but I also was having a hard time coming up with anything.

Reflecting, I think _Wozzeck_ is a very good answer. The scenario, action, and characters are almost all unrelentingly unpleasant. The ending is brutal, especially for Marie's son (perhaps the most sympathetic character). Wozzeck does not get better, Marie does not get away, and there is no real silver lining.

I think _Elektra_ has a similar dark, unsettling ending, but there is also more tenderness and light over the course of the opera.

_Dialogues des Carmélites_ is a difficult and moving work, but I see it as - especially from the perspective of the characters in the opera and the creators - showing people being noble even in the face of persecution. They are still dead and that is awful, but they also stuck to their beliefs and approach their end with strength.


----------



## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

devils of loudun I guess?


----------



## Star (May 27, 2017)

Shostakovich - Lady Macbeth


----------



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Of the operas I have seen. I'd say Bluebeards Castle. Very grim. Very, very grim. Gorgeous, grim music.


----------



## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

DON CARLO, particularly in the Grand Inquisitor scene


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Of the operas I have seen. I'd say Bluebeards Castle. Very grim. Very, very grim. Gorgeous, grim music.


I'll go with this one. My favorite 20th-century opera. The first time I saw it (on TV back in the 1960s) I didn't understand it, but I was almost afraid to go to bed for fear that I'd be forever trapped in Bluebeard's castle, one of the living dead.


----------



## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Prokofiev's "The Fiery Angel ". There's nothing else like it in opera . It's a nightmarish story of insanity, obsession , black magic, demonology and demonic possession . Not for the faint of heart !
Prokofiev's music is almost unbearably intense and searingly dissonant . 
The final scene, where the crazed heroine Renata is in a nunnery and the other nuns have begun to show signs of demonic possession and a grand Inquisitor performance an exorcism on her is without doubt the most terrifying scene in all opera . 
The exorcism goes horribly out of control and the Inquisitor condemns her to death by burning !
Try the DVD from the Mariinsky opera in St. Petersburg conducted by Gergiev with Galina Gorchkova as Renata and Sergei Leiferkus as Ruprecht , the wandering knight who is desperately in love with her but whom she refuses to enter into a physical relationship with . 
This production uses a team of acrobats to portray the demons who torment Renata throughout the opera . Try this- if you dare ! But beware of nightmares !


----------



## LezLee (Feb 21, 2014)

I saw Philip Glass’s ‘The Trial’ (Kafka) last year. Really dark but also funny, believe it or not!
Highly recommended btw.


----------



## ma7730 (Jun 8, 2015)

LezLee said:


> I saw Philip Glass's 'The Trial' (Kafka) last year. Really dark but also funny, believe it or not!
> Highly recommended btw.


I'm glad that the opera captures the humor of Kafka's work.

I'm afraid I don't really have any additional works to add to the conversation. But I'll cast a vote for Lulu, on the basis that, not only are all the characters are incredibly pathetic, but everyone dies by the end.

Maybe also _Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District_. At least in the production I saw, they had a giant on stage gang-rape. So that's pretty dark.


----------



## Barelytenor (Nov 19, 2011)

Paul Hindemith wrote a triptych of early expressionist one-act operas called Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen (Murderer, Hope of Women), Das Nusch-Nuschi (The Nusch-Nuschi) (a A Play for Burmese Marionettes), and Sancta Susanna. The first deals with brutality between the sexes, the second mocks brutality and intense emotions, and the last depicts a group of nuns descending into a sexual frenzy.

Kind regards, :tiphat:

George


----------



## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Barelytenor said:


> Paul Hindemith wrote a triptych of early expressionist one-act operas called Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen (Murderer, Hope of Women), Das Nusch-Nuschi (The Nusch-Nuschi) (a A Play for Burmese Marionettes), and Sancta Susanna. The first deals with brutality between the sexes, the second mocks brutality and intense emotions, and the last depicts a group of nuns descending into a sexual frenzy.
> 
> Kind regards, :tiphat:
> 
> George


Hi, Barelytenor.

I've got _Das Nusch-Nuschi_ but it irks me that the sleevenotes provide no synopsis. I can't blame Wergo for supplying a German-only libretto as they are a German company and _Das Nusch-Nuschi_ is a German work but even my best attempts at Googling have yielded scant results in trying to find out what the work is all about. Any suggestions?


----------



## Barelytenor (Nov 19, 2011)

You might try an online library and find Haney, Joel (2008). "Slaying the Wagnerian Monster: Hindemith, Das Nusch-Nuschi, and Musical Germanness after the Great War" The Journal of Musicology. University of California Press. 25 (4): 339–393. 

This is from a footnote on the Wikipedia entry. I have only watched Sancta Susanna online. Very shocking to see a decent dramatic soprano willing to get naked, and from a nun's habit yet!

Kind regards, :tiphat:

George

Good luck!


----------

