# How much do you care about the plot and theatrics vs the singing?



## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Obviously, this is a matter of personal tastes, but I think it would be interesting to get everyone's perspective.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Personally, good singing with proper technique will always come first, but how far down of a priority acting/theatrics are depends on the opera. Some operas just speak to me more on an emotional level (ex: Butterfly), others need to have sensuous allure to be convincing (imagine enjoying a fat Carmen with no charisma. yeah...I didn't think so), others are kind of meh, and some have the most absolutely ridiculous plots imaginable, and, if anything, I want to _avoid_ thinking about the plot itself


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

most of the time, when I do care about expression, less is more. It doesn't have to be big, sloppy, loud or effusive. It needs to be *genuine*

Eula Beal is a perfect example.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

It's good to know the plot as it helps to have insight into what kind of singing is appropriate.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I no longer go to see operas since Speight Jenkins left Seattle Opera. When I did good acting, sets etc greatly helped. Parsifal, which opened our new opera house, was so powerful as it was such a great combination of all the above. Watching Met opera they matter to me as well. Now I just listen so they aren't so important, but singers such as Callas, Ponselle and Stignani can really add another dimension to the singing with their great characterizations. Now I almost exclusively listen to great singers from the last century. They must sound great and rarely listen to full operas so plot matters not to me now. Mostly just arias unless I am listening to my LPs, and then not with librettos. Just headphones.


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## Bonetan (Dec 22, 2016)

I have great respect for artists who can really get inside a character, but I lean very heavily towards the singing. I want to hear glorious voices first and foremost. Without that I don't care about the rest.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Opera is about singing but coming from a theatrical background, and opera being a visual medium, theatrics to me are extremely important too. I can get by with a less than great voice if they can develop a role and get to the depths of a character.
Plots, a lot of them, are truly laughable or just plain complicated. I don't care.


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## Birmanbass (Jun 1, 2021)

Good theater or opera, or any performance art is ultimately judged by the individual watching(or participating), so one would assume the answers to the posted topic will reflect the spectrum that can cover. For myself, opera offers the possibility of a transcendent moment where everything comes together and the setting, singing, music, character interaction and plot all combine to take your breath away and leave you feeling thankful for being witness to it. If only every opera could produce that..but as we all know, seldom does everything come together perfectly. Sometimes the vocal performance is lacking or the chemistry between performers is not quite right, sometimes the plot has more holes than a good Swiss cheese, the setting/production may be jarring. Lots of things that one person loves and another cant stand. Vocal performance and the ability to bring the character alive has to be paramount. I can forgive a poorly developed plot, non "ideal" sizes/shapes and ages, less than perfect orchestras or conducting, long periods of less than sparkling action/music/vocal highlights, directors intent on enhancing their reputations and egos, even at the risk of compromising the productions success. All is forgiven as long the opera can deliver a performance that connects to the audience. This is what I love about opera..its all about the search for the holy grail, an opera performance great in each and every aspect from the plot and staging, costumes to the singers, the chorus, the orchestra etc. etc. Love the journey.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

As a musician first and a former singer in particular, having seen few operas in the theater and none for years, I'm interested in opera as music and as drama through the medium of music. My concern for vocal excellence is an expression of my desire to hear the expressive potential of operatic music realized. Relatively few singers can actually do this to my satisfaction.

When I do watch opera, I naturally want the production and acting to carry out through those vehicles what I consider to be the spirit and message of the music. But if the vocal performances are unsatisfying I don't care about the rest. Music is the primary art in opera; we listen to it on recordings and supply the rest from our imaginations, but we don't watch silent stagings or spoken recitations of librettos.


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## Annied (Apr 27, 2017)

The singing every time. The singers who can hear and match all the nuances of the music are the ones for me. If they can achieve that, I really don't care if they can act or not!


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

This video is playback undoubtedly, but it gives a picture of how an opera might have been staged at the time. Whatever intrigue is going on with those people in the audience and backstage that leads to lots of cutting and close ups aside, Gigli's acting on stage is of the "plant and sing" variety. Still, he says everything one possibly could with his voice, and I think that would make too much in the way of physical acting redundant. A few appropriate gestures are all that's really needed at that point. I consider the voice paramount in opera. For me, opera is a vehicle for dramatic expression through vocal music, and it's the job of everything else to not detract from that. In live opera, you often can't see much in the way of nuanced acting anyway (at least where I sit). So the ideal for me is that the sets, costumes, blocking, acting, and lighting should all work together to support the singing. The backdrop Gigli was singing in front of seems ideal.

As an aside, a lot of people (not necessarily here at TC, but out there, on the wide web) seem to have a big problem with opera films that use playback. I just see it as a distinct genre from "video of live opera performance" and since it allows location shots and realistic and/or extensive sets I quite enjoy it. In fact, if I'm not going to the opera house, I probably prefer a playback film that allows the visuals to be treated artistically, although many of them end up running into the problem of undercutting the vocals, which are still paramount, even in this genre.


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## Parley (May 29, 2021)

We must of course realise that initially opera was regarded more as cabaret for the upper classes. Why Opera Seria often have daft and convoluted plots with recitative to fill out the space before elaborate arias. That is because no-one actually watched the thing all the way through as they were socialising, playing cards or other things while the opera was going on, only stopping for their favourite arias or singers. The sets were often very elaborate and the singers had their own unique ways of communication, but little of what we would call acting today. Opera as realistic drama really came in with Mozart and from then on dramatic action played more of a part in the opera.
Of course, if we just think of opera as oratorio, then there is no need of drama. But I personally look to more than just singing. I want action which will make the thing more realistic and singers who can really act. Of course, the singer who is credited as really changing things is Callas who was magnetic on stage as an actress. Today people are expected to watch the whole opera in a blacked out theatre so they want drama as well as singing. With the advent of HD this applies to appearance as well. I find it difficult to accept singers who don't really look the part, for example Carmens who make one wonder why on earth Jose didn't stick with Michaela! This does make things difficult to cast as sometimes the greatest voices have not been blessed with the most elegant looks.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

> We must of course realise that initially opera was regarded more as cabaret for the upper classes.


No, initially opera was an attempt to revive Greek Tragedy, a genre that was hardly frivolous.

Nobody who is talking about the primacy of singing thinks opera is "oratorio." There is a difference between saying "only singing matters" and "without singing nothing matters" and still more "there can be a separate, stylized way of acting for opera that need not conform to modern notions of realism that is still dramatically compelling".


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

vivalagentenuova said:


> No, initially opera was an attempt to revive Greek Tragedy, a genre that was hardly frivolous.


Yes, and the knowledge of this didn't fade over the centuries. Gluck in the 18th century and Wagner in the 19th (along with other composers less single-minded) set about their work in full consciousness of opera's founding goals, both of them seeking to restore opera's musical-dramatic integrity by stripping away elements of mere entertainment and working against conventional formal constraints. Gluck actually set Greek dramas, which still had cultural relevance in an era we call "Classical," and Wagner was a careful student of Greek tragedy with high (too high, as it turned out) ambitions of reviving the all-embracing, culturally resonant and unifying experience he conceived Greek drama to have been. He did succeed well enough that for a time even Nietzsche was convinced; "The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music" concerns itself largely with the operatic revolution he found embodied in _Tristan und Isolde,_ which he saw as a restoration of the spirit of Dionysus to a culture which had become superficial (and had taken opera along with it).


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## Parley (May 29, 2021)

vivalagentenuova said:


> No, initially opera was an attempt to revive Greek Tragedy, a genre that was hardly frivolous.
> 
> Nobody who is talking about the primacy of singing thinks opera is "oratorio." There is a difference between saying "only singing matters" and "without singing nothing matters" and still more "there can be a separate, stylized way of acting for opera that need not conform to modern notions of realism that is still dramatically compelling".


You are talking of course about Monteverdi but I'm talking about what came later with opera seria when it became a highly popular and fashionable entertainment. Just read many of the plots and you will see they cannot be taken seriously. Why the whole thing was lampooned by John Gay in The Beggar's Opera. Why it is sometimes difficult to stage the operas for a modern audience who are expected to actually watch the whole thing. It does take a very skilful and imaginative stage director.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> most of the time, when I do care about expression, less is more. It doesn't have to be big, sloppy, loud or effusive. It needs to be *genuine*
> 
> Eula Beal is a perfect example.


Surely the genre and style of the music determines whether less is more. Why use Bach's sacred music as an illustration in a thread about opera? And your own thread, no less!


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## Parley (May 29, 2021)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> most of the time, when I do care about expression, less is more. It doesn't have to be big, sloppy, loud or effusive. It needs to be *genuine*
> 
> Eula Beal is a perfect example.


I find it extraordinary in two ways. First as already commented, it is not opera and is written by a man who actually despised opera. So I can't see why you quoted this. Second, it's about as far from the style that Bach would have expected in that he would have expected it to be performed by a male alto. That is not to say that I mezzo so cannot perform it, as there are many distinguished examples even in hip performances. Interestingly the last time I heard the St Matthew Passion in concert it was sung by a countertenor and I have never been so moved by the aria.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Parley said:


> I find it extraordinary in two ways. First as already commented, it is not opera and is written by a man who actually despised opera. So I can't see why you quoted this. Second, it's about as far from the style that Bach would have expected in that he would have expected it to be performed by a male alto. That is not to say that I mezzo so cannot perform it, as there are many distinguished examples even in hip performances. Interestingly the last time I heard the St Matthew Passion in concert it was sung by a countertenor and I have never been so moved by the aria.


off topic, but....I will never understand the appeal of countertenors. they sound so...unnatural.



Woodduck said:


> Surely the genre and style of the music determines whether less is more. Why use Bach's sacred music as an illustration in a thread about opera? And your own thread, no less!


It's not so much that I'm opposed to dramatic acting. I'm opposed to _overdone_ acting. I'll provide a few examples in which I think the acting fits the piece well and compliments rather than distracts from the singing. these examples run the gambit of different styles, but none of them are gaudy, overdone or histrionic, nor do any of them involve antics that sacrifice the sound quality or interrupt the musical line.

reserved and conservative 





power and gravitas





playful, charming, roguish 





feisty, dangerous sexuality, bold confidence


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> Surely the genre and style of the music determines whether less is more. Why use Bach's sacred music as an illustration in a thread about opera? And your own thread, no less!


Yeah, I wish there was a Bach version of the video <Raisin Brahms: Wrong House>



BalalaikaBoy said:


> so...unnatural.


so...gay.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

> You are talking of course about Monteverdi but I'm talking about what came later with opera seria when it became a highly popular and fashionable entertainment.


You said that opera "initially" was frivolous entertainment, the implication being that opera has developed from mere silliness at the beginning to serious drama today. That's what I was objecting to. Opera began as deeply serious drama, has gone through periods of decline and renaissance, and today is at an absurd place where the theatrics are carrying on their own thing that has nothing to do with the poetry, music, or vocals. These trash productions (which are certainly not the whole, but an unfortunately large part) put the absurdities of _opera seria_ to shame.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Parley said:


> I find it extraordinary in two ways. First as already commented, it is not opera and is written by a man who actually despised opera.


"...one of the complaints about Bach was that his cantatas were too operatic. More than any other composer he introduced the Italian opera style into church music, something his predecessor Johann Kuhnau had always resisted." <Bach Cantatas Website: "Bach and Opera">

Bach was actually a proponent of the "Neapolitan mass", the "stilus ecclesiasticus mixtus" or mixed church style, which combined traditional contrapuntal choruses with coloratura solo arias and ensembles, which theoreticians such as J.J. Fux and M. Spiess opposed.


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## Parley (May 29, 2021)

vivalagentenuova said:


> You said that opera "initially" was frivolous entertainment, the implication being that opera has developed from mere silliness at the beginning to serious drama today. That's what I was objecting to. Opera began as deeply serious drama, has gone through periods of decline and renaissance, and today is at an absurd place where the theatrics are carrying on their own thing that has nothing to do with the poetry, music, or vocals. These trash productions (which are certainly not the whole, but an unfortunately large part) put the absurdities of _opera seria_ to shame.


First please do not put words into my mouth [or on my page]. I never said that opera initially was 'frivolous entertainment' - I said 'fashionable entertainment' which if you look at history, it was. Regietheatre has its place in breathing life into the old masterpieces, like McVicar's masterly production of Julius Caesar at Glydebourne which still retains Handel's form. Even the pretty absurd Rinaldo from Carsen (which gave me a shock at first) is really entertaining and you still get Handel's music. The point is that Handel's themes are often much out of place in the modern world and need a lift without going to some of the ridiculous extremes I have seen. Of course, if you don't like action and acting - ie you just like the singers to sing - then you won't like much of what goes on on the operatic stage today. It is a matter of taste but I enjoy a real dramatic production, hopefully with youngish singers who look the part. As this:


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## Parley (May 29, 2021)

hammeredklavier said:


> "...one of the complaints about Bach was that his cantatas were too operatic. More than any other composer he introduced the Italian opera style into church music, something his predecessor Johann Kuhnau had always resisted." <Bach Cantatas Website: "Bach and Opera">
> 
> Bach was actually a proponent of the "Neapolitan mass", the "stilus ecclesiasticus mixtus" or mixed church style, which combined traditional contrapuntal choruses with coloratura solo arias and ensembles, which theoreticians such as J.J. Fux and M. Spiess opposed.


yes but don't forget who the complaint was coming from! When Isaac Watts wrote the first hymns for the English church he was accused of 'bringing theatre into the church'!


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## Parley (May 29, 2021)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> off topic, but....I will never understand the appeal of countertenors. they sound so...unnatural.


You obviously would not have liked castrati either! Lay off the Handel!


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Parley said:


> You obviously would not have liked castrati either! Lay off the Handel!


if we wanted to go that road, that only means I need to lay off the castrati roles. not the bass roles, soprano (prima donna) arias, etc.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

Parley said:


> First please do not put words into my mouth [or on my page].


"Frivolous entertainment" wasn't a reference to "Fashionable entertainment" it was a reference to your initial characterization of _opera seria_:


Parley said:


> daft and convoluted plots with recitative to fill out the space before elaborate arias... no-one actually watched the thing all the way through as they were socialising


 I already paraphrased your first comment that way in my first response, and I was carrying that forward:


vivalagentenuova said:


> No, initially opera was an attempt to revive Greek Tragedy, a genre that was hardly frivolous.


I see how, given the similar phrasing to "fashionable entertainment", that probably wasn't clear. It seems like a fair paraphrase of your initial description of _opera seria_ to me.



Parley said:


> I never said that opera initially was 'frivolous entertainment' - I said 'fashionable entertainment' which if you look at history, it was.


Again, my problem is with the word "initially," not anything else. Opera was _initially_ serious drama, and it became frivolous/fashionable/whatever you want to call it entertainment later on.

As a serious question, why do you object so strongly to vocals that are not "period" (putting aside the unknowability of what period singers really sounded like) but not regietheater stagings? I don't understand the insistence from the same people on period instruments, vocal styles etc. but acceptance of stagings wildly divergent from what the composer, librettist, and initial director would have had in mind. It seems to me that if you insist on one you should insist on the other, especially since you emphasize the theatrics/dramatics of opera as an important element. I personally don't insist on either, I mostly just want something aesthetically coherent and makes good music and theater out of the piece in question.


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## Parley (May 29, 2021)

vivalagentenuova said:


> "Frivolous entertainment" wasn't a reference to "Fashionable entertainment" it was a reference to your initial characterization of _opera seria_:
> I already paraphrased your first comment that way in my first response, and I was carrying that forward:
> 
> I see how, given the similar phrasing to "fashionable entertainment", that probably wasn't clear. It seems like a fair paraphrase of your initial description of _opera seria_ to me.
> ...


Who said I objected strongly to vocals that were not 'period'? I just said that the example was poor given the discussion. There are many different ways of doing it. I certainly do not insist on a period style necessarily - but relieved the old lumbering way of performing Bach, Handel et al can be confined to history. 
As to opera there are two aspects - the music and the production. The music is best served in the case of baroque with instruments, style and vocal techniques that the composer would have recognised. Obviously compromise is needed as castrati are no longer available for obvious reasons. Whether women or counter tenors is a matter of taste. As Gardiner has said, there is no definitive 'historical practice' as we simply cannot take ourselves back in history. But we can try to aim at more of a performing style which suits the music - whether with period or modern instruments. As to voices, they should suit the period.
Having established the music side, the production is one that should communicate to a modern audience and use the modern stage if available. There is absolutely no reason why a performance of Handel should be done as in Handel's day or Mozart as in Mozart's day any more than we do Verdi or Wagner as they did it. Just how interventionist the director should be depends on the drama concerned. For example I think that Mozart / da Ponte is usually better done 'straight' whereas Handel often needs some intervention. The main thing is that the director serves the drama and provides the audience with entertainment and not his own amusement / ego.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Parley said:


> First please do not put words into my mouth [or on my page]. I never said that opera initially was 'frivolous entertainment' - I said 'fashionable entertainment' which if you look at history, it was. Regietheatre has its place in breathing life into the old masterpieces, like McVicar's masterly production of Julius Caesar at Glydebourne which still retains Handel's form. Even the pretty absurd Rinaldo from Carsen (which gave me a shock at first) is really entertaining and you still get Handel's music. The point is that Handel's themes are often much out of place in the modern world and need a lift without going to some of the ridiculous extremes I have seen. Of course, if you don't like action and acting -* ie you just like the singers to sing - then you won't like much of what goes on on the operatic stage today*. It is a matter of taste but I enjoy a real dramatic production, hopefully with youngish singers who look the part. As this:


so you admit the quality of singing I'm looking for is higher than yours. that simplifies things.


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## Parley (May 29, 2021)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> so you admit the quality of singing I'm looking for is higher than yours. that simplifies things.


No just that I'm looking for a fusion of singing and acting and drama and character and production. Not just singing.


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## Azol (Jan 25, 2015)

No amount of acting would compensate the deficiencies of singing for me.
In case of bad acting I can close my eyes, in case of bad singing I'm staying at home or stopping the playback.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Although I think music, and thus singing, is the primary art that defines opera, I also think it's legitimate to suggest that the relative importance of visual and histrionic values differs in different works, styles, and productions. Some operas are "sure-fire," with tuneful scores and engaging stage business that can entertain us even in the absence of great singing. _La Boheme_ and _Tosca,_ for example, succeed in doing this almost every season at the Met despite not having been graced with a Bjorling or a Tebaldi for decades. Comedies such as Mozart's or Rossini's Figaro operas can be produced by university music departments and be delightful so long as the singing is competent and the directing and acting sharp. Many Baroque and bel canto operas, on the other hand, demand tremendous vocal virtuosity, and the big Romantic operas of Verdi and Wagner, though we continue to produce and attend them because to neglect them is unthinkable, can be depressing to many of us nowadays, regardless of production values, simply because we can rarely hear them sung well.


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## Parley (May 29, 2021)

Azol said:


> No amount of acting would compensate the deficiencies of singing for me.
> In case of bad acting I can close my eyes, in case of bad singing I'm staying at home or stopping the playback.


I am in the happy position that even if I see a provincial company I can enjoy what is put before me as long as there is life and heart in it. Having worked with young people I know their energy makes up a lot for deficiencies. We sang to full houses who hugely enjoyed the performances, warts and all.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Some operas, particularly Bel Canto ones, are all about vocal display , almost more like showing one's acrobatic skills . These can be very enjoyable, but opera is a combination of music and drama , as Wagner thought it should be . 
This is why the operas of Wagner, Richard Strauss , Berg, Janacek , Mussorgsky and other opera composers is far more interesting, at least to me . The singing is not less important here than with Bel Canto operas, but it is not mere vocal display . 
Here, beauty of tone is welcome when appropriate, but not the be all and end all of the opera . Less than beautiful, even harsh tone can be dramatically appropriate . 
You don't expect singers portraying Alberich, Mime in the Ring, for example, to sound gorgeous .


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## LeoPiano (Nov 1, 2020)

I watched some of the Met broadcasts during last Summer and this year, and I realized my problem: no matter how good the singers in the Met broadcasts are, they don’t match the level of singing in the best recordings which I normally listen to. (For example, I was watching a broadcast of La Bohème, and I had to turn it off after the 1st act and listen to the Beecham/Bjorling/de los Angeles recording that I own. I couldn’t stand the singing any longer). Now, I rarely watch videos of opera because I don’t want to sacrifice the singing for the theatrics. If the singing is good, I don’t mind if the theatrics aren’t the best. But if the singing isn’t good, no amount of theatrics can make a performance good for me.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

superhorn said:


> Some operas, particularly Bel Canto ones, are all about vocal display , almost more like showing one's acrobatic skills . These can be very enjoyable, but opera is a combination of music and drama , as Wagner thought it should be .


Some Bel Canto operas are like that, but the good ones use vocal acrobatics to embody drama. The problem is that the singer has to truly be a master of technique in order to perform the acrobatics naturally enough that the dramatic effect (rather than a generic "impressive" effect) comes across.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

vivalagentenuova said:


> Some Bel Canto operas are like that, but the good ones use vocal acrobatics to embody drama. The problem is that the singer has to truly be a master of technique in order to perform the acrobatics naturally enough that the dramatic effect (rather than a generic "impressive" effect) comes across.


imo, early Verdi does everything bel canto does, but better, and with more powerful voices. this is a good example of what you're talking about.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

superhorn said:


> Less than beautiful, even harsh tone can be dramatically appropriate. You don't expect singers portraying Alberich, Mime in the Ring, for example, to sound gorgeous .


Not necessarily "gorgeous," but still technically fine. Gustav Neidlinger and Hermann Uhde were great Wagner villains in large part because they were very solid vocalists who could produce a steady stream of clean, focused, resonant tone in voices of wide range and power. In the sense that matters, they sang beautifully, and their power to create their characters rested upon a technique that allowed them to inflect and color voices that functioned with security and freedom. Those singers are icons in their repertoire because they had the vocal quality and technique to rise above the pack, and we should always hope to hear their "ugly" roles sung as beautifully as they sang them.


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## Parley (May 29, 2021)

LeoPiano said:


> I watched some of the Met broadcasts during last Summer and this year, and I realized my problem: no matter how good the singers in the Met broadcasts are, they don't match the level of singing in the best recordings which I normally listen to. (For example, I was watching a broadcast of La Bohème, and I had to turn it off after the 1st act and listen to the Beecham/Bjorling/de los Angeles recording that I own. I couldn't stand the singing any longer). Now, I rarely watch videos of opera because I don't want to sacrifice the singing for the theatrics. If the singing is good, I don't mind if the theatrics aren't the best. But if the singing isn't good, no amount of theatrics can make a performance good for me.


Well if you take the greatest singers enshrined on disc who will compare with them? Anyway, I own the set of Boheme you mention and think the Freni / Pavarotti version is even better. Doesn't mean I cannot enjoy Beecham, or Schippers, or Tebaldi in the role? Nor that I can enjoy stage performances. I feel sorry when recordings - for all their excellence - kill the joy of live performance. I think this where recording has done a great harm in that it has fixed certain interpretations - excellent no doubt - in people's minds so that they appear unable to take in other performances. I can enjoy opera performed by a student group - you are not going to get the highest level maybe but how good to see young singers.
As a postscript I did watch the Scotto / Pavarotti Boheme broadcast from the Met recently but couldn't take it seriously. I mean, for all the beauty of the singing, who can take seriously two middle aged people, one of whom has a waistline resembling Falstaff playing a starving poet? It doesn't work dramatically. Mind you, the audience seemed content enough just to see the great man. But for me LeoPiano's dictum tends to work in reverse. A matter of opinion though.


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## LeoPiano (Nov 1, 2020)

Parley said:


> Well if you take the greatest singers enshrined on disc who will compare with them? Anyway, I own the set of Boheme you mention and think the Freni / Pavarotti version is even better. Doesn't mean I cannot enjoy Beecham, or Schippers, or Tebaldi in the role? Nor that I can enjoy stage performances. I feel sorry when recordings - for all their excellence - kill the joy of live performance. I think this where recording has done a great harm in that it has fixed certain interpretations - excellent no doubt - in people's minds so that they appear unable to take in other performances. I can enjoy opera performed by a student group - you are not going to get the highest level maybe but how good to see young singers.
> As a postscript I did watch the Scotto / Pavarotti Boheme broadcast from the Met recently but couldn't take it seriously. I mean, for all the beauty of the singing, who can take seriously two middle aged people, one of whom has a waistline resembling Falstaff playing a starving poet? It doesn't work dramatically. Mind you, the audience seemed content enough just to see the great man. But for me LeoPiano's dictum tends to work in reverse. A matter of opinion though.


https://www.metopera.org/season/on-demand/opera/?upc=811357019351 This is the performance that I watched. I won't pretend I know a lot about opera singing, but I can tell when singers fit the part or not. The two leads lacked the warmth necessary to make this a "loving" production, compared to the great recordings such as the Beecham or Karajan (I should have mentioned that the Karajan is a close second for me. I just prefer Beecham's conducting style overall and I like Bjorling a bit more than Pavarotti. Other than that, they are fairly equal for me). When listening to this production, I thought "this is not a 'heroic' opera with tenors and sopranos emphasizing every note and 'out-screaming' everyone else. This is supposed to be an 'intimate' opera where there needs to be warmth and love put into every phrase." When comparing these to the best recordings (and even some DVDs), there is a lack of warmth and love, what this opera is supposed to be in my opinion. Not to say that one can enjoy this performance for the theatrics or the staging (also the secondary characters were quite good. I was very impressed by them), but what I want in an opera is good singing that fits the roles, and this didn't do it for me.


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## LeoPiano (Nov 1, 2020)

I’ll try to find a YouTube video of excepts from that performance. I couldn’t find any on the Met’s website.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

If only this thread had been a poll. Anyways, I highly value the plot of the opera and generally will not even listen to an opera unless the plot seems somewhat interesting.


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## LeoPiano (Nov 1, 2020)

LeoPiano said:


> https://www.metopera.org/season/on-demand/opera/?upc=811357019351 This is the performance that I watched. I won't pretend I know a lot about opera singing, but I can tell when singers fit the part or not. The two leads lacked the warmth necessary to make this a "loving" production, compared to the great recordings such as the Beecham or Karajan (I should have mentioned that the Karajan is a close second for me. I just prefer Beecham's conducting style overall and I like Bjorling a bit more than Pavarotti. Other than that, they are fairly equal for me). When listening to this production, I thought "this is not a 'heroic' opera with tenors and sopranos emphasizing every note and 'out-screaming' everyone else. This is supposed to be an 'intimate' opera where there needs to be warmth and love put into every phrase." When comparing these to the best recordings (and even some DVDs), there is a lack of warmth and love, what this opera is supposed to be in my opinion. Not to say that one can enjoy this performance for the theatrics or the staging (also the secondary characters were quite good. I was very impressed by them), but what I want in an opera is good singing that fits the roles, and this didn't do it for me.






Mimi sure doesn't sound sick to me.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

SixFootScowl said:


> If only this thread had been a poll. Anyways, I highly value the plot of the opera and generally will not even listen to an opera unless the plot seems somewhat interesting.


That's an unusual point of view. Do you have a background in literature?


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> That's an unusual point of view. Do you have a background in literature?


Not at all. I flunked English in high school because I was high. I ended up in the dummy English classes. But all my life, except for the "high" school days, i was a bookworm.

I came into opera with the idea that the story matters (at least to me) and so wanted to listen to operas with wholesome stories (so why do I like Tosca or La Traviata).

My favorites are wholesome: Fidelio, La Sonnambula, L'amico Fritz among others. I at least find redeeming features in other operas. So Tosca because Scarpia gets his due. La Traviata because this fallen woman makes a moral decision to not wreck a family, at her own expense.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Having a good idea of the plot and characters enhances my enjoyment of the singing/acting.


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## Parley (May 29, 2021)

SixFootScowl said:


> Not at all. I flunked English in high school because I was high. I ended up in the dummy English classes. But all my life, except for the "high" school days, i was a bookworm.


Interesting. I didn't do particularly well in English at school then ended up earning from writing! Maybe the school system?


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Parley said:


> Interesting. I didn't do particularly well in English at school then ended up earning from writing! Maybe the school system?


I also do a lot of writing in my job. My boss even has me review other's documents sometimes. But I am far from perfect. I think doing a lot of reading helps one to write, but I did study writing some after I first got my job. Oh, I should also add that in elementary school I did horribly in English too. The reason there was because my mind would wander during instruction, then I would not know what was going on. I still don't know a lot of the grammatical terms, constructions etc. In college a forestry prof had us get Strunk and White, Elements of Style, and I always treasured that book. One of the best writing books I ever have seen is, oddly, an IRS publication called "Effective Revenue Writing," a two-volume training manual for the U.S. Department of Treasurey. These are old, so maybe they don't use them anymore.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

SixFootScowl said:


> *Not at all. I flunked English in high school because I was high. I ended up in the dummy English classes. But all my life, except for the "high" school days, i was a bookworm.*
> 
> I came into opera with the idea that the story matters (at least to me) and so wanted to listen to operas with wholesome stories (so why do I like Tosca or La Traviata).
> 
> My favorites are wholesome: Fidelio, La Sonnambula, L'amico Fritz among others. I at least find redeeming features in other operas. So Tosca because Scarpia gets his due. La Traviata because this fallen woman makes a moral decision to not wreck a family, at her own expense.


totally me (minus the high part. I never really did drugs). eventually I figured out I was dyslexic, and audiobooks opened up a whole new side of my personality to where I'm almost continuously listening to them.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> totally me (minus the high part. I never really did drugs). eventually I figured out I was dyslexic, and audiobooks opened up a whole new side of my personality to where I'm almost continuously listening to them.


That's great. I know a few people who prefer audio books and one is for similar reasons as yours. I am not good with audio books as my mind wanders (that daydreaming in elementary school). I also would daydream on the baseball field in gym class and then not be ready when needed. I guess I just got bored easily. I used to read books while waking down the street. There is a case where audio books would be really helpful.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

SixFootScowl said:


> That's great. I know a few people who prefer audio books and one is for similar reasons as yours. I am not good with audio books as my mind wanders (that daydreaming in elementary school). *I also would daydream on the baseball field in gym class and then not be ready when needed. I guess I just got bored easily.* I used to read books while waking down the street. There is a case where audio books would be really helpful.


to be frank, anyone who can actually be entertained by hitting a ball around a field is....too low IQ for me to find relatable. You were "bored easily" because you're intelligent.


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## Bonetan (Dec 22, 2016)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> to be frank, anyone who can actually be entertained by hitting a ball around a field is....too low IQ for me to find relatable. You were "bored easily" because you're intelligent.


As a former D1 athlete who had professional aspirations pre-injury I take this as a massive insult!  I'm going to have to join David in trolling you now...


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Parley said:


> Interesting. I didn't do particularly well in English at school then ended up earning from writing! Maybe the school system?


at the risk of things getting political, the school system in America is a failure because it's really a fusion of about 3 different forces from which it originated.

1) fundamentalist Christians from the Puritan era who aggressively pushed for universal education....for the sake of reading the Bible. 
2) a literal communist sympathizer (John Dewey) who went over to the Soviet Union and helped them create a similar system (some claim he actually was a communist, but I'll stick to a more conservative interpretation for the sake of avoiding polemics) 
3) aristocratic universities from Europe that dripped with arrogance, lack of accountability and viewing students as little more than funding for elite intellectuals to sit around theorizing all day.

note that none of these three groups had primarily pragmatic aspirations. the US school system has always been about disparate groups pushing for idealistic agendas and arrogantly dismissing any criticism that they aren't actually preparing students for the real world, teaching them tangible skills or doing anything to make learning genuinely interesting. put another way, it's the worst of both militant atheists and militant Christianity. it's also the worst of both radical egalitarianism (if not communists, at least progressives far to the left of the mainstream democrats) and pretentious aristocrats judging a reality with which they have completely lost touch.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> to be frank, anyone who can actually be entertained by hitting a ball around a field is....too low IQ for me to find relatable. You were "bored easily" because you're intelligent.


Too bad I fell in with the wrong crowd in high school. It was a new neighborhood as we had just moved. Ah, if I could go back and do it again. Wasted years in many respects. If I was too intelligent, that intelligence needed to be guided productively. My biggest problem was lack of a good memory. As a kid I was lazy about that stuff. Never learned the multiplication table. My memory capacity suffers and so getting through a complex book can be difficult, such as Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk's Capitol and Interest. Read it 20 years ago, grasped his main theory, then the understanding of it slipped out of my head.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Bonetan said:


> As a former D1 athlete who had professional aspirations pre-injury I take this as a massive insult!


hmm....
1) part of me wants to say "I'm sorry. I probably could have been less provocative and accounted for some exceptions"
2) another part wants to say "nah, I'm still mostly right"

neither really feel like a satisfying answer, so I'll just leave it at that



> I'm going to have to join David in trolling you now...


do as you will. you would hardly be the first


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## Bonetan (Dec 22, 2016)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> hmm....
> 1) part of me wants to say "I'm sorry. I probably could have been less provocative and accounted for some exceptions"
> 2) another part wants to say "nah, I'm still mostly right"
> 
> ...


A person could express the same sentiments you did towards sports about opera. Substitute 'hitting a ball around a field' with 'frolicking around the stage singing in costume' and they sound equally frivolous. You're out of line and you should have gone with number 1.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

SixFootScowl said:


> Too bad I fell in with the wrong crowd in high school. It was a new neighborhood as we had just moved. Ah, if I could go back and do it again. Wasted years in many respects. If I was too intelligent, that intelligence needed to be guided productively. My biggest problem was lack of a good memory. As a kid I was lazy about that stuff. Never learned the multiplication table. My memory capacity suffers and so getting through a complex book can be difficult, such as Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk's Capitol and Interest. Read it 20 years ago, grasped his main theory, then the understanding of it slipped out of my head.


I never really had a "crowd". My issue wasn't so much "lack of direction" (I had plenty of that from a weirdly young age), as much as delusion and lack of groundedness from not spending enough time around others who could bring me back down to earth. In a sense, I felt more "half kid, half adult" rather than "teenager". Like, the children's world of daydreaming, video games and singing, and the adult world of investing, work and fitness (never did sports, but I lifted weights for practical reasons) were more interesting to me than the teenager world of sports, gossip, music videos, etc. There is a certain obnoxious abrasiveness that comes from social apathy (most teenagers are socially awkward, but most also at least try not to be), so most people avoided me, but my attitude was kinda "yeah, I'd probably avoid me too". probably the most ironic thing about this is that the group I sat with most frequently at lunch...were jocks :lol: I don't know how much they actually liked me, but superficially at least, we seemed to get along for some reason, and that was all that really mattered at that point.

It wasn't until maybe 18 or so when something clicked and I slowly decided "I'd like to have pleasant interactions with more than 2-4 people" and "oh...it can actually be enjoyable spending time with people". That's also about the time I started reading more rather than just daydreaming, and in both the social and intellectual sphere, I became much more interested in being less delusional and having a more comprehensive grasp of reality.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

I like to have some kind of an idea of what the narrative is about in an opera, but, for me, the music is of upmost importance.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Bonetan said:


> *A person could express the same sentiments you did towards sports about opera*. Substitute 'hitting a ball around a field' with 'frolicking around the stage singing in costume' *and they sound equally frivolous*. You're out of line and you should have gone with number 1.


many have. the "and they sound equally frivolous" was why I generally didn't pay much attention.

anyway, since I like you, I'll compromise and go for "I apologize for the delivery."


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Bonetan said:


> A person could express the same sentiments you did towards sports about opera. Substitute 'hitting a ball around a field' with 'frolicking around the stage singing in costume' and they sound equally frivolous. You're out of line and you should have gone with number 1.


It is true. Any pastime could be disliked vehemently by someone. I never did well in sports and so really didn't care much for sports. Followed baseball in a couple of years when my hometown team was really doing well, but otherwise paid little attention. In my 50s though I started playing, just pickup games, but it was a lot of fun even though I was not so good. I can appreciate the high level of skill that goes into baseball, both physical and mental. All sports, really, but not much interest for me.

I figured that BalalaikaBoy was not so much disrespecting baseball as just letting me know it is no big deal that I was not good at baseball. Meant more as a word of condolence to me than as a jab at all players of the game.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> I never really had a "crowd". My issue wasn't so much "lack of direction" (I had plenty of that from a weirdly young age), as much as delusion and lack of groundedness from not spending enough time around others who could bring me back down to earth. In a sense, I felt more "half kid, half adult" rather than "teenager". Like, the children's world of daydreaming, video games and singing, and the adult world of investing, work and fitness (never did sports, but I lifted weights for practical reasons) were more interesting to me than the teenager world of sports, gossip, music videos, etc. There is a certain obnoxious abrasiveness that comes from social apathy (most teenagers are socially awkward, but most also at least try not to be), so most people avoided me, but my attitude was kinda "yeah, I'd probably avoid me too". *probably the most ironic thing about this is that the group I sat with most frequently at lunch...were jocks *:lol: I don't know how much they actually liked me, but superficially at least, we seemed to get along for some reason, and that was all that really mattered at that point.
> 
> It wasn't until maybe 18 or so when something clicked and I slowly decided "I'd like to have pleasant interactions with more than 2-4 people" and "oh...it can actually be enjoyable spending time with people". That's also about the time I started reading more rather than just daydreaming, and in both the social and intellectual sphere, I became much more interested in being less delusional and having a more comprehensive grasp of reality.


Ha, me quite the opposite. I hung around with what were called in the 1970s, freaks, that is the long-haired kids. I avoided the jocks. I had a little conversation with some of the greasers too but mainly they left me alone, which was a good thing for me.

So hey, we have quite an interesting conversation going in the middle of a totally unrelated thread. I maybe should see if a moderator can separate these posts to a new thread maybe titled, growing up and not fitting in and/or fitting in with the wrong crowd, which is what I did.


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## Bonetan (Dec 22, 2016)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> many have. the "and they sound equally frivolous" was why I generally didn't pay much attention.
> 
> anyway, since I like you, I'll compromise and go for "I apologize for the delivery."


You don't have to be brilliant to play sports, but you can be brilliant and play sports. Bill Bradley being one example. Some intelligent people were also blessed with great athletic talent. If you're talking about stereotypical high school jocks I understand where you're coming from, but they don't represent real athletes.


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## Parley (May 29, 2021)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> at the risk of things getting political, the school system in America is a failure because it's really a fusion of about 3 different forces from which it originated.
> 
> 1) fundamentalist Christians from the Puritan era who aggressively pushed for universal education....for the sake of reading the Bible.
> 2) a literal communist sympathizer (John Dewey) who went over to the Soviet Union and helped them create a similar system (some claim he actually was a communist, but I'll stick to a more conservative interpretation for the sake of avoiding polemics)
> ...


We are off the subject but I would take issue with you that the Puritans just pushed literacy because they wanted people to read the Bible. For example, Jonathan Edwards as a boy studied many things other than the Bible . But Protestantism has always pushed literacy for its own sake as they believe to develop the mind is a good thing. We helped open several schools in Africa and the demand was enormous!


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## Parley (May 29, 2021)

SixFootScowl said:


> I also do a lot of writing in my job. My boss even has me review other's documents sometimes. But I am far from perfect. I think doing a lot of reading helps one to write, but I did study writing some after I first got my job. Oh, I should also add that in elementary school I did horribly in English too. The reason there was because my mind would wander during instruction, then I would not know what was going on. I still don't know a lot of the grammatical terms, constructions etc. In college a forestry prof had us get Strunk and White, Elements of Style, and I always treasured that book. One of the best writing books I ever have seen is, oddly, an IRS publication called "Effective Revenue Writing," a two-volume training manual for the U.S. Department of Treasurey. These are old, so maybe they don't use them anymore.


I find that reading is the best preparation for writing. Writing courses are a complete waste of time as you cannot teach someone to write unless they have the ability. The best advice I ever got from a guy who himself was a very good writer was 'short words, short sentences, short paragraphs.' I also found it as a lad reading sports columnists was a fantastic way of learning to communicate. But we are obviously off topic so I'll leave it there


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Parley said:


> But Protestantism has always pushed literacy for its own sake as they believe to develop the mind is a good thing.


Obviously you didn't grow up in America.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

I bet none of you grew up in 17th century America when the Puritans founded their school system...


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## Parley (May 29, 2021)

Woodduck said:


> Obviously you didn't grow up in America.


Obviously you have never read the story of the Reformation. For example, Bach's Lutheran Christianity was at ease with the scientific investigation and widening education of its laity.


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## Parley (May 29, 2021)

Kreisler jr said:


> I bet none of you grew up in 17th century America when the Puritans founded their school system...


No but we do read history!


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> *How much do you care about the plot and theatrics vs the singing?*
> 
> Obviously, this is a matter of personal tastes, but I think it would be interesting to get everyone's perspective.


Personally, I put the singing first. When I think of the opera recordings I have, they would probably split 90% CD and Vinyl (i.e. audio only) to only 10% DVD/Bluray with visuals.

It would not break my heart if the majority of opera performances by the opera company closest to me were in concert and they used the money saved on staging to put on more shows and/or perform grander or more eclectic repertoire which would be too expensive to stage/not warrant long runs.

I will say, though, that when I saw the new technology used in sci fi tv shows to create amazing backdrops here




the first thing I thought was how cool it would be to have a Ring cycle with backgrounds like this and all the fantastic elements Wagner imagined - free of the limitations in time/money/space that are part of building physical sets in ordinary theatres. I like technology and this would truly be something we have not seen before.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Bonetan said:


> You don't have to be brilliant to play sports, but you can be brilliant and play sports. Bill Bradley being one example. Some intelligent people were also blessed with great athletic talent. If you're talking about stereotypical high school jocks I understand where you're coming from, but they don't represent real athletes.


In college I had a friend who was a high school football player. Three of us lived in the same cabin up at forestry camp and I remember the football player would study for an hour and go to bed. Me and the other guy would study for about 3 hours. The football player aced every exam. Me and the other guy typically got Bs. The fooball player is now a professor at a university. I think the football player must have had a photographic mind, but you still need the ability to apply that remembered stuff.

EDIT: Oops, I should have said "The other guy and I would study...." Can't say "me" because it does not work if I take the other guy out: "Me ... would study for about 3 hours." My wife, an elementary school teacher, explained that to me and I should have known better. :lol: Also supposed to put the other guy first, not me (I).


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## Parley (May 29, 2021)

SixFootScowl said:


> In college I had a friend who was a high school football player. Three of us lived in the same cabin up at forestry camp and I remember the football player would study for an hour and go to bed. Me and the other guy would study for about 3 hours. The football player aced every exam. Me and the other guy typically got Bs. The fooball player is now a professor at a university. I think the football player must have had a photographic mind, but you still need the ability to apply that remembered stuff.


Roger Bannister, who is credited as being the first athlete to run a four-minute mile, had a career as a distinguished neurologist. He said later in life he wished to be remembered for his contribution to medicine rather than his running!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Parley said:


> Obviously you have never read the story of the Reformation. For example, Bach's Lutheran Christianity was at ease with the scientific investigation and widening education of its laity.


Obviously you didn't grow up in America. I repeat that verbatim because it refutes your statement that "Protestantism has *always* pushed literacy for its own sake." I'm sure other refutations are easy to find but one will do. "Protestantism" doesn't push anything. There is no monolithic "protestantism." Religions tend to take on the qualities of the cultures in which they find themselves. Some protestants "push literacy," some don't. The Anglican tradition in your country no doubt places a much higher value on intellectual attainment than America's homegrown traditions. American protestantism has become a cesspool of illiteracy and anti-literacy.

Why are you discussing religion? You know the rules here, DavidA/Handelian.


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## ThaNotoriousNIC (Jun 29, 2020)

The singing and the music take precedent over the plot and the theatrics. Listening to opera largely online, I gravitate to those arias or moments that capture my ear rather than my intellect via plot or libretto. While I say this, I do want to acknowledge that in my opinion, a truly meaningful opera experience comes when you actually see it in a theater with the libretto presented. The music definitely can survive as its own entity, but you don't get the complete picture until you add the plot and theatrics.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

My understanding, which could be all wrong, is that the Protestants (or some subset thereof), fearing the heavy influence of Catholic schools, advocated for government schools, which eventually (they should have figured) became secularized.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

SixFootScowl said:


> EDIT: Oops, I should have said "The other guy and I would study...." Can't say "me" because it does not work if I take the other guy out: "Me ... would study for about 3 hours." My wife, an elementary school teacher, explained that to me and I should have known better. :lol: Also supposed to put the other guy first, not me (I).


Mother knows best.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> Obviously, this is a matter of personal tastes, but I think it would be interesting to get everyone's perspective.


This is a good question. I think that in general, theatrical works do not age as well as purely musical ones. If you see movies as recent as those of the 1940s, 50s, and even 60s, it's often hard not to wince at the archaic and stilted (to us today) dramatic conventions. I could give many specific examples, but don't want to derail this thread into a movie discussion. Going further back to 18th and 19th century opera, or any theatrical work of that era, and it's even more extreme. One has to accept these old dramatic conventions going in and temporarily abandon modern sensibilities.

The irony is, well-meaning attempts to modernize the classic operas, purely from a dramatic (and not musical) standpoint, provokes derision and hostility from many true blue opera fans, very much including many posters here. (You know who you are.) Even updated costumes and sets, routinely used for Shakespeare, for example, are deemed unacceptable. For me, that's something I'd evaluate on a case by case basis. One of the great strengths of Bizet's Carmen (imo) is that it works dramatically in a modern context, far better than most other traditional 19th century operas. I think Carmen is a great candidate for more modern settings and costumes, and these have been used with great success.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Fluteman:
Going along with your theme, I shocked myself when I, a true enemy of those Eurotrash and updated productions, found myself cheering at curtain call time when Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack came to life with Beczala and Lucic's masterful execution of their roles in a Las Vegas production of "Rigoletto" that I fully expected to walk out on.
And the reason that it worked was because it never disrupted the singers or the singing.
Most "dreck"tors are too hubristic and prefer to change the composer's/librettist's works by making it their own.
But Michael Mayer's concept proved it can be done because he allowed the music and singing to come first.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

fluteman said:


> This is a good question. I think that in general, theatrical works do not age as well as purely musical ones. If you see movies as recent as those of the 1940s, 50s, and even 60s, it's often hard not to wince at the archaic and stilted (to us today) dramatic conventions. I could give many specific examples, but don't want to derail this thread into a movie discussion. Going further back to 18th and 19th century opera, or any theatrical work of that era, and it's even more extreme. One has to accept these old dramatic conventions going in and temporarily abandon modern sensibilities.
> 
> *The irony is, **well-meaning attempts to modernize the classic operas*, purely from a dramatic (and not musical) standpoint, *provokes derision and hostility from many true blue opera fans, very much including many posters here. (You know who you are.) * *Even updated costumes and sets, routinely used for Shakespeare, for example, are deemed unacceptable.* For me, that's something I'd evaluate on a case by case basis. One of the great strengths of Bizet's Carmen (imo) is that it works dramatically in a modern context, far better than most other traditional 19th century operas. I think Carmen is a great candidate for more modern settings and costumes, and these have been used with great success.


Your point about the datable styles of theatrical presentation sounds plausible. But what aspects of those styles do you find particularly subject to this problem, if it is one? You mention costuming, and claim that it's a sticking point for many opera fans. In fact, productions have been playing around with costuming for a long time, and few operagoers are dogmatic about it. But does costuming characters in a style evocative of the period in which their stories are set create a problem of datedness? Does it, _ipso facto,_ place on viewers of an opera a demand that they "abandon modern sensibilities"? And if it does, is that bad? How critical is it to appeal to modern sensibilities? Which ones should we appeal to? Are people attracted to _Figaro_ or _Tosca_ by those works' modern sensibilities? Is it possible - or even likely - that immersion in and enjoyment of sensibilities of times and places other than those of one's own neighborhood in 2021 is something attendees of theatrical presentations and listeners to operatic music enjoy, or even crave? Is there, possibly, something salutary and refreshing about entering a space where one can be relieved, if only for a few hours, of the burden of "modern sensibilities," with which our media bombard us 24/7? Perhaps there are sensibilities which transcend the limitations of modernity, and perhaps an experience of the potential power of sensibilities no longer _au courant_ is best achieved by an artistically inspired and integral journey into another time and place.

Your comments don't convince me that you've considered such questions. What I fear you've done is to buy into an oversimplification of the issues, an oversimplification popular among those seeking to rationalize the fractured aesthetic, internal incoherence, and sheer egocentrism of much contemporary opera production. It's this reduction of works of art to something more superficially familiar but less integral and even absurd, and not the employment of more modern ideas of stagecraft, that bothers most people who object to what is called _regietheater_ (literally, director's theater). Dress Carmen however you please, but remember who and what she is, and make sure that composer, librettist and director agree if you want us to believe what we're being shown. Why shouldn't Carmen turn on Don Jose, shoot him, and flounce off - "liberated" according to modern sensibilities - with Escamillo (or, better still, without him or any representative of the patriarchy)? I could tell you why - in fact I did explain why in another thread - but I wonder if those who cling to their modern sensibilities ("you know who you are") would find the reasons comprehensible.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Your comments don't convince me that you've considered such questions. What I fear you've done is to buy into an oversimplification of the issues, an oversimplification popular among those seeking to rationalize the fractured aesthetic, internal incoherence, and sheer egocentrism of much contemporary opera production.


Well. It seems I've doe a poor job of explaining myself to you. As usual. To me, the key to Carmen is that it is a compelling drama in modern terms. For example, the main protagonist is a strong, independent woman with her own job, her own life, and her own ideas, who uses men, everyone, in fact, for her own purposes with no pity or sentiment. Compare that with, say, Rigoletto, where Gilda, the stereotypical tragically jilted woman, sacrifices her own life to save her unfaithful lover the Duke, a stereotypical worthless Lothario-type. Both great works musically, two of my all time favorites in the entire classical canon, opera or otherwise. But polar opposites dramatically.

Carmen is a story that could have been pulled out of today's post-feminist headlines, or movies. It still works on its own terms, except rather than being killed at the end, Carmen would become editor-in-chief of Vogue. Rigoletto's is as old fashioned as can be. The story no longer plays well in the modern era. The Duke of Mantua, like Don Giovanni and all other such types, would be shunned, if not prosecuted, a la Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein or James Levine, as a result of Gilda's sworn testimony.

In dramatic terms, Carmen is the exception for classical opera, with a modern story that still plays well today, and Rigoletto is the rule, a story that, though wonderful, is distinctly of a bygone era and must either be accepted on its pre-modern terms, as you correctly point out, or more or less ignored as one enjoys the great music, and whatever else a modern director can come up with that doesn't unduly interfere with its great music.


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## Birmanbass (Jun 1, 2021)

Revitalized Classics said:


> Personally, I put the singing first. When I think of the opera recordings I have, they would probably split 90% CD and Vinyl (i.e. audio only) to only 10% DVD/Bluray with visuals.
> 
> It would not break my heart if the majority of opera performances by the opera company closest to me were in concert and they used the money saved on staging to put on more shows and/or perform grander or more eclectic repertoire which would be too expensive to stage/not warrant long runs.
> 
> ...


Maybe we could call it a "Lord of the Rings" cycle :lol: Interesting conceptually and thought provoking if you look at the new movies with so much being done digitally now..how do you fit Wagnerian story lines and prolonged periods of dated dialogue and long passages of music and singing with little action. It would be necessary to rewrite entire operas which would horrify the classicists and in all probability still not engage a modern audience. Certainly it could be done but the studios that underwrite these modern mega productions will be unlikely to commit hundreds of millions to speculative enterprises. Artistic endeavors fall way behind return on investment. As much as I hate to say it but unfortunately, in opera we are talking about an art form that hasn't really managed to engage younger people now any more than it did 20, 30 or 40 years ago. Investment drives change and growth and my guess is that there are many more productive areas than opera. This doesn't mean that opera needs to wither. There will always be a segment of the population that values it for the history of talent and genius it provides and for the passion and enjoyment it brings to those of us who embrace it. Maybe the operas of the future will be multi-media productions where the "old" focus of the vocal performance will be diminished and shadowed by digital and theatrical images and sounds and constant visual stimulation?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

fluteman said:


> Well. It seems I've doe a poor job of explaining myself to you. As usual. To me, the key to Carmen is that it is a compelling drama in modern terms. For example, the main protagonist is a strong, independent woman with her own job, her own life, and her own ideas, who uses men, everyone, in fact, for her own purposes with no pity or sentiment. Compare that with, say, Rigoletto, where Gilda, the stereotypical tragically jilted woman, sacrifices her own life to save her unfaithful lover the Duke, a stereotypical worthless Lothario-type. Both great works musically, two of my all time favorites in the entire classical canon, opera or otherwise. But polar opposites dramatically.
> 
> Carmen is a story that could have been pulled out of today's post-feminist headlines, or movies. It still works on its own terms, except rather than being killed at the end, Carmen would become editor-in-chief of Vogue. Rigoletto's is as old fashioned as can be. The story no longer plays well in the modern era. The Duke of Mantua, like Don Giovanni and all other such types, would be shunned, if not prosecuted, a la Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein or James Levine, as a result of Gilda's sworn testimony.
> 
> In dramatic terms, Carmen is the exception for classical opera, with a modern story that still plays well today, and Rigoletto is the rule, a story that, though wonderful, is distinctly of a bygone era and must either be accepted on its pre-modern terms, as you correctly point out, or more or less ignored as one enjoys the great music, and whatever else a modern director can come up with that doesn't unduly interfere with its great music.


Well, if that's all you meant to say, I can't disagree with the basic idea: some stories are more plausible in a modern setting than others. Carmen's story, in its essentials, could probably date from almost any year across a few centuries. Whether we still have roving bands of gypsies working in cigarette factories and reading their fates in the cards I'm not sure. But, not unimportantly, there is the music to consider, and we have to, or should, ask how our concept of an opera's _mise en scene _ relates to the style and spirit of its music. This question does seem to go unasked by a lot of "updated" productions. Sometimes a bit of contrast between the music and the production's visual style can be intriguing, whereas in other cases it's strange and unsatisfying, if not indeed jarring. As for _Carmen,_ the opera isn't just about Carmen, and much of its music exudes a lovely, light, slightly sentimental Gallic charm that doesn't feel modern at all. Those gypsies, for example: isn't their music rather quaintly picturesque and jolly? Then there's the character and music of Micaela, the very embodiment of 19th-century virtuous virginity. Significantly, she was not part of the original Merimee novella but was added as a sop to the sensibilities of Bizet's desired audience. Her attempt to lure Jose back to his country cottage for the sake of his mother seems a bit, well, dated, and the music she sings, including her duet with Jose, is sweetly old-fashioned. The same might be said for Jose's "flower song." Its independent woman notwithstanding, _Carmen_ strikes me as not at all a contemporary work, and a performance in 20th-century costume I watched part of was in my judgment only partially successful. It seems to me that the opera offers plenty of latitude for directorial and scenic interpretation without trying too hard to be modern, and if a good artist sings her the character of Carmen does not need a miniskirt or a pantsuit to make her points.


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> Why are you discussing religion? You know the rules here, DavidA/Handelian.


I'm not sure I would vouch for the veracity of this statement; the man has managed to get three accounts banned in the span of a couple of months.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

BachIsBest said:


> I'm not sure I would vouch for the veracity of this statement; the man has managed to get three accounts banned in the span of a couple of months.


 Point taken.


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## Bruckner Anton (Mar 10, 2016)

For me, I give music the highest priority. But I also tend to prefer operas with at least some logical, meaningful or even touching plot. So I am not a big fan of a lot of bel canto operas which seems to be just bubble shows for me.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Bruckner Anton said:


> For me, I give music the highest priority. But I also tend to prefer operas with at least some logical, meaningful or even touching plot. So I am not a big fan of a lot of bel canto operas which seems to be just bubble shows for me.


Though many of them were based on great works of literature or actual historical events.

Maria Stuarda is based on FRiedrich Schiller's play, Maria Stuart.
Lucia di Lammermoor is based on Sir Walter Scott's The Bride of Lammermoor.
Poliuto is based on Corneille's Polyeucte.
Lucrezia Borgia is based on Victor Hugo's play of the same name.
I Capuleti e i Montecchi is admittedly based on a different source from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet but the basic story is still the same.
Elisabetta al Castello di Kenilworth is also based on a Sir Walter Scott novel, Kenilwroth.
Anna Bolena is based on two different Italian play, but in fact sticks more closely than Donizetti's other Tudor operas to the historical facts.

If we're talking bubble show, then what could be more of a bubble show than Mozart's Cosí fan Tutte? That is defintely one of those operas where I prefer to forget the ridiculously mysonginistic plot and concentrate instead on the emotions the plot evokes, enriched as they are by Mozart's sublime music.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

_Friedrich_ Schiller is the name of the poet/dramatist who was also a history professor and based almost all of his plays on historical figures, one of the exceptions being the one Luisa Miller is based on which was a then contemporary story about marriage across rigid social classes. Don Carlos and William Tell are two other examples of his historical plays (I masnaderi (Die Räuber) is another more contemporary one). BTW most of his plays are classics in Germany, some are read in HS literature class and regularly given on stage, so the general plots did not depend on the music to "survive".

I think some of the questions put in this thread are impossible to answer in general. Most of the time, the music will make or break an opera. Audiences do care about plausible plots but only to a certain extent. I am not so sure they care so much about hopelessly old-fashioned. It is also not easy to say what should count as such. I never understood why so many people seem to be bothered by the silly fairy-tale elements in "The magic flute" when it overall *is* such a fairy tale setting (although with a masonic/symbolic layer). "Cosi fan tutte" seemed old fashioned and frivolous not only to Beethoven but most of the 19th century. But we have had successful movies based on the more sinister variant (Liaisons dangereuses) of love/deceit polygons, both in costumes and in late 20th century settings. Our time is easily as cynical, decadent and duplicitous as the Ancien Regime was, why should we not enjoy "Cosi fan tutte"...?

While updating settings and costumes is about the most superficial way to update a theatrical piece (and should hardly shock anyone), it is historically also the standard, not the exception. Just look at ca. 1500 crucifixions or Rembrandt's King Solomon. In the baroque opera Handel's Caesar was not wearing a toga but a fantasy costume and I doubt that they would have bothered to make historically informed costume distinctions between 1st cent. BC Caesar and 12th century Rinaldo. 
Mozart's "Don Giovanni" seems to take place in the 1780s, not the early 1600s (one indication is the contemporary music at the feasts )
Although this stance changed in the 19th century there would still be some slight adaptions. Most 20th century audience would expect Max and Agathe more in the style of early 1800 (contemporary with the composition) than "briefly after the 30 years war", late 1600s.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Opera plots generally don't deserve the disparagement they often get. As has been pointed out, they're often based on literary classics, and they tend to deal with archetypal human situations, commonly in a manner reflective of the periods in which they're set and composed. I suspect that when people criticize opera's stories they may mean several things: that the events are unlikely in real life, or the characters one-dimensional; that the values embodied in the stories are old-fashioned and hard to identify with; that the librettos don't read like spoken drama; and that emotions in opera are expressed in a way that seems to - or actually does - make them exaggerated and larger than life. There are good reasons for all these things, and if you "get" opera and understand why it is what it is - the key here is _music_ - they're unlikely to be problematic for you. It's also a fact that many of these same "faults" are common in literature and in spoken drama from TV to Shakespeare. Opera librettos exist so that composers can write operatic music, and although they may possess some intrinsic literary values as well, those are in most cases unlikely to come across when words are sung in the theater. If you want to savor _Pelleas et Melisande_ and _Carmen_ as literature, you'd do better to read Maeterlinck and Merimee than to see and hear Debussy and Bizet.


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## Azol (Jan 25, 2015)

We only can be ten times happier when (rarely) all stars align and we get a performance
a) in excellent video and audio
b) containing stellar singing
c) and breathtaking acting

If I must nitpick (and I probably can afford to) I am willing to pass on (in order): quality video, any video (breathtaking acting goes with it) then quality audio. I'll never pass on stellar singing because that defeats the purpose of listening to an opera performance. I might consider an average performance of some rare opera (Balfe, early Meyerbeer, Mosca, Wallace etc) but life becomes shorter so I rarely bother nowadays.

Now I've been to a lot of live opera performances and pure acting wasn't able to enhance my experience if the singing wasn't up to some "expected" standard (might deviate from theatre to theatre). To the point any acting looks worse than no acting at all when accompanied with substandard singing. Example? Imagine Siegfried Act I with three completely miscast singers (horrifying enough?)


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Bonetan said:


> You don't have to be brilliant to play sports, but you can be brilliant and play sports. Bill Bradley being one example. Some intelligent people were also blessed with great athletic talent. *If you're talking about stereotypical high school jocks I understand where you're coming from*, but they don't represent real athletes.


pretty much this (well, K-12 in general). I guess being serious about body building technically makes me an "athlete", and the more competitive ones are generally much, much smarter than people give them credit for (there is a lot of science and strategy behind muscle building)


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

Kreisler jr said:


> It is also not easy to say what should count as such. I never understood why so many people seem to be bothered by the silly fairy-tale elements in "The magic flute" when it overall *is* such a fairy tale setting (although with a masonic/symbolic layer).


This is exactly right. A literary text of any kind needs to be interpreted within the genre context that it establishes. _Turandot_ is another classic case where this is consistently ignored (although that's a little more understandable, though still no less wrong, since _Turandot_ merges at least three genres, the interaction of which is at least part of the fascination of the piece). I still can't say I love the _Magic Flute_'s libretto, but it does what it's trying to do pretty well.



Woodduck said:


> I suspect that when people criticize opera's stories they may mean several things: that the events are unlikely in real life, or the characters one-dimensional; that the values embodied in the stories are old-fashioned and hard to identify with; that the librettos don't read like spoken drama; and that emotions in opera are expressed in a way that seems to - or actually does - make them exaggerated and larger than life. There are good reasons for all these things, and if you "get" opera and understand why it is what it is - the key here is music - they're unlikely to be problematic for you.


Agreed. There are some texts that pull down their scores, some of which have already been mentioned, but in many cases the criticisms libretti get are spurious. One favorite example of mine is all the flack that _La fanciulla del west_ gets for the way it portrays its miners (it deserves all the flack it gets for the way it portrays its Native Americans). Many of the criticisms are basically just "Americans singing about their mothers in Italian? Ha!" Aside from the fact that Americans singing in Italian is no less absurd than Scotsman or Japanese or Frenchmen singing in Italian, or singing their daily activities at all, the idea that American miners were too rough and tumble to sing about their mothers is historically inaccurate. A scholar, I think Deborah Burton, looked back at the historical record, and found ample evidence that miners at the time did actually sing about missing their homes and their mothers, because _of course they did_. The saloons were full of desperate men far from home and they got very emotional, "American ruggedness" notwithstanding. So the criticism of the opera as being "unrealistic" is actually based on faulty understanding of reality. Moreover, _Fanciulla_, if you can get past your (possibly faulty) sense of disbelief, has a wonderful libretto, with one of the most psychologically nuanced and believable relationships in all of opera, not to mention a villain with some depth, and very strong themes. The quality of the libretto (and possibly the fact that Puccini apparently wrote or edited much of it himself) leads to a fusion between music and drama that extremely powerful.

Even more conventional operatic plots deserve a bit better than they get, though. They clearly do their jobs, since the works written to them have held the stage for hundreds of years.



Woodduck said:


> It's also a fact that many of these same "faults" are common in literature and in spoken drama from TV to Shakespeare.


If you go through Shakespeare's plays looking for plot implausibility you come out thinking, Why is he considered great? If you actually watch it on stage and study the poetry, the psychology, hear the language etc., you get why he is considered the best.

The point isn't that the drama is unimportant it's that it is principally the singing that brings it to life. The other stage elements should support and enhance that, not distract from or diminish it. Many modern productions seem designed to _intentionally_ diminish the work being performed, and I really do have a problem with that. What's most important to me is that the work in question be coherent across the various arts that have been combined: staging, acting, poetry, music, etc.. Some works, especially works of mythological character, can be played around with more than others. Honestly, it would be pretty interesting to see _Turandot_ set in space or _Orfeo ed Euridice_ done abstractly. The point is that there should be some reason for it beyond the director's psychological hangups, it should be artistic, and it should be be consistent with the spirit of the original conception of the composer and librettist. Shakespeare's _Hamlet_ is about what happens when all the social institutions meant to provide answers have been corrupted or undermined and we are forced to make deep moral decisions on our own. You can set that in Denmark or somewhere else, but wherever you set it, that's what it's about and that dilemma should make sense in the new context as well.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

All of that is fine, Woodduck, but you give short shrift to the profoundly innovative dramatic core of Carmen: the strong woman who doesn't depend on a man, or any particular man, for her happiness, or her livelihood, and who does things her way, which often happens to be a violent and criminal way, with no fear of the consequences. Yes, in general Carmen is a wonderful period piece, with superb music that compliments the Spanish and gypsy ideas beautifully.

But its key dramatic innovation is what continues to make it work as compelling theater today. Rigoletto also is a superb masterpiece, but with dramatic conventions that are firmly rooted in the 19th century, with a story from Victor Hugo. Verdi's greatness makes it easier to shrug off the outmoded dramatic concepts.

And no, the Carmen story could not have been written centuries earlier. Women did not work in cigarette factories centuries earlier.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

I am curious to hear what one thinks of the plot of _Ernani _who has a bridegroom ready to make his commitment to his new to-be bride but upon hearing the sound of a horn tells her he needs to heed that sound and kill himself instead. (I realize that in the day "loyalty" was paramount in the promises of people but this to me is beyond the pale of rational.)
I can make good cases for a baby being thrown in a fire by accident, or a daughter of a Doge go missing with all its ramifications, or an Ice Princess enjoying beheadings, but this is stepping too far out of the normal for me to comprehend.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

vivalagentenuova said:


> The point isn't that the drama is unimportant it's that it is principally the singing that brings it to life. The other stage elements should support and enhance that, not distract from or diminish it. Many modern productions seem designed to _intentionally_ diminish the work being performed, and I really do have a problem with that. What's most important to me is that the work in question be coherent across the various arts that have been combined: staging, acting, poetry, music, etc.. Some works, especially works of mythological character, can be played around with more than others. Honestly, it would be pretty interesting to see _Turandot_ set in space or _Orfeo ed Euridice_ done abstractly. The point is that there should be some reason for it beyond the director's psychological hangups, it should be artistic, and it should be be consistent with the spirit of the original conception of the composer and librettist. Shakespeare's _Hamlet_ is about what happens when all the social institutions meant to provide answers have been corrupted or undermined and we are forced to make deep moral decisions on our own. You can set that in Denmark or somewhere else, but wherever you set it, that's what it's about and that dilemma should make sense in the new context as well.


I agree with almost everything you have to say, but I have seen updated productions of operas that would seem fairly rooted in their time because the director in question both loves the work and loves music. Back in 1982, Jonathan Miller did a hugely successful production of *Rigoletto* at the ENO, which he set in New York's Little Italy, with the Duke as a mafia boss and Rigoletto as his side kick.When the Duke seduced Gilda he was dressed as a young American GI. The murder scene was played out in a diner in a deserted street with huge glass windows so Gilda could see inside. Sparafucile was exactly what he is in the Victor Hugo play; a paid assassin. It worked because the relationships between the various characters were exactly the same as they are in the original piece. It was very popular with audiences both young and old and stayed in the repertoire for a very long time.

Equally fine was Baz Luhrmann's Australian Opera production of *La Bohème*, which he set in the 1950s, the second act amost playing out like a scene from a musical. Again, the setting in no way interfered with the relationships or the music, All the singers were good actors and _believably young_. OK, so they didn't have world class voices, and only Cheryl Barker, who played Mimi, went on to have any kind of international career, but they were good enough to do the music justice and it's actually my favourite DVD production, in my view, far preferable to a San Francisco Opera production with an aging Pavarotti and Freni, who dramatically don't convince me for one second.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Tsara'slondon:
There is an old you tube showing of a new Rolando Villazon with Maria Kanyova as Mimi in La Bohme on PBS. He showed evidences then of becoming a fine tenor. Too bad he developed throat problems in the future and we never got enough of him, his voice and commitment to his roles.

But for me, this is the one to beat:


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Equally fine was Baz Luhrmann's Australian Opera production of La Bohème, which he set in the 1950s, the second act amost playing out like a scene from a musical. Again, the setting in no way interfered with the relationships or the music, All the singers were good actors and believably young. OK, so they didn't have world class voices, and only Cheryl Barker, who played Mimi, went on to have any kind of international career, but they were good enough to do the music justice and it's actually my favourite DVD production, in my view, far preferable to a San Francisco Opera production with an aging Pavarotti and Freni, who dramatically don't convince me for one second.


Yes, I've seen that and it's quite good. As you say it works because the director loves and understands the material and updated it to a context that still makes sense out of the story. Personally my favorite _boheme_ on video is Freni/Raimondi under Karajan. It's an excellent traditional production. I rate it higher ultimately because of the singing. Freni's later matronly sound doesn't convince, but her youthful Mimi is one of the best there is.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

vivalagentenuova said:


> Yes, I've seen that and it's quite good. As you say it works because the director loves and understands the material and updated it to a context that still makes sense out of the story. Personally my favorite _boheme_ on video is Freni/Raimondi under Karajan. It's an excellent traditional production. I rate it higher ultimately because of the singing. Freni's later matronly sound doesn't convince, but her youthful Mimi is one of the best there is.


Yes, I like that film too. If I marginally prefer the Australian Opera DVD, it's probably beause it's of an actual stage performance. The Karajan is very fine (was it Zeffirelli?), but, with one or two exceptions, this being one, I don't usually like filmed opera.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Back in 1982, Jonathan Miller did a hugely successful production of *Rigoletto* at the ENO, which he set in New York's Little Italy, with the Duke as a mafia boss and Rigoletto as his side kick.


It doesn't surprise me that Rigoletto works well in a mafia setting. The mafia is a highly insulated, closed society originating in 19th century Silicy but with roots reaching centuries before. Today it's known as a criminal organization, but its rejection of modern institutions and values extends well beyond criminal activity, and includes ancient concepts of loyalty and hierarchy. Perfect for Rigoletto and many other 19th century operas.


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## gvn (Dec 14, 2019)

..........(deleted)...........


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

fluteman said:


> All of that is fine, Woodduck, but you give short shrift to the profoundly innovative dramatic core of Carmen: the strong woman who doesn't depend on a man, or any particular man, for her happiness, or her livelihood, and who does things her way, which often happens to be a violent and criminal way, with no fear of the consequences. Yes, in general Carmen is a wonderful period piece, with superb music that compliments the Spanish and gypsy ideas beautifully.
> 
> But its key dramatic innovation is what continues to make it work as compelling theater today. Rigoletto also is a superb masterpiece, but with dramatic conventions that are firmly rooted in the 19th century, with a story from Victor Hugo. Verdi's greatness makes it easier to shrug off the outmoded dramatic concepts.
> 
> And no, the Carmen story could not have been written centuries earlier. Women did not work in cigarette factories centuries earlier.


Since you had already spoken about Carmen herself, I merely tried to say something about the rest of the work. I'll point out, though, that Carmen's superstitious fatalism, which has the effect of freeing her from anxiety about the morality of her actions, marks her "liberated" nature as something not very modern, something deriving from her gypsy culture and not from our notions of the modern free woman. And she does get her "just deserts" in the end - an uncontemporary ending which one recent production found offensive.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

nina foresti said:


> I am curious to hear what one thinks of the plot of _Ernani _who has a bridegroom ready to make his commitment to his new to-be bride but upon hearing the sound of a horn tells her he needs to heed that sound and kill himself instead. (I realize that in the day "loyalty" was paramount in the promises of people but this to me is beyond the pale of rational.)
> I can make good cases for a baby being thrown in a fire by accident, or a daughter of a Doge go missing with all its ramifications, or an Ice Princess enjoying beheadings, but this is stepping too far out of the normal for me to comprehend.


Victor Hugo was a moralist, and his works are inspiring because of it, but I fear that with _Hernani _he got carried away. I wonder what 19th-century audiences thought of the ending. No one today is likely to buy the idea of a guy killing himself at his wedding in order to keep a promise. If that's indicative of how devoted he is to his fiancee, she's well rid of him.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

The mafia and similar structures are not as much comparable to 19th but to medieval/early modern settings (which Rigoletto and Ernani both are), cf. how well the Romeo & Juliet sujet worked in such settings. I am not sure there is a "typical" 19th century opera plot, it is a very broad spectrum. They loved historical subjects but there are also phantastic/mythological ones and "contemporary" ones (like Fidelio, Traviata, Carmen).

But isn't the interesting point rather that BOTH the "realistic" contemporary Carmen and the "unrealistic" Rigoletto or Forza del Destino are almost equally popular with audiences? Which plots "work" and which opera (if any) fails to establish itself in the repertoire or among the popular ones is apparently not decided along these lines.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Since you had already spoken about Carmen herself, I merely tried to say something about the rest of the work. I'll point out, though, that Carmen's superstitious fatalism, which has the effect of freeing her from anxiety about the morality of her actions, marks her "liberated" nature as something not very modern, something deriving from her gypsy culture and not from our notions of the modern free woman. And she does get her "just deserts" in the end - an uncontemporary ending which one recent production found offensive.


Yes, Bizet likely knew that he couldn't take an already radical idea too far, and gives Carmen "what she deserves" in the end. Similarly, look at how Mozart handles the end of Don Giovanni, an even earlier and perhaps even more radical premise -- the sinner who remains unrepentant even as he his dragged down to a fiery eternity. Some have called the Don one of the earliest existentialist characters. The politic Mozart adds his moralizing coda, well knowing who pays his rent.

So once again, you are correct -- none of that is fully modern. But it points in that direction.



Kreisler jr said:


> But isn't the interesting point rather that BOTH the "realistic" contemporary Carmen and the "unrealistic" Rigoletto or Forza del Destino are almost equally popular with audiences? Which plots "work" and which opera (if any) fails to establish itself in the repertoire or among the popular ones is apparently not decided along these lines.


Indeed. This suggests that it is the great music, and great not only when considered apart from the drama but great in the way it compliments and enhances the drama, that continues to make these great works compelling for audiences, rather than the dramatic concepts themselves.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

fluteman said:


> This suggests that it is the great music, and great not only when considered apart from the drama but great in the way it compliments and enhances the drama, that continues to make these great works compelling for audiences, rather than the dramatic concepts themselves.


Exactly, and true to an extreme degree. Whatever its intrinsic merits, a libretto is good primarily to the extent that it supports and inspires great music. An acquaintance read the libretto of _Tristan und Isolde_ and said, "I'll believe this when I hear it." Fair enough. Wagner would have approved.

It does occur to me that what makes a good opera plot is in at least one respect opposite to what makes a story interesting on its own. The twists and turns of an elaborate plot can be savored in a novel or a spoken drama - we might want them to go on and on - but tend to be lost in a musical setting, or at any rate present an enormous challenge to a composer to create something with shape and coherence. The best stories for musical setting are fairly simple, focusing on a few highly charged situations and minimizing mundane, emotionally neutral dialogue. Operatic adaptations of literary works, such as Verdi's _Otello,_ require much condensation of their source material. Verdi and his librettist Boito did a superb job of it, to the extent that some have called the opera superior to the play.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Exactly, and true to an extreme degree. Whatever its intrinsic merits, a libretto is good primarily to the extent that it supports and inspires great music. An acquaintance read the libretto of _Tristan und Isolde_ and said, "I'll believe this when I hear it." Fair enough. Wagner would have approved.
> 
> It does occur to me that what makes a good opera plot is in at least one respect opposite to what makes a story interesting on its own. The twists and turns of an elaborate plot can be savored in a novel or a spoken drama - we might want them to go on and on - but tend to be lost in a musical setting, or at any rate present an enormous challenge to a composer to create something with shape and coherence. The best stories for musical setting are fairly simple, focusing on a few highly charged situations and minimizing mundane, emotionally neutral dialogue. Operatic adaptations of literary works, such as Verdi's _Otello,_ require much condensation of their source material. Verdi and his librettist Boito did a superb job of it, to the extent that some have called the opera superior to the play.


Exactly, and true to an extreme degree, to use your words. Turning a novel into a play, musical or movie, or even turning what originally was a play into a musical or movie, is a difficult task. Simply following the original as closely as possible can be a recipe for disaster. The same is true for the novels or plays that were turned into operas in the 19th century. Ideally, the opera composer takes the basic themes of the original and reworks them for his own purposes, not worrying about strict faithfulness to the original concept. In my opinion this was the great skill of your hero, Wagner, and what set him apart from his 19th century colleagues. And btw, I think Stravinsky, writing about Wagner in 1939 as we discussed earlier, understood that. His point was, over 50 years after Wagner's death, it was time for some new ideas in the area of musical drama. The obvious rejoinder to such an argument is: "That's fine, but what new ideas do you have that are worth considering?" I won't restart that discussion here, but the original poster's topic question does lead that way.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

fluteman said:


> Exactly, and true to an extreme degree, to use your words. Turning a novel into a play, musical or movie, or even turning what originally was a play into a musical or movie, is a difficult task. Simply following the original as closely as possible can be a recipe for disaster. The same is true for the novels or plays that were turned into operas in the 19th century. Ideally, the opera composer takes the basic themes of the original and reworks them for his own purposes, not worrying about strict faithfulness to the original concept. In my opinion this was the great skill of your hero, Wagner, and what set him apart from his 19th century colleagues. And btw, I think Stravinsky, writing about Wagner in 1939 as we discussed earlier, understood that. His point was, over 50 years after Wagner's death, it was time for some new ideas in the area of musical drama. The obvious rejoinder to such an argument is: "That's fine, but what new ideas do you have that are worth considering?" I won't restart that discussion here, but the original poster's topic question does lead that way.


This may be straying off-topic, but then we do that here, don't we?  When did we discuss Stravinsky's views of Wagner's dramaturgy? Of his statements about Wagner, is there a particular one you have in mind? The one that sticks in my mind is his assertion that an artist in conceiving a work must accept limits, and that if he doesn't he ends up with _Parsifal_. "But _Parsifal_ already exists. Who wants to write it again?" Unperceptive, untrue, tendentious and smart-alecky too. His _Rake's Progress_ can make its own case and doesn't need to be justified in that way. Stravinsky didn't like Wagner's work - anything about it, I'm guessing - and didn't like Wagner's influence on other composers, even holding that Verdi's _Otello,_ with its blurring of the traditional division between aria and recitative, was inferior to _Rigoletto,_ in which, by George, you knew where the tune began and ended.

But did Stravinsky have any truly new ideas for opera? Being anti-Wagnerian doesn't qualify. _A Rake's Progress_ is NEO-classical - a conscious utilization of an older approach to operatic dramaturgy rather than something deeply innovative and full of possibilities for the future, which may be why I can't think of another neoclassical opera that's held the stage (something by Hindemith or Weill, maybe?). Wagner's ideas on writing dramatic music and structuring drama musically, on the other hand, were hugely influential for a good half century, and are still with us. There's never been a need for a "neo-Wagnerism," unless perhaps something like it has occurred in film music. But I'm not a film buff and I'm out of my depth there.

Historically, there were musical stage works that mixed art forms in distinctly un-Wagnerian ways. I'm thinking of the Baroque "masque" and "opera-ballet" in particular. I'm less familiar with what's been done recently to rethink opera. Is there anything really new and fertile under the sun? Stockhausen? Philip Glass? Has their work been influential?


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> ,
> But did Stravinsky have any truly new ideas for opera? Being anti-Wagnerian doesn't qualify. _A Rake's Progress_ is NEO-classical - a conscious utilization of an older approach to operatic dramaturgy rather than something deeply innovative and full of possibilities for the future, which may be why I can't think of another neoclassical opera that's held the stage (something by Hindemith or Weill, maybe?).


Stravinsky may not have invented modern neoclassicism, at least not all by himself, but I'd call him its leading exponent, and that is nothing to sneeze at. For me, the deceptively straightforward and pared-down play with incidental music, The Soldier's Tale, was his most influential theatrical work overall. Prokofiev's scores for Lieutenant Kije and Alexander Nevsky, and his timeless children's classic Peter and the Wolf are classics, and in a more operatic vein, his The Love for Three Oranges, Koday's Hary Janos, Shostakovich's The Nose and Lady Macbeth, Weill's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, Janacek's Cunning Little Vixen and The Makropulos Affair, and Hindemith's Mathis Der Maler, are all still well known.

But I see the concept of the opera, much like the concept of the symphony, fundamentally as a pre-modern one. 20th century neoclassical modernists who wrote tributes to or adaptations of those older traditions, or even wrote actual operas and symphonies, did a lot of great and lasting work, but I see that as just one aspect of modernism. The 20th century was the age of technology, of the phonograph and radio, then movies and TV, and finally computers and the internet. You write of "holding the stage", but the stage itself, in the traditional sense, is vastly transformed if not gone entirely. As I mentioned in an earlier thread, even the grand old Metropolitan Opera, under the management of Peter Gelb, has taken to making movies.

None of which means we can't put our 19th century hats on and appreciate Beethoven, Verdi and Wagner. Or our 18th century hats. My general approach is to respect the art of every era, and every culture, as the more one learns of other eras and cultures, the more one finds to enjoy and appreciate. And I don't expect or demand that art in the era and culture I happen to be alive in to adhere or live up to the constructs or conventions of earlier eras. I'll take what Donizetti has to offer on his terms. I take what Glass has to offer on his. No need to evaluate how a Glass 'opera' measures up to one by Donizetti, as the word is used to denote an almost entirely different concept.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

fluteman said:


> Stravinsky may not have invented modern neoclassicism, at least not all by himself, but I'd call him its leading exponent, and that is nothing to sneeze at. For me, the deceptively straightforward and pared-down play with incidental music, The Soldier's Tale, was his most influential theatrical work overall. Prokofiev's scores for Lieutenant Kije and Alexander Nevsky, and his timeless children's classic Peter and the Wolf are classics, and in a more operatic vein, his The Love for Three Oranges, Koday's Hary Janos, Shostakovich's The Nose and Lady Macbeth, Weill's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, Janacek's Cunning Little Vixen and The Makropulos Affair, and Hindemith's Mathis Der Maler, are all still well known.
> 
> But I see the concept of the opera, much like the concept of the symphony, fundamentally as a pre-modern one. 20th century neoclassical modernists who wrote tributes to or adaptations of those older traditions, or even wrote actual operas and symphonies, did a lot of great and lasting work, but I see that as just one aspect of modernism. The 20th century was the age of technology, of the phonograph and radio, then movies and TV, and finally computers and the internet. You write of "holding the stage", but the stage itself, in the traditional sense, is vastly transformed if not gone entirely. As I mentioned in an earlier thread, even the grand old Metropolitan Opera, under the management of Peter Gelb, has taken to making movies.
> 
> None of which means we can't put our 19th century hats on and appreciate Beethoven, Verdi and Wagner. Or our 18th century hats. My general approach is to respect the art of every era, and every culture, as the more one learns of other eras and cultures, the more one finds to enjoy and appreciate. And I don't expect or demand that art in the era and culture I happen to be alive in to adhere or live up to the constructs or conventions of earlier eras. I'll take what Donizetti has to offer on his terms. I take what Glass has to offer on his. No need to evaluate how a Glass 'opera' measures up to one by Donizetti, as the word is used to denote an almost entirely different concept.


You really are broadening the topic beyond recognition. Some definition of opera, however fuzzy, seems in order. On the subject of opera, I agree in seeing "the concept of the opera, much like the concept of the symphony, fundamentally as a pre-modern one," which means that its heyday is past but that it will never actually disappear, since a basic aspect of modernity is that we live in a museum and nothing can disappear. Given that, I don't expect any more major ideas in opera - recent contemporary operas produced at the Met don't convince me otherwise - and I'm content to have it so.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> You really are broadening the topic beyond recognition. Some definition of opera, however fuzzy, seems in order. On the subject of opera, I agree in seeing "the concept of the opera, much like the concept of the symphony, fundamentally as a pre-modern one," which means that its heyday is past but that it will never actually disappear, since a basic aspect of modernity is that we live in a museum and nothing can disappear. Given that, I don't expect any more major ideas in opera - recent contemporary operas produced at the Met don't convince me otherwise - and I'm content to have it so.


OK. That's a legitimate point of view. As I've said, I don't expect great examples of the 19th-century concept of opera to appear today, as the 19th century is long over. But shame on me for not including Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites in my list of mid-20th century neoclassical operas. One of the finest. Poulenc wrote some fine songs, too. Of course, one need not be interested in mid-20th century neoclassicism, and even if one is so interested, as I am, the mid-20th century is now long past, too.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

fluteman said:


> OK. That's a legitimate point of view. As I've said, I don't expect great examples of the 19th-century concept of opera to appear today, as the 19th century is long over. But shame on me for not including Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites in my list of mid-20th century neoclassical operas. One of the finest. Poulenc wrote some fine songs, too. Of course, one need not be interested in mid-20th century neoclassicism, and even if one is so interested, as I am, the mid-20th century is now long past, too.


What's neoclassical about _Carmelites?_


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Opera never really arrived in the 20th century. Probably it cannot. 
And alternative forms of musical theatre either remained niches or one (to three) of a kind (such as L'histoire du soldat). What seemed most innovative 90 years ago, like the Weill/Brecht collaborations has aged quickly and not really found any followers, far less sparked a renewal of musical theatre 
The popular forms from silver age operetta, Broadway to Westend musical are hardly innovative, basically going back to "low", popular forms of play with music or operetta, often combined with show and dance elements. (Or at their IMO worst, trying to be opera, like Phantom of the Opera) 
I think that's just the way it is. There has been no great verse epic since the middle ages either, I guess (or maybe "Paradise Lost" was the last one, so only 400 years ago, not >600). Genres have their time and their zenith and they can linger on for a long time and still have a bit of live and a few decent pieces left (Goethe wrote a bunch of verse epics around 1800, nobody reads them except maybe students who have to).


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Double, please ignore. Internet connection here never arrived in the 21st century, it seems...


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> What's neoclassical about _Carmelites?_


??? I can't think of any musical work that better fits the description 'neoclassical'. This, from the Times review of the recent Met production by Anthony Tommasini:

"The opera tells the story of a Carmelite convent whose nuns are condemned to death during the French Revolution. In this revival of John Dexter's powerfully spare and dramatically dead-on 1977 production, Mr. Nézet-Séguin was consistently attentive to refinements of the music and the careful way Poulenc sets words so that vocal lines seem almost conversational, those "quintessentially French" qualities, as he said in a recent interview with The New York Times.

Yet, seizing on every piercing chord and astringent harmony, he also brought out boldly the contemporary elements of Poulenc's musical language, which subtly draws from diverse styles including modal French sacred music, Impressionist colorings and Neo-Classical fanfares and chorales, even sly hints of salon room insouciance during scenes in which aristocrats lament their political predicament."

Tommasini is a nice and non-pompous guy, but also has a PhD in musicology from Yale and knows this stuff. Here he only briefly touches on Poulenc's sophisticated and eclectic style of neoclassicism that perhaps had its greatest expression in this opera.



Kreisler jr said:


> Opera never really arrived in the 20th century. Probably it cannot.


I mainly gave your post a "like" for this sentence. But also because I believe every thread at TC, regardless of topic, should include a swipe at Andrew Lloyd Weber. Bravo.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

fluteman said:


> ??? I can't think of any musical work that better fits the description 'neoclassical'. This, from the Times review of the recent Met production by Anthony Tommasini:
> 
> "The opera tells the story of a Carmelite convent whose nuns are condemned to death during the French Revolution. In this revival of John Dexter's powerfully spare and dramatically dead-on 1977 production, Mr. Nézet-Séguin was consistently attentive to refinements of the music and the careful way Poulenc sets words so that vocal lines seem almost conversational, those "quintessentially French" qualities, as he said in a recent interview with The New York Times.
> 
> ...


I haven't heard _Carmelites_ for many years. I don't remember its structure being inspired by Classical opera, as that of _Rake's Progress_ is, but knowing Poulenc's chamber music I can believe that the opera shares some of the same idioms.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> I haven't heard _Carmelites_ for many years. I don't remember its structure being inspired by Classical opera, as that of _Rake's Progress_ is, but knowing Poulenc's chamber music I can believe that the opera shares some of the same idioms.


"The conductor Will Crutchfield's Bel Canto at Caramoor program has been bringing eager audiences to this festival here in Westchester County each summer for performances of operas from the early 19th century. On Saturday at Caramoor's Venetian Theater Mr. Crutchfield turned to a work that couldn't seem further from the era and style of bel canto: Poulenc's "Dialogues of the Carmelites," performed in the original French. First presented in 1957, this austerely beautiful and wrenching opera, loosely based on a historical event - the guillotining of 16 nuns from the Carmelite convent of Compiègne during the French Revolution - owes more to Debussy and Neo-Classical Stravinsky than the bel canto composers of an earlier time."


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

nina foresti said:


> "The conductor Will Crutchfield's Bel Canto at Caramoor program has been bringing eager audiences to this festival here in Westchester County each summer for performances of operas from the early 19th century. On Saturday at Caramoor's Venetian Theater Mr. Crutchfield turned to a work that couldn't seem further from the era and style of bel canto: Poulenc's "Dialogues of the Carmelites," performed in the original French. First presented in 1957, this austerely beautiful and wrenching opera, loosely based on a historical event - the guillotining of 16 nuns from the Carmelite convent of Compiègne during the French Revolution - owes more to Debussy and Neo-Classical Stravinsky than the bel canto composers of an earlier time."


I don't know who wrote that, but I agree 100 percent. (Will Crutchfield also is or was a NY Times classical music critic, and a very good one.) For me, Poulenc is the leading exponent of modern neoclassicism after Stravinsky. But the reason I brought up all those modern neoclassical operas is because, imo, they were the most important avenue through which the 19th century opera concept survived, at least to some extent, well into the 20th century. Moses und Aron and Lulu, and various works generally called operas in the late 20th and early 21st century, on the whole are something else entirely. Conversely, when I approach the classic 19th century operas, I set aside my modern sensibilities and try to put myself in the 19th century world.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

To be clear, I don't mean that there is no good musical theatre in the 20th century. But even a recognized masterpiece like Wozzeck did not really advance theatrically compared to Wagner or other late 19th century operas. And of course there is a place for musicals, maybe even (early) Webber. I don't know many musicals but as far as I can see they are usually either very simple and straight or they are more like dance/acrobatics revue shows or they try to imitate opera (and this is usually worst because it makes the gap in quality painfully obvious). 
(I am not really following this stuff, I once saw a Sondheim piece based on several fairy tales with some psychological subtext which also found mostly weird and musically "backwards" for late 20th century. West Side Story is very good but it's one of kind and theatrically far more traditional than the more experimental things in the first 3rd of the 20th century)

If there had not been Nazi Germany, maybe Weill would have been able to establish something after his promising starts. The Three penny opera is just theatre with songs but at least both are "modern", i.e. late 1920s not 19th century. In "Mahagonny" he tries to do more (and there is, among others, also a strange virtually forgotten play with music called "Der Silbersee" that was surprisingly successful back then) and Weill had both a gift for melody and a modern musical education to develop such attempts further. To be fair I am not familiar with all of his American works but the two I have heard ("Lady in the Dark" and "Firebrand of Florence") I found very disappointing.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Kreisler jr said:


> To be clear, I don't mean that there is no good musical theatre in the 20th century. But even a recognized masterpiece like Wozzeck did not really advance theatrically compared to Wagner or other late 19th century operas.


I agree with many others here in many other threads who have pointed out that art does not 'advance', but rather evolves. For me, The Soldier's Tale represented a dramatic evolution in musical theater away from the 19th-century operatic tradition. It's a spare masterpiece of dry wit, a bracing antidote to the rich excesses of the late 19th century, and great both musically and theatrically in many ways, large and small, and influential on much that followed. But it isn't more advanced or better than 19th-century opera, any more than Waiting for Godot is better or more advanced than Hamlet.

What followed closely after the rise of neoclassicism ultimately was the death knell for the 19th-century operatic tradition and live theater generally, the rise of the motion picture. That was another evolution. Here again, I see no need to attempt sweeping value judgments of what is more or less 'advanced'.


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

fluteman said:


> I agree with many others here in many other threads who have pointed out that art does not 'advance', but rather evolves. For me, The Soldier's Tale represented a dramatic evolution in musical theater away from the 19th-century operatic tradition. It's a spare masterpiece of dry wit, a bracing antidote to the rich excesses of the late 19th century, and great both musically and theatrically in many ways, large and small, and influential on much that followed. But it isn't more advanced or better than 19th-century opera, any more than Waiting for Godot is better or more advanced than Hamlet.
> 
> What followed closely after the rise of neoclassicism ultimately was the death knell for the 19th-century operatic tradition and live theater generally, the rise of the motion picture. That was another evolution. Here again, I see no need to attempt sweeping value judgments of what is more or less 'advanced'.


Although I do agree art doesn't "advance" in the same sense that, say, science does, and oftentimes "advancements" in art are little more than changing tastes and styles, I wouldn't say art doesn't advance at all. For example, in classical music, I think the invention of harmony and polyphony in the Renaissance was a meaningful artistic advancement that goes beyond mere changes in taste. In opera specifically, I don't know if there has been anything so clear cut after the genre really came to its own in the early Baroque.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

One problem with the Soldier's tale is mainly that it is almost isolated. It didn't spark any new tradition of musical theatre or even cause a handful of similar masterpieces to be composed (I know there are a few similar pieces by Milhaud or Poulenc or whatever but they hardly caught on and overall it didn't really found anything.) Heck, I had not known or forgotten that there was a dancer involved at all! So even the Soldier's Tale is often not given in its "full" (lue, jouée et dansée) version but often just with music and narration which is severely reduced. It is a great and unique piece but it didn't help the decline of musical theatre very much.

I was not using words like "advance" with such a deep connotation. But as I tried to show with my verse epic comparison further above, certain genres have high points but then are "played out" (this seems to me an uncontroversial fact of cultural history without bothering with deeper questions if and how there could be "advancement" in art) and there is only so much imitations of great classics can do. There was music and opera composed specifically for the radio but in general I don't think that opera was able to take up the new technologies for its advantage.
The Weill/Brecht collaborations could have been a feasible update of opera as they were at least theatrically up to date (with all these Brechtian things of breaking the wall, both taking up and being irreverant to tradition, social commentary etc.) but they remained isolated like L'histoire du soldat, despite being not quite as radical a departure (because musical theatre without singing like L'histoire is a bit restricted...)

To a certain extent established traditions and forms make it harder for unconventional pieces. This holds already for e.g. shorter pieces for choir and orchestra (like Brahms' Schicksalslied) because they need disportionally large forces and rehearsal time for less than 15 min of music. Weill is almost performed poorly because (at least in Germany) actors usually cannot sing well enough and opera singers sing to operatically, so there are no good actor-singers for these pieces.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

BachIsBest said:


> Although I do agree art doesn't "advance" in the same sense that, say, science does, and oftentimes "advancements" in art are little more than changing tastes and styles, I wouldn't say art doesn't advance at all. For example, in classical music, I think the invention of harmony and polyphony in the Renaissance was a meaningful artistic advancement that goes beyond mere changes in taste.


I do not agree. I believe the opposite is true, i.e., that increasing emphasis on harmony and polyphony is purely a matter of style and taste, and not an advancement in any way. Among other things, it implies less emphasis on other important musical elements such as rhythm, dynamics and timbre. Of course, as harmony and polyphony became increasingly dominant in 18th and 19th century Europe, certain talented musicians developed extraordinary levels of sophistication and skill in those areas, and were advanced in that sense, but rhythm, dynamics and timbre also can be developed to high levels of skill and sophistication.

This issue has come up here repeatedly. I think what lurks behind it is an ethnocentric view that European classical musical traditions are more advanced and sophisticated than the classical musical traditions of the Middle East, Africa, India, China and Japan, that in many cases do not feature harmony and polyphony, or at least not as centrally. Of course, the modernist era, which famously included lesser emphasis, though obviously not elimination, of harmony and polyphony, and in many cases greater emphasis on rhythm, dynamics and timbre, is viewed by many here as inferior rather than simply different in style.

I think all that in turn arises from the tendency to view the styles and tastes reflected by one's own cultural traditions as somehow inherently more 'correct'.

And as for the influence of The Soldier's Tale, it certainly can be seen in Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, and even Poulenc's Dialogues. The technique of combining spoken dialogue with instrumental music has had a long term impact on western theater generally.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

At the very least, an opera is a play in which the characters sing. _L'Histoire du Soldat_ is not sung. It has nothing to do with opera. Why is it being held up as an example of anything here?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

fluteman said:


> I believe the opposite is true, i.e., that increasing emphasis on harmony and polyphony is purely a matter of style and taste, and not an advancement in any way. Among other things, it implies less emphasis on other important musical elements such as rhythm, dynamics and timbre. Of course, as harmony and polyphony became increasingly dominant in 18th and 19th century Europe, certain talented musicians developed extraordinary levels of sophistication and skill in those areas, and were advanced in that sense, but rhythm, dynamics and timbre also can be developed to high levels of skill and sophistication.


The development of harmony and polyphony were certainly advancements. They were advancements in harmony and polyphony, and in what music is able to do when those elements are highly developed. This doesn't imply that a work of music that features these particular elements in superb fashion is necessarily better than one which features, say, great complexities of melody and rhythm. The music of India, highly sophisticated with respect to those elements, must have experienced a similar advancement over its more primitive states. Development of any of the elements of an art simply enables that art to do more and to say more. The fashionable relativist egalitarianism which denies that the music of Bach or Wagner represents any sort of advancement over the monotonous drumming of a rain dance or the monotonous chanting of a temple priest - or the computer-generated product that now passes for "popular" music - makes me roll my eyes so far that they can survey the entire inner circumference of my cranium.



> I think all that in turn arises from the tendency to view the styles and tastes reflected by one's own cultural traditions as somehow inherently more 'correct'.


Not true. The issue is advancement _within_ one's cultural tradition.



> And as for the influence of The Soldier's Tale, it certainly can be seen in Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, and even Poulenc's Dialogues. The technique of combining spoken dialogue with instrumental music has had a long term impact on western theater generally.


But it isn't opera. Opera can include spoken dialogue, but singing is what ultimately defines it.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> The development of harmony and polyphony were certainly advancements. They were advancements in harmony and polyphony, and in what music is able to do when those elements are highly developed. This doesn't imply that a work of music that features these particular elements in superb fashion is necessarily better than one which features, say, great complexities of melody and rhythm. The music of India, highly sophisticated with respect to those elements, must have experienced a similar advancement over its more primitive states. Development of any of the elements of an art simply enables that art to do more and to say more. The fashionable relativist egalitarianism which denies that the music of Bach or Wagner represents any sort of advancement over the monotonous drumming of a rain dance or the monotonous chanting of a temple priest - or the computer-generated product that now passes for "popular" music - makes me roll my eyes so far that they can survey the entire inner circumference of my cranium.
> 
> Not true. The issue is advancement _within_ one's cultural tradition.
> 
> But it isn't opera. Opera can include spoken dialogue, but singing is what ultimately defines it.


No, the issue is not advancement within one's cultural tradition. Is 20th century art more advanced than 19th? 19th more advanced than 18th? 18th more advanced than 17th? Is the progression from Leonardo to Titian to Rembrandt to Vermeer to Goya to Renoir to Picasso advancement? From Chaucer to Shakespeare to Milton to Keats to Eliot? I think not.

Yes, The Solder's Tale is not opera, I've made that point repeatedly. But as the critic cited above by nina foresti said, even Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmelites owes more to Debussy and Stravinsky than to the 19th century opera tradition, a tradition that did not survive far into the 20th century, as has already been pointed out above by Kreisler jr. Dialogues does meet the definition of opera, if broadly defined, but then, so does Einstein on the Beach, no? My comments here, and those of some others, have been about musical theater generally, a broader and more useful concept, I think, when considering long term cultural trends.


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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> Obviously, this is a matter of personal tastes, but I think it would be interesting to get everyone's perspective.


I care a lot.


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