# Verdi or Wagner?



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Who's operas do you prefer? Both born in the same year, 1813. Both wrote their own epic grand operas in very different styles. Both have set their mark in the operatic world. Both are amongst the greatest composers who ever walked the planet.

Both wrote music to want to please their listeners / audiences, never away from this fundamental core principle.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

I prefer Wagner over Verdi but that is just personal preference. Parsifal is my favorite opera of all time.


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

I would have voted for Wagner no matter who the other choice was, but as it happens I don't care for Verdi's opera all that much. Maybe it'll click with me someday.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

albertfallickwang said:


> I prefer Wagner over Verdi but that is just personal preference. Parsifal is my favorite opera of all time.


I like Parsifal, probably my favorite Wagner opera. Lohengrin is a fine one too. Then comes the Ring cycle.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Verdi's my boy! Don Carlo/Otello etc. blow away!
However, Parsifal is mesmerizing. The music is powerful even in its subtle beginning.


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

*Joe Green..........*

Hard to believe all the "equal" votes since the style and sound is so different, surely you must prefer one over the other


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

It's tough, but I'll have to go wiith Dicky Boy.
I love the sweeping melodies.

With Wagner every act is epic. Like its own symphony.

And what endings!!!


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

It is like you have to choose between your parents, so I can't


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## MoonlightSonata (Mar 29, 2014)

I only really know Verdi.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Cool beans, tonight our tinychat group was watching the whole Tristan. I really liked it apart from the wobbly singing.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Wagner for me (no surprise to anyone who's been here a while). There are things in Verdi I love, but Wagner is, to put it delicately, MIND-BLOWING. The greatest creative mind in the last two centuries - IMNHO of course (the "N" stands for "not").

By the way, I'll be the third person here to single out _Parsifal_ as his favorite opera. That is amazing. People tend either to love this mysterious, deep, evanescent, soul-piercing dream, or find it baffling or tedious. Maybe it's the final test for membership in the brotherhood.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I'm in the camp that finds moments of Wagner thrilling, then there are long moments that while it would be too harsh to say I find them bad or boring, it would be accurate to say I find them less than thrilling and a little tedious.

I've never heard anything by Verdi or Puccini I find very interesting. There are moments that sound ok, but those moments generally sound borrowed from earlier composers. I do think I will come to appreciate these two giants of opera more eventually. 

So, Wagner for me.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Verdi leaves me completely cold. I thought Italian opera just wasn't my thing, but I quite like now the aesthetics of Handel, Bellini, Mozart, Puccini... Italian in several flavours. Just don't get Verdi's flavour at all. 

Wagner on the other hand worked miracles....


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Don't know if I've ever actually made it through Parsifal in one sitting. It's like every receptor my senses and brain have for bliss and mesmerization have been completely saturated by the end of Act II that I have no room left for Act III. 

Either that, or it's been 3 hours by then and I haven't paced my whiskey properly.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Couchie said:


> Don't know if I've ever actually made it through Parsifal in one sitting. It's like every receptor my senses and brain have for bliss and mesmerization have been completely saturated by the end of Act II that I have no room left for Act III.
> 
> Either that, or it's been 3 hours by then and I haven't paced my whiskey properly.


Awwwwww!  And Act III is the greatest part!

Don't give up. You'll get there. _Erlosung_ and all that.

Here, I'm giving you a "like"...


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## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

This reminds me of Sophie's Choice! Of course, she had to choose, but I had the option for _both equally_.

If Wagner's music never existed, I think the opera world we know would feel largely intact, although rather Italianate. (The helicopters in Apocalypse Now would have had to make do with Va Pensiero.)

If Verdi's music never existed, yes we'd have Wagner's but it would be inhabit a strangely imbalanced opera world.

Given the distinct possibilities of not surviving common diseases back in those days, how fortunate we are that both dedicated a full life span to the art form.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Alexander said:


> This reminds me of Sophie's Choice! Of course, she had to choose, but I had the option for _both equally_.
> 
> *If Wagner's music never existed, I think the opera world we know would feel largely intact, although rather Italianate.* (The helicopters in Apocalypse Now would have had to make do with Va Pensiero.)
> 
> ...


Whew! I have to say you're way off with this one!

If Wagner's music had never existed, we would have _almost none_ of the operas we know and love composed after 1870. No composer of opera could escape his influence, not even Verdi who, beginning with his middle-period operas and climaxing with _Falstaff_, placed more and more of the burden of dramatic expression on the orchestra and progressively modified or eliminated traditional aria and ensemble set pieces. Puccini (who virtually worshipped Wagner) and the "verismo" school carried this even further, and benefitted from Wagner's innovations in harmony and orchestration. Wagner's influence was felt in French opera, beginning perhaps with Massenet. Debussy's _Pelleas et Melisande _ would be unthinkable without _Tristan_ and _Parsifal_. In Bohemia, Dvorak learned his Wagner lessons well: there would be no _Rusalka_ without the _Ring_. In Russia, Rimsky-Korsakov speaks Wagner with a Russian accent. Of course, German opera of the early 20th century would not exist at all: Strauss, Pfitzner, Humperdinck, Berg, Schoenberg - all gone. And very few operas since have not shown Wagner's influence in one way or another.

If Wagner had never lived, we would have Monteverdi, Purcell, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, Donizetti, Bellini, Rossini, early Verdi, and their contemporaries. Opera would essentially have ended with them, or become something different from what it actually became. If Verdi had never lived, I suspect only Italian opera would have been much affected.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Interesting points about if Wagner nor Verdi lived. Opera would then be earlier period biased - Handel and Mozart were the greatest before the lesser Romantics.


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## Balthazar (Aug 30, 2014)

Verdi. His operas deal with real people and their passions, desires, conflicts, and flaws.


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## Loge (Oct 30, 2014)

Wagner for me. Wotan's Farewell and Magic Fire music is the greatest piece of music ever written in my opinion.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

ArtMusic said:


> Both wrote music to want to please their listeners / audiences, never away from this fundamental core principle.


Actually, Verdi is on record as saying he didn't give a damn what the audience or critics thought of his works, because he knew quality would vindicate itself in the end.


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## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

Woodduck said:


> Whew! I have to say you're way off with this one!


I don't think I am. Judging by your response you seem to think my view was somehow anti-Wagnerian, thereby requiring a lesson in opera history! And yet in the end your lesson yields the same opinion as mine.

You highlight my point about opera being largely intact without Wagner. This is unarguably true. Take any current opera season and you'll see that most of the program is pre 1870 -to use your choice of year. Whether you and I prefer it this way doesn't change a fact.

Although Wagner is my chief operatic interest, I still regard Verdi as the central composer and figure in opera, his longevity being an obvious part of this. He represents the important historical bridge between bel canto and the more modern opera era. Perhaps my use of _imbalanced_ wasn't clear enough, maybe it should be _stratified_. Without Verdi's works there feels like a gulf between baroque/bel canto operas and those of Wagner and the others you kindly mentioned.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> Actually, Verdi is on record as saying he didn't give a damn what the audience or critics thought of his works, because he knew quality would vindicate itself in the end.


Depended when you asked him, perhaps. He also said he wanted everybody, from aficionados to casual spectators, whistling his tunes in the streets. Only after a performance, mind you: he wouldn't even let them rehearse the best tunes before a premiere so that people wouldn't get wind of them and steal his thunder!


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Herr Wagner, natürlich


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> Actually, Verdi is on record as saying he didn't give a damn what the audience or critics thought of his works, because he knew quality would vindicate itself in the end.


Verdi said a lot of things. I think he sometimes protested too much!


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Wow, 18 to 8.
Very surprising.


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

Itullian said:


> Wow, 18 to 8.
> Very surprising.


18 to 10 now. Joe's catching up.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Wagner was not afraid to speak his mind, even if he knew he would be hated for that, why should his disciples do otherwise?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Alexander said:


> I don't think I am. Judging by your response you seem to think my view was somehow anti-Wagnerian, thereby requiring a lesson in opera history! And yet in the end your lesson yields the same opinion as mine.
> 
> *You highlight my point about opera being largely intact without Wagner. This is unarguably true. Take any current opera season and you'll see that most of the program is pre 1870 -to use your choice of year.* Whether you and I prefer it this way doesn't change a fact.
> 
> Although Wagner is my chief operatic interest, I still regard *Verdi* as the central composer and figure in opera, his longevity being an obvious part of this. He *represents the important historical bridge between bel canto and the more modern opera era.* Perhaps my use of _imbalanced_ wasn't clear enough, maybe it should be _stratified_. Without Verdi's works there feels like a gulf between baroque/bel canto operas and those of Wagner and the others you kindly mentioned.


Your original statement was:* "If Wagner's music never existed, I think the opera world we know would feel largely intact, although rather Italianate." *

If that's just a statement of what you think and feel, there's obviously no disputing it. But if it's intended as a statement of "fact" about opera, it overlooks the facts I've pointed out. Whether you're "anti-Wagnerian" never entered my mind.

You haven't offered any new facts to counter those I've brought up, but merely reasserted your original assertion. On top of that, you've now made two further assertions: that in any current opera season, "most" of the program is pre-1870, and that Verdi is an "important historical bridge between bel canto and the more modern opera era." I think a few statistics are necessary to prove the former, as well as a definition of "most" sufficiently strong to show that the current repertoire would be largely intact without Wagner's influence. To prove the latter, you need to show in what way, and to what composers, Verdi is an "important bridge." I'm not going to do the work of proving your points - if you want them to be convincing you'll have to do that - but just as an example, here is the current Met season:

Aida (1871)
Un Ballo in Maschera (1859)
La Boheme (1896)
Carmen (1875)
Cavalleria Rusticana (1890)
Pagliacci (1892)
The Tales of Hoffmann (1879-81)
Don Carlo (1867)
Don Giovanni (1787)
La Donna del Lago (1819)
Ernani (1844)
Hansel and Gretel (1893)
Iolanta (1892)
Bluebeard's Castle (1918)
Lucia di Lammermoor (1835)
Manon (1884)
The Merry Widow (1905)
The Rake's Progress (1951)
La Traviata (1853)
The Barber of Seville (1816)
The Death of Klinghoffer (1991)
Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (1934)
Macbeth (1847)
Die Meistersinger (1868)
Le Nozze di Figaro (1786)
Die Zauberflote (1791)

Of the 26 operas in this list, 14 date from after 1870. I doubt that this season - which, note, is almost completely lacking in German opera - is atypically skewed toward modernity.

Verdi was certainly one bridge to later Italian opera. But to what else was he a bridge? Puccini kept on his piano scores of _Tristan_ and _Parsifal,_ not _Rigoletto_ and _Aida_, and played through them when he needed inspiration. I haven't even discussed the extent to which Wagner influenced Verdi himself, but I will say that that influence considerably predates 1870; I chose that year in order to be generous toward your position. A closer examination of the history of opera would reveal Wagner's influence beginning more than a decade earlier.

I could go on, but really the ball is in your court. I will only reiterate: cut out the influence of Wagner, and opera, in sound and in concept, would look very, very different.


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

Verdi

Because of his life, his loves, his tragedies, his politics, his (lack of) religion, his years of churning out formulaic works to make a living (he referred to this as time in 'the galley') and most of all for his music.

From _La battaglia di Legnano_ one of Verdi's galley operas.


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## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

Woodduck, why are you always spoiling for a fight? I'm not going to play this game with you. Perhaps DavidA will be along soon?


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## Loge (Oct 30, 2014)

Here is a point, take the singing out of the Liebistod from Wagner's Tristan Und Isolde and you are still left with one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written.

Take the singing out of La Donna e Mobile From Verdi's Rigoletto and what are you left with? Um pah pah, um pah pah.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Loge said:


> Here is a point, take the singing out of the Liebistod from Wagner's Tristan Und Isolde and you are still left with one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written.
> 
> Take the singing out of La Donna e Mobile From Verdi's Rigoletto and what are you left with? Um pah pah, um pah pah.


Some of us like um pah pah.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

SiegendesLicht said:


> Wagner was not afraid to speak his mind, even if he knew he would be hated for that, why should his disciples do otherwise?


Disciples?
Whoa........ I cant go that far.
Wagner was a man and flawed like us all. Not a God. yikes
And if he doesn't like Jesus, that's fine

But a little manners wouldn't hurt.
It's how you say things.


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## Loge (Oct 30, 2014)

Sloe said:


> Some of us like um pah pah.


You mean like this


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> Whew! I have to say you're way off with this one!
> 
> If Wagner's music had never existed, we would have _almost none_ of the operas we know and love composed after 1870. No composer of opera could escape his influence, not even Verdi who, beginning with his middle-period operas and climaxing with _Falstaff_, placed more and more of the burden of dramatic expression on the orchestra and progressively modified or eliminated traditional aria and ensemble set pieces. Puccini (who virtually worshipped Wagner) and the "verismo" school carried this even further, and benefitted from Wagner's innovations in harmony and orchestration. Wagner's influence was felt in French opera, beginning perhaps with Massenet. Debussy's _Pelleas et Melisande _ would be unthinkable without _Tristan_ and _Parsifal_. In Bohemia, Dvorak learned his Wagner lessons well: there would be no _Rusalka_ without the _Ring_. In Russia, Rimsky-Korsakov speaks Wagner with a Russian accent. Of course, German opera of the early 20th century would not exist at all: Strauss, Pfitzner, Humperdinck, Berg, Schoenberg - all gone. And very few operas since have not shown Wagner's influence in one way or another.
> 
> If Wagner had never lived, we would have Monteverdi, Purcell, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, Donizetti, Bellini, Rossini, early Verdi, and their contemporaries. Opera would essentially have ended with them, or become something different from what it actually became. If Verdi had never lived, I suspect only Italian opera would have been much affected.


It is interesting that if Liszt had not existed then we probably wouldn't have Wagner in the form we have!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

ArtMusic said:


> Interesting points about if Wagner nor Verdi lived. Opera would then be earlier period biased - Handel and Mozart were the greatest before the lesser Romantics.


Mozart IS the greatest! Period!


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Itullian said:


> Disciples?
> Whoa........ I cant go that far.
> Wagner was a man and flawed like us all. Not a God. yikes
> And if he doesn't like Jesus, that's fine
> ...


Well said. No more quips about Jethro or I. Anderson.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

SiegendesLicht said:


> Wagner was not afraid to speak his mind, even if he knew he would be hated for that, why should his disciples do otherwise?


the problem is when one is deemed to speak disrespectfully of Wagner his disciples get into an awful huff! Please can we have a level playing field and not double standards!


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

DavidA said:


> It is interesting that if Liszt had not existed then we probably wouldn't have Wagner in the form we have!


Poor Liszt. He gets blamed for everything.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Itullian said:


> Disciples?
> Whoa........ I cant go that far.
> Wagner was a man and flawed like us all. Not a God. yikes
> .


Very well spoken! Referring to the original remark, I think this is part of the problem some of us have with Wagner in that some of his disciples have tried to turn him into something he wasn't. Verdi, for example, never claimed to be any more than a great entertainer - I would put Wagner in the same category! 
For me there is no doubt as to the greatest work - Verdi's Falstaff! Absolutely supreme! the only opera to match Mozart's.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

DavidA said:


> the problem is when one is deemed to speak disrespectfully of Wagner his disciples get into an awful huff! Please can we have a level playing field and not double standards!


Please explain. What double standard?

What if we criticized Karajan or Falstaff or Mozart?
Wouldn't you jump to their defense?


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

DavidA said:


> Very well spoken! Referring to the original remark, I think this is part of the problem some of us have with Wagner in that some of his disciples have tried to turn him into something he wasn't. Verdi, for example, never claimed to be any more than a great entertainer - I would put Wagner in the same category!
> For me there is no doubt as to the greatest work - Verdi's Falstaff! Absolutely supreme! the only opera to match Mozart's.


Billy Joel is an entertainer. Wagner was a great artist.

Those operas you mentioned are great. Enjoy them.

What Wagner did though was mind blowing.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Watching Parsifal right now in full video... wow so much depth and feeling and spirituality to it.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Itullian said:


> Disciples?
> Whoa........ I cant go that far.
> Wagner was a man and flawed like us all. Not a God. yikes
> And if he doesn't like Jesus, that's fine
> ...


Well, I am not speaking for everybody. I think by now I could pretty much consider myself a disciple of Wagner. He has taught me a few things apart from appreciation of music. Not a God, sure, but by now I have come to a conclusion it is better to learn from a man you respect than from a God you will never be able to reach, whatever you do. Again, merely personal opinion.


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

Loge said:


> Here is a point, take the singing out of the Liebistod from Wagner's Tristan Und Isolde and you are still left with one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written.
> 
> Take the singing out of La Donna e Mobile From Verdi's Rigoletto and what are you left with? Um pah pah, um pah pah.


Horrible racket versus annoying earworm: put like that, it's a tough choice! I still choose the earworm.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Alexander said:


> Woodduck, why are you always spoiling for a fight? I'm not going to play this game with you. Perhaps DavidA will be along soon?


Alexander, I don't think of debate as "fighting." Do you? People on this forum frequently disagree about things and express contrasting views. When I make statements here I fully expect others to comment on them. And when my statements concern not mere matters of taste but facts of history, I fully expect to have to back them up. Do you just want to throw out opinions as if they were facts and have them ignored - or to have everyone smile and nod and shower you with "likes?"

This is not a "game" and I am not playing a game. I'm on this forum to talk about music. I love the subject and I take it seriously. I want to share my knowledge and gain greater knowledge from others who may know things I don't. I tend to assume that others here are similarly inclined.

The process of sharing knowledge and exchanging opinion naturally involves disagreement as well as agreement. We may not like this at first, but eventually we learn to welcome the give and take, and we learn what's required of us if we're to "give" with honesty and "take" with discernment. Unfortunately there are some who only want to give and can't take it when others give back; they need to keep themselves safe from challenges to their dearly held opinions and have whatever they say, however untenable, accepted unquestioningly. They value their sense of safety over the possibility of enlightenment and growth.

Your response here - asserting that I am "always" "spoiling" for a "fight" and that I'm "playing" a "game" - indicates in its every word that real discussion is something you don't want. I'm sorry to hear it. (I must also say that your invocation of another member of this forum with whom I have had disagreements is gratuitous, inappropriate, and revealing. My disagreements with that person are not, I must point out, a "game" either).

I hope you realize that if you continue to express here opinions which are factually questionable, you stand more than a slight chance of having them challenged by others who also do not think that discussion is a game.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Verdi, hands down. Wagnerian opera is too often sung with shrieking and all the elegance of a dying cat. Verdi is at once refined, polished, beautiful and dramatic, fiery and powerful.


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

Wagner wrote music, Verdi wrote Italian operas


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

*Verdi vs Wagner*


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> It is interesting that if Liszt had not existed then we probably wouldn't have Wagner in the form we have!


Quite true. There's plenty of mutual influence to go around. Wagner, like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and other artists of supreme genius, was capable of using the ideas of others and making them his own. I've traced many specific instances of this in Wagner's work, instances in which he takes suggestions from other composers and draws out implications they may have merely hinted at. It's a testament to an artist's strength to be able to do this: not to lose his identity when confronted with the ideas of others, but to amplify that identity and become something still greater.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Morimur said:


>


This is _wunderbar_ - or is it _meraviglioso?_

Danke! Grazie!


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> Actually, Verdi is on record as saying he didn't give a damn what the audience or critics thought of his works, because he knew quality would vindicate itself in the end.


It might well be on record, but that's far from the truth as far as Verdi was really concerned. The reality was no composer had the stomach to disgrace himself in national opera theaters in Paris and in Italy. The reality then as it is now, is that huge sums of money is at stake, reputation risk - composer and patrons, prestige and politics. Pure and simple.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

*Intelligence² Debate - Verdi vs Wagner: the 200th birthday debate with Stephen Fry*






"Join Stephen Fry as he chairs a unique debate to celebrate the bicentenaries of two operatic greats. Find out whether the southern allure of Verdi or the Teutonic genius of Wagner triumph with speakers Norman Lebrecht and Philip Hensher.

To illustrate their arguments, the Southbank Sinfonia and conductor Paul Wynne Griffiths perform extracts with singers Dušica Biljelić and John Tomlinson.

This debate formed part of the Deloitte Ignite Festival 2013. Entitled Verdi/Wagner and curated by Stephen Fry, the festival celebrates the joint bicentenary of Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner."

-- Royal Opera House

www.roh.org.uk/deloitteignite


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## Admiral (Dec 27, 2014)

I had this question on my mind last year when I traveled to NYC to the Met to watch Parsifal and Don Carlo back to back.

Two great productions of two great operas with great casts. Which would I pick? Yikes, I'd hate to have to choose, because Don Carlo is one of my longstanding favorites while I'm pretty new to Wagner.

Interestingly, though, I've spent the last several days off work listening to a TON of opera, and I didn't reach for Verdi once. 

So I have to give the nod to Wagner, in the last minute of stoppage time.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

ArtMusic said:


> It might well be on record, but that's far from the truth as far as Verdi was really concerned. The reality was no composer had the stomach to disgrace himself in national opera theaters in Paris and in Italy. The reality then as it is now, is that huge sums of money is at stake, reputation risk - composer and patrons, prestige and politics. Pure and simple.


Yes, but my point is, are there any composers you could name who, despite what they may say, actually don't care at all about pleasing listeners or audiences? Perhaps they want to please smaller audiences, or certain audiences, but I'd be surprised to find that there were any composers who truly had no interest in acclaim.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Itullian said:


> Please explain. What double standard?
> 
> What if we criticized Karajan or Falstaff or Mozart?
> Wouldn't you jump to their defense?


I will jump to their defence, but not, I hope with religious zeal. I certainly won't defend Karajan the man as some defend Wagner the man!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Itullian said:


> Billy Joel is an entertainer. Wagner was a great artist.
> 
> Those operas you mentioned are great. Enjoy them.
> 
> What Wagner did though was mind blowing.


Wagner is mind altering if you allow it to be! I'm just listening to Cosi fan Tutte. Wagner never came anywhere near this utterly sublime music imo. Not within shouting distance. Mind you, no other opera composer did either!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

SiegendesLicht said:


> Well, I am not speaking for everybody. I think by now I could pretty much consider myself a disciple of Wagner. He has taught me a few things apart from appreciation of music. Not a God, sure, but by now I have come to a conclusion it is better to learn from a man you respect than from a God you will never be able to reach, whatever you do. Again, merely personal opinion.


Frankly having looked at the life Wagner led I have learned a few lessons in how not to behave!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> Yes, but my point is, are there any composers you could name who, despite what they may say, actually don't care at all about pleasing listeners or audiences? Perhaps they want to please smaller audiences, or certain audiences, but I'd be surprised to find that there were any composers who truly had no interest in acclaim.


That surely is the purpose of art that people appreciate it! Even I could produce 'art' that found no appreciation!


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> Yes, but my point is, are there any composers you could name who, despite what they may say, actually don't care at all about pleasing listeners or audiences?


I can think of two well-known composers who said that. Both were lying through their teeth.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

KenOC said:


> I can think of two well-known composers who said that. Both were lying through their teeth.


That is correct! A bit like when the Rolling Stones said they didn't care that they reached no 1

Sheer hypocrisy!


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## Admiral (Dec 27, 2014)

DavidA said:


> That is correct! A bit like when the Rolling Stones said they didn't care that they reached no 1
> 
> Sheer hypocrisy!


I have no idea about the Rolling Stones, but I know a lot of artists who do not seek to be "no 1"


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## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

Woodduck, I'll disregard your unnecessary public lecture towards me (why not PM next time?), and return to my earlier opinion that seems unaccountably to be causing such an issue for you: Namely that the opera season today is broadly similar to one that would exist had Wagner's ship sunk en route to London in 1839... although we might be enduring more Meyerbeer!  (Sorry I have no facts to back up this attempt at a joke).

Your research of the _Met's_ current season seemed to support your view in the same way that my initial glance at_ Covent Garden's_ current season verified my view (14-9 in this case). Now that you've been furnished with a fact, I'd be most grateful if you'd let this matter rest?

(Excuse the cut-and-paste)

Pre 1870 and Verdi 
Rigoletto (Verdi) 12 Sep-6 Oct - C: Maurizio Benini; D: David McVicar
Il barbiere di Siviglia (Rossini) 19 Sep-5 Oct - C: Mark Elder; D: Moshe Leiser, Patrice Caurier
I due Foscari (Verdi) 14 Oct-2 Nov - C: Antonio Pappano / Renato Balsadonna; D: Thaddeus Strassberger
Idomeneo re di Creta (Mozart) 3-24 Nov - C: Marc Minkowski; D: Martin Kušej
L'elisir d'amore (Donizetti) 18 Nov-13 Dec - C: Daniele Rustioni; D: Laurent Pelly
Un ballo in maschera (Verdi) 18 Dec-17 Jan - C: Daniel Oren; D: Katharina Thoma
L'orfeo (Monteverdi) 13-24 Jan - C: Christian Curnyn; D: Michael Boyd
L'ormindo (Cavalli) 3 Feb-5 Mar - C: Christian Curnyn; D: Kasper Holten
Il turco in Italia (Rossini) 11-27 Apr - C: Evelino Pidò; D: Moshe Leiser, Patrice Caurier
La traviata (Verdi) 18 May-4 Jul - C: Marc Minkowski / Alexander Joel; D: Richard Eyre
Don Giovanni (Mozart) 12 Jun-3 Jul - C: Alain Altinoglu; D: Kasper Holten
Guillaume Tell (Rossini) 29 Jun-17 Jul - C: Antonio Pappano; D: Damiano Michieletto
Falstaff (Verdi) 6-18 Jul - C: Michael Schønwandt; D: Robert Carsen
Die Zauberflote (Mozart) 23 Feb-11 Mar - C: Cornelius Meister; D: David McVicar

Post 1870 and Wagner
Anna Nicole (Turnage) 11-20 Sep - C: Antonio Pappano; D: Richard Jones
Tristan und Isolde (Wagner) 5-21 Dec - C: Antonio Pappano; D: Christof Loy
Andrea Chénier (Giordano) 20 Jan-6 Feb - C: Antonio Pappano; D: David McVicar
Der fliegende Holländer (Wagner) 5-24 Feb - C: Andris Nelsons; D: Tim Albery
Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (Weill) 10 Mar-4 Apr - C: Mark Wigglesworth; D: John Fulljames
Madama Butterfly (Puccini) 20 Mar-9 Apr - C: Nicola Luisotti; D: Moshe Leiser, Patrice Caurier
Król Roger (Szymanowski) 1-19 May - C: Antonio Pappano; D: Kasper Holten
La bohème (Puccini) 23 May-16 Jul - C: Dan Ettinger / Alexander Joel; D: John Copley
Peter Pan (Ayres) 24-25 Jul - C: NN; D: Keith Warner


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

In my experience most Christians are well adjusted to the whole free speech thing and are secure enough in their faith to take a joke. Muslims, not so much.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> Yes, but my point is, are there any composers you could name who, despite what they may say, actually don't care at all about pleasing listeners or audiences? Perhaps they want to please smaller audiences, or certain audiences, but I'd be surprised to find that there were any composers who truly had no interest in acclaim.


I would have thought the avant-garde extreme composers are there to write as they please. (I'm only writing this to answer your post, not to go off topic in my good thread so far. And I would gently encourage you to do the same.)


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> Alexander wrote:
> 
> _Woodduck, why are you always spoiling for a fight? I'm not going to play this game with you. Perhaps DavidA will be along soon?_
> 
> ...


I find it stunningly naive to think, for even a nano-second, that any post directed to a single participant on this board is not free game for any other TC member to read and comment upon. _If_ a post was meant to be addressed to one party only, the protocol, _the reasonable and logical thing to do, would be to have made that address via a PM._

Carry on, then, boys and girls, but while I'm here I would like to say that until this conflated ballyhoo display of high dudgeon insulted and persecuted egos of what appear to me to be self-styled experts began to nearly hijack this thread, this thread was some fun reading.

My prayer / plea is that this thread would return to that.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Morimur said:


> "Join Stephen Fry as he chairs a unique debate to celebrate the bicentenaries of two operatic greats. Find out whether the southern allure of Verdi or the Teutonic genius of Wagner triumph with speakers Norman Lebrecht and Philip Hensher.
> 
> To illustrate their arguments, the Southbank Sinfonia and conductor Paul Wynne Griffiths perform extracts with singers Dušica Biljelić and John Tomlinson.
> 
> ...


Some impressions:

This "debate" was not really a debate, just as the very idea of pitting two dissimilar composers against each other is not a "competition" in any real sense (most of us, presumably, are happy to have both Verdi and Wagner around). But the exchange was fascinating, in that the approaches taken by the two advocates were completely different. Norman Lebrecht, arguing for Verdi, spent most of his time discussing not Verdi's work but his life and character, and in the process disparaging Wagner for his well-known personal faults, including, within minutes of the beginning of the presentation, his anti-semitism. Lebrecht was obviously deeply excited by this topic and sprang to his feet, declaiming in the tone of a revivalist preacher. The audience was visibly uncomfortable, and when Hensher began his presentation on Wagner he joked drily that he would be speaking on a subject somewhat neglected up to that point, namely music (audience laughter, probably from a sense of relief). Hensher's discussion was certainly more pertinent than Lebrecht's, and no doubt helped to "win" the "debate" for Wagner by an appreciable margin.

I think this was unfortunate. What I came away with was regret that Verdi had to be represented by a moralizing prig who utterly failed to do the artistic achievements of the Italian master justice. Granted that a two-hour program, with two speeches, a few musical selections, and some concluding conversation, isn't really going to do justice to anything, there were some nice insights into Wagner by Hensher which made his part of the discussion worth watching. Poor Verdi deserved much better.

The musical selections included the overture to _La Forza del Destino_ and Desdemona's "Willow Song" and "Ave Maria"(nicely sung) and a chunk of "Wotan's Farewell" (badly sung) and the prelude to _Tristan und Isolde._


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

A much more intelligent approach to the Verdi versus Wagner debate. And it's hilarious.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

ArtMusic said:


> I would have thought the avant-garde extreme composers are there to write as they please. (I'm only writing this to answer your post, not to go off topic in my good thread so far. And I would gently encourage you to do the same.)


It is not in the least off-topic. Your OP already introduces this supposed antithesis between Verdi and Wagner, who wrote "to please audiences and listeners" and some unnamed composer or group of composers who, supposedly, do not.

In your answer here, you say "avant-garde extreme composers are there to write as they please." Does this imply that they do not wish "to please audiences and listeners"? What is your proof that their perspective on how they want to compose is different from Verdi, who did in fact make derogatory remarks regarding audiences and said that he didn't care how people responded to his works?


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Verdi and Wagner were both giants in the world of opera. Wagner's epic pieces had more a fairy tale quality: The Ring, Lohengrin, Parsifal, Tristen. Verdi's were more expansive in the coverage of themes: Egyptian rule, Medieval kings, salon love intrigue. This is what I call beautiful diversity.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

A couple of sub-threads within this thread have veered off-topic. Since they may have the potential to escalate to an inappropriate level, please return to the thread topic itself.

Some early posts were deleted and quoted portions of others were as well. NOTE: If we delete a post and other posts quote the deleted post, we generally choose to delete those secondary posts or delete the quoted portion.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I'm listening to Piano Man. At least I can understand the "libretto".


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

hpowders said:


> I'm listening to Piano Man. At least I can understand the "libretto".


That's for sure.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> It is not in the least off-topic. Your OP already introduces this supposed antithesis between Verdi and Wagner, who wrote "to please audiences and listeners" and some unnamed composer or group of composers who, supposedly, do not.
> 
> In your answer here, you say "avant-garde extreme composers are there to write as they please." Does this imply that they do not wish "to please audiences and listeners"? What is your proof that their perspective on how they want to compose is different from Verdi, who did in fact make derogatory remarks regarding audiences and said that he didn't care how people responded to his works?


I think there are some who will never concede the fact that an artist really can work in their isolation, of course have some wish that an audience will get what they do, since part of the impulse is to communicate, but are quite willing to accept that audiences, or some in the audience, will never 'get what they do.' Sure, they want recognition of a sort, but that is an acknowledgment of the recognition when the other responds to what has been communicated, and not that more shallow business about recognition as a 'star' or personal prestige. I imagine those who find that impossible to believe are filled with presonal notions of that more superficial kind of recognition in the first place!

For the rest, the following is more about 'what I say' than what I consistently do:
In my experience, if not consistent with my belief on this issue, I try and keep those I consider the obsessive, mono-thematic trollers on ignore. Truly, even when we address them, deep in our heats and minds, we know there is no changing their mind, so fixated and entitled are they.

Too, online fora at least offer the real possibility, whether that member is a bloviator of another stripe or you consider them an annoying troller, like a fly buzzing in the room (and especially if you do not have them set on ignore) of being able to scan or skip right over those posts. Just imagine if one had to sit through their incessant mono-tonal mono-thematic droning if they were speaking!


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## Balthazar (Aug 30, 2014)

Loge said:


> Here is a point, take the singing out of the Liebistod from Wagner's Tristan Und Isolde and you are still left with one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written.
> 
> Take the singing out of La Donna e Mobile From Verdi's Rigoletto and what are you left with? Um pah pah, um pah pah.


The music to "La donna e mobile" is supposed to sound superficial and lightweight, sung as it is by the vapid and amoral Duke singing a shallow ditty about women's fickleness (highly ironic coming from him). To me, this a great example of Verdi's use of music for dramatic characterization - he was a musical Shakespeare in that regard. And Verdi quickly chases that ear worm away with "bella figlia dell'amore," one of the finest quartets in the repertoire.

I agree with you on the beauty of the music of Tristan und Isolde - without words (and, perhaps, shortened by 75%), it would make a fantastic tone poem, but I find very little in the way of dramatic characterization either in the libretto or in the music (a three tone leitmotif doesn't count). But it is not a tone poem, it is an opera. And I find Wagner's operas largely devoid of this dramatic musical characterization which, to me, is the most appealing aspect of the operatic genre.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Balthazar said:


> The music to "La donna e mobile" is supposed to sound superficial and lightweight, sung as it is by the vapid and amoral Duke singing a shallow ditty about women's fickleness (highly ironic coming from him). To me, this a great example of Verdi's use of music for dramatic characterization - he was a musical Shakespeare in that regard. And Verdi quickly chases that ear worm away with "bella figlia dell'amore," one of the finest quartets in the repertoire.
> 
> I agree with you on the beauty of the music of Tristan und Isolde - without words (and, perhaps, shortened by 75%), it would make a fantastic tone poem, but I find very little in the way of dramatic characterization either in the libretto or in the music (a three tone leitmotif doesn't count). But it is not a tone poem, it is an opera. And I find Wagner's operas largely devoid of this dramatic musical characterization which, to me, is the most appealing aspect of the operatic genre.


You have me thinking about characterization in Wagner, and particularly in _Tristan und Isolde._ This is a subject very close to me, so I hope you'll indulge me while I ruminate.

_Tristan_ is a unique opera, in many ways a special case and an anomaly among Wagner's operas, and the pair of protagonists, Tristan and isolde, present together a unique phenomenon among his numerous characterizations. If you look at the individuals who surround them in the story - Brangaene, Kurwenal, Marke, even the shepherd who has only a few lines to sing - you find very real individuals with worldly occupations (medieval ones, of course) and distinctive personal traits: the humble handmaid Brangaene, full of devotion, solicitude and anxiety; the henchman Kurwenal, equally devoted, extroverted and gruff yet capable of the deepest empathy for the sufferings of his master; Marke, old, half-comprehending what is happening to himself and those he loves, capable of terrible pain but barely strong enough for anger; the young shepherd, dreamy, sensitive, solicitous, playing his melancholy pipe and gazing at the empty sea... For all these representatives of the everyday world Wagner finds precise and distinct musical expression. But Tristan and Isolde themselves, fatally gripped by passion and unable to square their emotions with the conventions and protocols of the lives they find themselves condemned to live, seem somehow less defined, less graspable as people. They remain distinctly individual so long as they inhabit their separate spheres: Isolde the fiery Irish princess, imperious, unrestrained in her outbursts, rash when caution is called for; Tristan the controlled, formal, obedient nephew, his perfect courtesy concealing feelings undefined even to himself. These things too are clearly depicted musically. But once their love is unchained, and passion carries them beyond the identities defined by the outer world - the "day" world - personal identity breaks down, and the music seems to swamp what individuality they have, seems to dissolve them in a subjective world of uncontrollable emotion. They, of course, actually talk about this loss of individuality in the garden of their night of love; the conversation, strange on its face, becomes the vocal expression of what the orchestra tells us unmistakably. This process of "de-individuation" can be viewed as a poetic equivalent to the loss of identity felt at the height of orgasm - which, inevitably, is interrupted by the terrified scream of Brangaene as Marke and his hunting party bring the ecstatic night to a disastrous end. In the third act of the opera, Tristan lies mortally wounded in the arms of the faithful Kurwenal, and far from Isolde and love's illusions, embarks on a harrowing journey into himself, where he finds his fate written into the tragic origins of his own life. The words and music Wagner has written for this journey take us beyond characterization, beyond the individual personality and misfortune of a man, into regions of terror and desolation no music had ever before entered, and probably only Wagner himself entered again with the wounded Amfortas, whom Wagner called "my Tristan at his unthinkable culmination." At this level of intensity and this plumbing of psychic depths, "character" as we conceive it vanishes, and Wagner's music speaks with unspeakable agony the truth of this. Nothing makes more poignantly real Tristan's journey into the soul's dark night than the contrasting presence of the simple, human, loving Kurwenal, not half comprehending what his master suffers, but wanting only to follow him and, finally, dying, calling his name.

Wagner's characters, in all his operas, are as specific as their dramatic function requires them to be, and his musical invention is never at a loss to tell us who and what they are. In fact, no composer of opera has created a broader range of characters, or found a wider range of musical effects by which to make them distinctive and memorable, even when those characters, inhabiting their mythical or legendary realms, are in some ways more or less or other than human. But when I say that _Tristan_ is a special case among Wagner's operas, I mean that in it he has purposely effected in the personalities of his protagonists a progressive dissolution of character, in an effort to achieve, dramatically and musically, the fullest possible expression of erotic passion, unfulfilled desire, and the tragic impossibility of its fulfillment in life. Tristan and Isolde, in seeking the impossible goal of living wholly for love, live inevitably for death; and, as they sing to us that night in the garden, they seek to become "no more Tristan, no more Isolde," and come to the very verge of losing themselves even before death becomes a reality for them.

_Tristan_ is an opera at the outer extreme of the possible that could never be duplicated or approximated, and Wagner knew it and moved on to other things. The very notion of romantic love as salvation he renounced right in the middle of the opera's third act, as Tristan curses the love potion and his miserable self; and Wagner's final opera, _Parsifal_, presents a much changed view of the human quest for healing. But we will always have this ultimate statement of the romantic illusion our civilization has nurtured, and always, when we wish to indulge the desire to let the "day world" fall away for a while, be able to let Wagner's feverish imagination pull us into a unique kind of drama of which _Tristan_ is the first and, possibly, the last: a drama, not of action and character, but of sheer passion, in which character as we know it is drowned in an undammed river of terror and ecstasy.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

I find both "La donna è mobile" and the "Liebestod" are great examples of how to use characterization in Opera. True, the "Liebestod" is sublime music, while maybe this is not exactly the case for "La donna è mobile" (though it's for example, as said above, for "Bella figlia dell'amore"), but within their own frameworks, inside the drama, both are just about perfect. 

I love Verdi, one of my favorite composers. Many of my more pleasant hours in a theater had being spent watching his operas. But I love Wagner, too, even if a little bit less. In any case, we are fortunate to get them both. Indeed, Opera will be quite different, and one can suspect quite poorer too, if they were not born two hundred years ago.

One thing I have some difficulty to endure, however, it's the debate about what a great man Verdi was, and how Wagner disgraced himself with his life and opinions (or vice versa, what a saint and a genius Wagner was, and what an Italian moron Verdi really was). What they were, did or wrote outside of the realm of music, it's utterly irrelevant to me, except as context, compared to their great *musical* legacy.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Just what is it with people complaining about length of Wagner's operas? This is classical music, it is supposed to require some attention span.


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

I don't see why you have to praise one composer by putting down another.

I prefer Wagner, but then I'm not as familiar with Verdi, and he was doing a very different thing, after all.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

SiegendesLicht said:


> Just what is it with people complaining about length of Wagner's operas? This is classical music, it is supposed to require some attention span.


I can illustrate that by comparing two broadcasts I saw of Falstaff and Mastersingers. Whereas Verdi shimmers and dances, which is appropriate for a comedy, Wagner spreads out some very thin material over 4 hours which, while containing some fine music, also contains some pretty tedious stuff, especially in the first act. For me Verdi's comedy wins hands down. Made me feel good to be alive when I walked out the theatre. Can't say the same for Wagner's - overblown!


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## Loge (Oct 30, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Some impressions:
> 
> This "debate" was not really a debate, just as the very idea of pitting two dissimilar composers against each other is not a "competition" in any real sense (most of us, presumably, are happy to have both Verdi and Wagner around). But the exchange was fascinating, in that the approaches taken by the two advocates were completely different. Norman Lebrecht, arguing for Verdi, spent most of his time discussing not Verdi's work but his life and character, and in the process disparaging Wagner for his well-known personal faults, including, within minutes of the beginning of the presentation, his anti-semitism. Lebrecht was obviously deeply excited by this topic and sprang to his feet, declaiming in the tone of a revivalist preacher. The audience was visibly uncomfortable, and when Hensher began his presentation on Wagner he joked drily that he would be speaking on a subject somewhat neglected up to that point, namely music (audience laughter, probably from a sense of relief). Hensher's discussion was certainly more pertinent than Lebrecht's, and no doubt helped to "win" the "debate" for Wagner by an appreciable margin.
> 
> ...


Yeah Lebrecht reminded me of this fellow here...


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

I would rather buy an opera mug with









But why is he forgotten?


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## Krummhorn (Feb 18, 2007)

mmsbls said:


> A couple of sub-threads within this thread have veered off-topic. Since they may have the potential to escalate to an inappropriate level, please return to the thread topic itself.
> 
> Some early posts were deleted and quoted portions of others were as well. NOTE: If we delete a post and other posts quote the deleted post, we generally choose to delete those secondary posts or delete the quoted portion.


*And again, additional posts have been deleted, even after this staff warning was made. 
*

Let's stay on topic ...


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Loge said:


> Yeah Lebrecht reminded me of this fellow here...


This is HILARIOUS! The perfect accompaniment to my morning coffee.


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## Balthazar (Aug 30, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Wagner's characters, in all his operas, are as specific as their dramatic function requires them to be, and his musical invention is never at a loss to tell us who and what they are.


And therein lies the rub. As Wagner looked to the realms of mythology, legend, and allegory for his subject matter, his characters tend to inhabit the plane of archetypes and symbols rather than flesh-and-blood human beings. That is their dramatic function and, as you point out, Wagner is quite effective at expressing _through music_ such archetypal attributes. To my mind, Wagner's forte was orchestration and expression through music, hence my allusion to tone poems above.

Dramatic characterization, however, involving the harmonious union of music, words and action to express human passions, desires, conflicts, and flaws, is where Verdi has no operatic equal in my view. I recognize real-life people in Violetta, Alfredo, and Germont. Do I know someone like Tristan? Like Isolde? Well, I don't know because they don't appear to me as fleshed-out characters. Tenfold for the Ring.

Frankly, I don't think Wagner cared a wit about representing real people as they are, and that is perfectly fine. I am only saying that Verdi's brand of characterization speaks to me and is, in fact, what i value most in operatic works.



Woodduck said:


> In fact, no composer of opera has created a broader range of characters, or found a wider range of musical effects by which to make them distinctive and memorable...


In fact, this is an opinion masquerading as a fact, and one with which I whole-heartedly, but respectfully, disagree. :tiphat:


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## Loge (Oct 30, 2014)

Balthazar said:


> Dramatic characterization, however, involving the harmonious union of music, words and action to express human passions, desires, conflicts, and flaws, is where Verdi has no operatic equal in my view. I recognize real-life people in Violetta, Alfredo, and Germont. Do I know someone like Tristan? Like Isolde? Well, I don't know because they don't appear to me as fleshed-out characters. Tenfold for the Ring.
> 
> Frankly, I don't think Wagner cared a wit about representing real people as they are, and that is perfectly fine. I am only saying that Verdi's brand of characterization speaks to me and is, in fact, what i value most in operatic works.


Yeah but, The Empire Strikes Back is better than Pretty Woman.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

DavidA said:


> I can illustrate that by comparing two broadcasts I saw of Falstaff and Mastersingers. Whereas Verdi shimmers and dances, which is appropriate for a comedy, Wagner spreads out some very thin material over 4 hours which, while containing some fine music, also contains some pretty tedious stuff, especially in the first act. For me Verdi's comedy wins hands down. Made me feel good to be alive when I walked out the theatre. Can't say the same for Wagner's - overblown!


Falstaff has its boring parts. And not a single memorable aria until the last 5 minutes, Where's the highlights?
Meister has orchestral music, ensembles, great monologues, a heavenly quintet, choruses, drop dead gorgeous arias and an ending to die for.
Falstaff is chatter, chatter, chatter.

Many folks are bored by it.............


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## Xavier (Jun 7, 2012)

David,



DavidA said:


> Wagner spreads out some very thin material over 4 hours which, while containing some fine music, also contains some pretty tedious stuff, especially in the first act.


I agree with you that Die Meistersinger has its many moments of tedium but it does *not* include the first act which I think is superb.

IMO, the worst and least interesting section is the first hour or so in Act 3, beginning after the great prelude and right up until the start of the quintet.... I find this whole stretch way too ponderous and overly long.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Verdi or Wagner? Stockhausen.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Balthazar said:


> And therein lies the rub. As Wagner looked to the realms of mythology, legend, and allegory for his subject matter,* his characters tend to inhabit the plane of archetypes and symbols rather than flesh-and-blood human beings.* That is their dramatic function and, as you point out, Wagner is quite effective at expressing _through music_ such archetypal attributes. To my mind, Wagner's forte was orchestration and expression through music, hence my allusion to tone poems above.
> 
> *Dramatic characterization, however, involving the harmonious union of music, words and action to express human passions, desires, conflicts, and flaws*, is where Verdi has no operatic equal in my view. I recognize real-life people in Violetta, Alfredo, and Germont. Do I know someone like Tristan? Like Isolde? Well, I don't know because they don't appear to me as fleshed-out characters. Tenfold for the Ring.
> 
> ...


Your point about Wagner representing mythic archetypes, as opposed to the "real people as they are" in Verdi, has truth in it, but is far from exhaustively true. I suppose our perspective depends partly on what we feel makes characters "real." If we require characters to be living in familiar, mundane circumstances, engaged in the sorts of everyday activities we all recognize from our own lives or those of people we know or read about or see on television, then of course Alfredo, a nice boy from a respectable bourgeois family, falling for a tubercular party girl and running away to his country cottage, where his stuffy old dad shows up and ruins it all, is going to be more "real" to us than the illicit and hopeless passion of a medieval princess who never has to wash the dishes or make the bed.

A preference for more naturalistic drama is legitimate - it's one kind of art - and I wouldn't think of quarreling with anyone's personal preference. But I definitely don't think Verdi is always as naturalistic as he is in _La Traviata_, or that his characters are always so individual or lifelike. Look at _Otello_, for example. I see three characters whose personal traits and characteristic actions are very narrowly defined, none of whom I can much "identify" with. The hero is supposed to be a great military leader, but he simply goes to pieces with jealousy, and we're given nothing to make this comprehensible. His wife is a sweet, pious lady with an impossible husband, but who or what is she otherwise, and why would Otello not trust her? And the villain is really just a cardboard cutout representing "evil" whose one big aria is an outsized demonstration of mustache-twirling. What motivates such complete malignancy? Who knows? Wagner's Alberich and Klingsor are more complex and comprehensible than this guy. Now I think _Otello_ is one of opera's great masterpieces, and I find it powerfully moving because Verdi's music makes it so. But I don't think that its power is a matter of characterization, which is pretty superficial.

I could cite many other Verdi operas and characters who have beautiful music to sing but are pretty anonymous as characters. Who is Rhadames? For that matter who is Aida? Who is Manrico? Who is Leonora? Who are all the suffering women - the Amelias, the Elviras - who pop up in one Verdi opera after another, sing their melancholy arias, and go off to cloisters or wherever? I'm not putting Verdi down here. He's a superb musical dramatist, and many of his characters are memorable indeed. But many, as well, are really just types - not even archetypes, but just rather anonymous figures who provide good opportunities for operatic emoting and great tunes.

As far as Wagner is concerned, his dramatic purposes differed from work to work. Obviously, _Meistersinger_ is the opera everyone cites as being most "realistic," and it certainly is the one that presents the most recognizably mundane world. I'd say Wagner rises to this occasion quite brilliantly and gives us a character, Hans Sachs, of a subtlety and complexity comparable to that of any operatic character you can name, and for me more interesting than any Verdi character I can think of. Other characters in the opera are less complex, but very deftly and distinctly delineated. And I really don't think _Meistersinger_ is atypical of Wagner's ability to create sharp, insightful, memorable dramatic portrayals.

Whether we can "identify" with the characters in opera is a very individual matter. Frankly, I would hope none of us "identify" too closely with the lives of Tristan and Isolde (hopeless passion being a disease to be recovered from at the earliest possible moment)! But nearly every character in Wagner, even minor ones, even mythical beings like mermaids and dwarves from the underworld, presents us with aspects of human nature and behavior keenly observed and creatively represented in story and music. I really do believe that close acquaintance with his scores and an appreciation of their diversity reveals a wider range of sheerly _musical_ characterization in his operas, from the _Flying Dutchman_ through _Parsifal_, than can be found in the work of any other composer.

That is, by the way, an opinion _not_ "masquerading" as anything else. :tiphat:


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> Some impressions:
> 
> This "debate" was not really a debate, just as the very idea of pitting two dissimilar composers against each other is not a "competition" in any real sense (most of us, presumably, are happy to have both Verdi and Wagner around). But the exchange was fascinating, in that the approaches taken by the two advocates were completely different. Norman Lebrecht, arguing for Verdi, spent most of his time discussing not Verdi's work but his life and character, and in the process disparaging Wagner for his well-known personal faults, including, within minutes of the beginning of the presentation, his anti-semitism. Lebrecht was obviously deeply excited by this topic and sprang to his feet, declaiming in the tone of a revivalist preacher. The audience was visibly uncomfortable, and when Hensher began his presentation on Wagner he joked drily that he would be speaking on a subject somewhat neglected up to that point, namely music (audience laughter, probably from a sense of relief). Hensher's discussion was certainly more pertinent than Lebrecht's, and no doubt helped to "win" the "debate" for Wagner by an appreciable margin.
> 
> ...


I wonder if Lebrecht actually likes music - he just likes giving his own opinions backed up with his no-always-accurate observations and (very limited) research. I have actually spotted a couple (perhaps more) of factual errors in his books which (as I am a layman as far as music is concerned) should never have been written by a professional critic. He acknowledged the errors when I wrote to him but it is difficult to believe in the accuracy of what he says as he tends to make the facts fit the point he is trying to make. He is a very talented wordsmith but frankly imo his writings are not to be taken too seriously.


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

Itullian said:


> Falstaff has its boring parts. And not a single memorable aria until the last 5 minutes, Where's the highlights?
> Meister has orchestral music, ensembles, great monologues, a heavenly quintet, choruses, drop dead gorgeous arias and an ending to die for.
> Falstaff is chatter, chatter, chatter.
> 
> Many folks are bored by it.............


Here is the (brief) highlight:


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## Xavier (Jun 7, 2012)

Itullian said:


> Falstaff has its boring parts. And not a single memorable aria until the last 5 minutes, Where's the highlights? Falstaff is chatter, chatter, chatter.
> 
> Many folks are bored by it.............


Highlights?!

What are you talking about here??

Falstaff is one of the few operas (along with Pelleas and Wozzeck) that carry out the most perfect fusion of word, music, decor, action into one complete work of art.... It is one of the most enthralling of all operas.

Wagner himself never achieved this ideal except in Das Rheingold, IMO.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Xavier said:


> Highlights?!
> 
> What are you talking about here??
> 
> ...


I'm in total agreement about _Falstaff_'s perfection, though I understand the perspective of those who enjoy more melodic expansiveness. I find I like it better when I can see it; just listening, I admire the wealth of invention but am not always moved or amused by the lightning-quick music, which I admit expresses the comedic action brilliantly.

I'm also curious as to your choice of _Rheingold_ among Wagner's works.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Itullian said:


> Falstaff has its boring parts. And not a single memorable aria until the last 5 minutes, Where's the highlights?
> Meister has orchestral music, ensembles, great monologues, a heavenly quintet, choruses, drop dead gorgeous arias and an ending to die for.
> Falstaff is chatter, chatter, chatter.
> 
> Many folks are bored by it.............


I don't notice too many arias in Mastersingers either. It is far too long winded.if you're bored by the wonders Falstaff then I just can't see how your going to cope with the far more heavy going and spread out Mastersingers. 
One difference - Verdi had a master librettist in Boito. Poor old Wagner only had Wagner!
If Wagner had allowed himself an editor then I feel Mastersingers would be far more effective theatre. Don't get me wrong, I like parts of it and have three recordings of it but still feel it is over long.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

I voted equal because Wagner is mindblowing but Verdi composed so many great operas then I realized one Wagner opera is like two Verdi operas. Today I thought yes I listen mostly to Wagner but it is Verdi I hear in my head.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> I don't notice too many arias in Mastersingers either. It is far too long winded.if you're bored by the wonders Falstaff then I just can't see how your going to cope with the far more heavy going and spread out Mastersingers.
> One difference - Verdi had a master librettist in Boito. Poor old Wagner only had Wagner!
> If Wagner had allowed himself an editor then I feel Mastersingers would be far more effective theatre. Don't get me wrong, I like parts of it and have three recordings of it but still feel it is over long.


I have to agree that certain parts of _Meistersinger_ are stretched a little too far (the Wagnerites will be mad at me but they know what I'm like by now ), but I think it's because, ironically, W was having a bit too much fun with his libretto. It's full of witty ideas, figures of speech, puns, and charming turns of phrase (as much as I can tell, being a nonspeaker of German), and is written in rhyme as befits the "archaic" quality W was trying to capture. Literarily it's probably his best libretto, or at least the one that can best be read even without music, though of course that isn't the main criterion for a good opera book. I think it's just a case of a bit too much of a good thing, which might be some people's feeling about Wagner in general (unless of course they feel he's a bad thing)!

_Falstaff_ and _Meistersinger_ are hard to compare, I think, in that _Falstaff_ revolves around a character who is mostly absurd, with serious emotions in the opera entering briefly and lightly through other characters (Ford, Fenton and Nanetta), while the central character of _Meistersinger_, Sachs, is a melancholy old philosopher whose serious reflection on the insanity of the world is not left to a fugal "moral" at the end but infuses the whole work with a more mellow mood, usually as a subtle undertone to the comedy but, in the third act, as an overtly serious and moving statement.

It's perfectly possible to prefer either opera, based on its unique qualities. _Meistersinger_ may not have many "arias," but, perhaps surprisingly, it has far more in the way of extended melodic writing than does the quicksilver _Falstaff_, whether for solo voice, ensemble, chorus, or orchestra. It is after all an opera about song, and somewhere in its musical texture something or someone is singing much of the time.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Operas more interesting than anything by Verdi or Wagner:

Wozzek, Lulu (Berg)
St. Francis of Assissi (Messiaen)
Le Grand Macabre (Ligeti)
Moses und Aaron (Schönberg)
The Rake's Progress (Stravinsky)
Licht (Stockhausen) 
Written on Skin (Benjamin)
Lear (Reimann)
Al gran sole carico d’amore (Nono)
Oresteia (Xenakis)


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Morimur said:


> Verdi or Wagner? Stockhausen.


There appears to be a conspiracy afoot to drop the name "Stockhausen" into completely unrelated threads - first into "Greatest symphony of the last 100 years" and now into "Verdi or Wagner." 

Hmmmmm.......

Is it possible that the real choice here is between opera composers Richard "Dick" Willibald von Stockhausen (1739-1801), composer and librettist of the myth-illogical thrillogy _Parsiphallus in Nibelhymen_, and Giuseppepsi Luigi Albanononononono Stockhausen (1885-1928), composer of the antisocial-realist sprechstimmungspiel _Don Vozzeccho di Bergamo?_

Well, I've just got to say that of the two Stockhausens (unrelated, we think, through a common ancestor) I prefer by far the pan-atonal duodecaffeinist Giuseppepsi Luigi Albanononono...um...nono. _By __far_. _No contest_. His uncanny skill at composing, in the length of time it took him to down two diet sodas as recommended by his teacher Arnoldo Montebello, each and every scene of _Don Vozzeccho_ as a closed form employing only non-repeating rows of alternating greater and lesser septimal tritones in augmented retro-diminution as well as Bach-asswards, simply blows away by _light years_ the moribund all-too-common practice of his tradition-bound predecessor, Dick.

I mean, these guys are not even in the same _galaxy_.


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## Loge (Oct 30, 2014)

Wagner is better because he had a better actor playing him in his bio-pic. Wagner got one of the greatest actors of the ages to play him. While the actor of Verdi was demoted to play Nietzsche in the Wagner film.






Excuse the boring narration but it seems like Verdi was kinda dull.....


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## cort (Feb 24, 2013)

For me it's Verdi. There's no denying the power of Wagner's opera's or their originality. He was a unique figure. I think of him almost like a volcano emitting... 

If I had to pick only one to listen to - that was not the question I understand - it would be Verdi, though, - who was almost Shakespearean in his output. He encompasses so much of what it means to be human in his output. Wagner was on a different plane - more powerful in some ways - but I return more often to Verdi than Wagner. 

Thankfully we have both


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Morimur said:


> Operas more interesting than anything by Verdi or Wagner:
> 
> Wozzek, Lulu (Berg)
> St. Francis of Assissi (Messiaen)
> ...


Hmm. Lying on a bed of nails might be more interesting than lying on my Slumberland bed but I still wouldn't care for it!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

cort said:


> For me it's Verdi. There's no denying the power of Wagner's opera's or their originality. He was a unique figure. I think of him almost like a volcano emitting...
> 
> If I had to pick only one to listen to - that was not the question I understand - it would be Verdi, though, - who was almost Shakespearean in his output. He encompasses so much of what it means to be human in his output. Wagner was on a different plane - more powerful in some ways - but I return more often to Verdi than Wagner.
> 
> Thankfully we have both


They point is they were both, in their way, great opera composers. Verdi for me always shows a deeper understanding of human emotions - I can identify with the heartbroken Rigoletto far more than (e.g.) the Wotan of Walkure Act 3With Wagner I can admire and be stirred by the music but feel little sympathy with the characters in a way that I can feel with some of (e.g.) Puccini's heroines. But then it does come down to a matter of personal taste.
For my money Mozart surpasses the lot!


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

cort said:


> For me it's Verdi. There's no denying the power of Wagner's opera's or their originality. He was a unique figure. I think of him almost like a volcano emitting...
> 
> If I had to pick only one to listen to - that was not the question I understand - it would be Verdi, though, - who was almost Shakespearean in his output. He encompasses so much of what it means to be human in his output. Wagner was on a different plane - more powerful in some ways - but I return more often to Verdi than Wagner.
> 
> Thankfully we have both


Excellent choice! 

And welcome to the forum!


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Morimur said:


> Verdi or Wagner? Stockhausen.


Stockhausen pales into opera world compared with Verdi or Wagner. He wrote one only opera cycle that rarely gets performed, practically forgotten.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

DavidA said:


> They point is they were both, in their way, great opera composers. Verdi for me always shows a deeper understanding of human emotions - I can identify with the heartbroken Rigoletto far more than (e.g.) the Wotan of Walkure Act 3With Wagner I can admire and be stirred by the music but feel little sympathy with the characters in a way that I can feel with some of (e.g.) Puccini's heroines. But then it does come down to a matter of personal taste.
> For my money Mozart surpasses the lot!


True about Mozart.


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

ArtMusic said:


> Stockhausen pales into opera world compared with Verdi or Wagner. He wrote one only opera cycle that rarely gets performed, practically forgotten.


The fact it gets performed at all is a testament to its greatness. It technically borders on being impossible to stage; rather like a certain ring cycle was in Herr Wagner's time... not to mention the fact that in their own lifetimes, Stockhausen's cycle had more performances (at least of individual 'days') than Wagner's, though that only goes to show that your argument is basically meaningless.

Not to mention that Licht, as a whole, was only eventually completed in 2003, and lets be honest; 11 years is nothing in the world of opera.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

ArtMusic said:


> Stockhausen pales into opera world compared with Verdi or Wagner. He wrote one only opera cycle that rarely gets performed, practically forgotten.


Bach's music rarely got performed until 100 years after his death. What does that mean?


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Licht has never been staged (as a complete work). It would financial suicide for an opera company.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Xavier said:


> Highlights?!
> 
> What are you talking about here??
> 
> ...


While I adore Debussy's opera, Wotan and Kundry had a love child and named it "Pelleas".


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Couchie said:


> Licht has never been staged (as a complete work). It would financial suicide for an opera company.


But despite that, whenever parts of it are staged, the tickets sell out far in advance. It's only because the works are so prohibitively expensive that they're not financially viable.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Couchie said:


> While I adore Debussy's opera, Wotan and Kundry had a love child and named it "Pelleas".


Yes, and Debussy was so resentful of the kid's German ancestry that he forbade it to speak anything but French in the home. Little did he suspect that left alone in his room little Pelleas would retrieve a toy spear and a small wine glass he kept under his bed and sing softly to himself, with closed eyes and a beatific smile,"Erloesung dem Erloeser."


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> But despite that, whenever parts of it are staged, the tickets sell out far in advance. It's only because the works are so prohibitively expensive that they're not financially viable.


Ticket sales are a small part of it. Just like the Ring a staging would be contingent on enormous sums of donations. I don't think the Stockhausen fan group is as organized on that front as Wagnerians.


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

Couchie said:


> While I adore Debussy's opera, Wotan and Kundry had a love child and named it "Pelleas".


That's true. Quite a few 20th Century operas live in the shadow of Wagner at his best, or are at least influenced by him.


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## PeterJ (Jan 1, 2015)

It's completely impossible for me to point out one as a favorite to present as opposed to the other. Verdi's greatest work for me is Don Carlo" while for Wagner it's Parsifal.


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## PeterJ (Jan 1, 2015)

You're referring to Moses und Aaron, are you not? That is probably the most difficult piece of music for a music-lover to get into. I attended a performance of it at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, and after the first chorus, I had to leave . . . :-/


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## PeterJ (Jan 1, 2015)

In my opinion, it got submerged by the Romantic movement. It was only discovered run somebody chanced upon his genius.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Jobis said:


> The fact it gets performed at all is a testament to its greatness. It technically borders on being impossible to stage; rather like a certain ring cycle was in Herr Wagner's time... not to mention the fact that in their own lifetimes, Stockhausen's cycle had more performances (at least of individual 'days') than Wagner's, though that only goes to show that your argument is basically meaningless.
> 
> Not to mention that Licht, as a whole, was only eventually completed in 2003, and lets be honest; 11 years is nothing in the world of opera.


Fact is Wagner's operas were staged center-staged at big opera houses, enjoyed patronage of leaders, cultured ever since his death, studied upon ever since. Facts speak for themselves. (I won't mention that other composer and his sole example as I do not wish to digress).


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> But despite that, whenever parts of it are staged, the tickets sell out far in advance. It's only because the works are so prohibitively expensive that they're not financially viable.


Facts again need to be said here: Baroque operas hired the most expensive castrato singers (paid more than composers), and led to opera houses going bankrupt etc. So "financially viable" argument you speak of is nothing new. There is nothing financially prohibitively that stops that one opera being performed as much as any opera, say Wagner's epic Ring cycle. I am merely comparing like-for-like, and putting facts into perspective as I usually do.


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

ArtMusic said:


> There is nothing financially prohibitively that stops that one opera being performed as much as any opera, say Wagner's epic Ring cycle.


Productions of the entire Ring cycle are not exactly ten for a penny, you know. Licht is twice as long and requires an air force. It's ridiculous to say that there aren't any financial barriers.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

ahammel said:


> Productions of the entire Ring cycle are not exactly ten for a penny, you know. Licht is twice as long and requires an air force. It's ridiculous to say that there aren't any financial barriers.


When did I suggest there were no financial barriers, please kindly re-read and re-think about my posts. I gave examples of Baroque opera companies that went bankrupt because they hired the most expensive singers on the planet at the time.


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

ArtMusic said:


> When did I suggest there were no financial barriers, please kindly re-read and re-think about my posts. I gave examples of Baroque opera companies that went bankrupt because they hired the most expensive singers on the planet at the time.


_There is nothing financially prohibitively that stops that one opera being performed as much as any opera, say Wagner's epic Ring cycle._

Yes there is. Some operas are more expensive than the Ring cycle.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

ahammel said:


> Productions of the entire Ring cycle are not exactly ten for a penny, you know. Licht is twice as long and requires an air force. It's ridiculous to say that there aren't any financial barriers.


I read that some of Meyerbeer's operas were enormously expensive to mount -- he was evidently an early-day Peter Jackson. Storms at sea and sinking ships on stage, that sort of thing. Fortunately he was quite rich and able to pay opera companies to stage his productions. This irked that Wagner fellow, who was struggling financially, no end.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

ahammel said:


> _There is nothing financially prohibitively that stops that one opera being performed as much as any opera, say Wagner's epic Ring cycle._
> 
> Yes there is. Some operas are more expensive than the Ring cycle.


Yeah I agree. I was clarifying that suggesting Licht doesn't get performed much because it is "prohibitively expensive" is nothing new a reason, never was, never will be.


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

ArtMusic said:


> Yeah I agree. I was clarifying that suggesting Licht doesn't get performed much because it is "prohibitively expensive" is nothing new a reason, never was, never will be.


Of course it's not a new reason. It's the reason the Ring doesn't often get a performance in its entirety, for instance. I'm not sure what point your trying to make.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

ahammel said:


> Of course it's not a new reason. It's the reason the Ring doesn't often get a performance in its entirety, for instance. I'm not sure what point your trying to make.


Again, let me suggest you kindly re-read the entire context, and in particular the post I was replying to.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

KenOC said:


> I read that some of Meyerbeer's operas were enormously expensive to mount -- he was evidently an early-day Peter Jackson. Storms at sea and sinking ships on stage, that sort of thing. Fortunately he was quite rich and able to pay opera companies to stage his productions. This irked that Wagner fellow, who was struggling financially, no end.


Good point about Meyerbeer.

At the end of the day, it's simply about resources that patrons, people, and or government are willing to allocate relative to the demand of the music. For instance, and taking this back to Wagner and Verdi, Deutsche Grammaphon have many DVD of The Metropolitan Opera under James Levine and world star singers (Pavarotti, Domingo) singing and mounting large scale (beautiful) traditional staging that cost huge sums. Why? Despite the huge costs, demand was strong, and the economics made sense (e.g. can sell DVD afterwards). Thank goodness for that, so that I can enjoy Verdi and Wagner recordings in plentiful today as I have posted in "Current Listening".


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## Xavier (Jun 7, 2012)

Woodduck,



Woodduck said:


> I find I like Falstaff better when I can see it; just listening, I admire the wealth of invention but am not always moved or amused by the lightning-quick music, which I admit expresses the comedic action brilliantly.


And for me it was the total opposite. When I discovered it in my late teens it was all about the aural experience first ... I could never get enough of these recordings:

1) http://eil.com/images/main/Verdi+-+Falstaff+-+DOUBLE+LP-535759.jpg

2) http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41P4BA2XEYL._SX300_.jpg



> I'm also curious as to your choice of _Rheingold_ among Wagner's works.


It's the only Wagner opera where I can honestly say I find no longueurs or tedious moments at all. In terms of musical construction I think it's his most perfect work.


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## mtmailey (Oct 21, 2011)

WAGNER ride of the valkyries is my favorite work of his.I also like his symphony in c.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Xavier said:


> Woodduck,
> 
> And for me it was the total opposite. When I discovered it in my late teens it was all about the aural experience first ... I could never get enough of these recordings:
> 
> ...


I have the Gobbi/Karajan _Falstaff_, and do find it marvelous.

A classicist's perspective on Wagner! I see your point. _Rheingold_ moves at a rather conversational pace and doesn't allow musical ideas to develop very much. I suppose the longueurs of some of the other operas are a personal matter. I don't find Wotan's monologue in _Walkure_, for example, the low point that some do; with an intellgent singer and alert conducting I think it's quite a powerful bit of dramatic writing, full of suppressed anxiety and turmoil and beautifully paced in moving to its violent conclusion. I also don't find a dull moment in _Parsifal_ and find it splendidly constructed - again depending on intelligent singers and a conductor who knows how to pace things. I do think that Marke's monologue in _Tristan_ has an anticlimactic feel after the love scene and mght have been tightened, that some of the conversation in _Meistersinger_ might have been condensed, that Mime and the Wanderer's little question game is not very absorbing musically (though Mime's hallucinatory terror that ends it is wonderful), and that the earlier operas suffer a bit from rhythmic monotony.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Alexander said:


> Woodduck, why are you always spoiling for a fight? I'm not going to play this game with you.


Oh my Goddess!

Proof is an elementary courtesy that is any man's due. Woodduck furnished it.

The ball's in your court.

Have the good grace to try to hit it back.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

I have been away for two weeks and admit to only skimming through the above discussion of the relative merits of the two composers.

Predictably of course I chose Verdi, whilst conceding many of the points made in defence of Wagner. I don't know why it is that Wagner doesn't really _speak_ to me as Verdi does, but there it is, I can't imagine a life without Verdi, (or Berlioz for that matter) whereas I'd probably not worry too much if I never heard a note of Wagner again. That is not the same as saying I don't appreciate or value Wagner's genius. I do. I just don't miss him when he's gone.

No amount of pleading on the part of Wagnerphiles will get me to change my mind. I will nod my head, agree with them, smile benignly and then run off and listen to *Il Trovatore*.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

GregMitchell said:


> I have been away for two weeks and admit to only skimming through the above discussion of the relative merits of the two composers.
> 
> Predictably of course I chose Verdi, whilst conceding many of the points made in defence of Wagner. I don't know why it is that Wagner doesn't really _speak_ to me as Verdi does, but there it is, I can't imagine a life without Verdi, (or Berlioz for that matter) whereas I'd probably not worry too much if I never heard a note of Wagner again. That is not the same as saying I don't appreciate or value Wagner's genius. I do. I just don't miss him when he's gone.
> 
> No amount of pleading on the part of Wagnerphiles will get me to change my mind. I will nod my head, agree with them, smile benignly and then run off and listen to *Il Trovatore*.


I feel the same about Mozart! I run off and listen to Cosi fan Tutte!


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

ArtMusic said:


> Facts again need to be said here: Baroque operas hired the most expensive castrato singers (paid more than composers), and led to opera houses going bankrupt etc. So "financially viable" argument you speak of is nothing new. There is nothing financially prohibitively that stops that one opera being performed as much as any opera, say Wagner's epic Ring cycle. I am merely comparing like-for-like, and putting facts into perspective as I usually do.


But facts cannot provide or elude to any meaning outside of themselves. You seem to be implying that Licht is not as good as The Ring because it is arguably not as popular. The same old argument you seem to be making across the board regarding music you personally dislike. Are so insecure in your own opinions that you have to accept the quality of a work based on its (popular) reputation?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Verdi Vs. Wagner, And Why They Disliked Each Other's Music


Opera composers Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi would both be 200 years old this year. We take a crash course in opera appreciation to hear the differences between them.




www.wbur.org




_"And it turns out, they weren't each other’s biggest fans.
“It’s interesting to me that these guys were contemporaries of each other,” said William Lumpkin, the director of the Opera Institute at Boston University. “According to what I know, they actually never met, but they certainly knew of each other, and perhaps didn’t have the greatest respect for what each other was doing. Wagner was known to abhor grand opera. And Verdi was known to say that Wagner often went down an avenue that was unnecessary.”"_


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

hammeredklavier said:


> Verdi Vs. Wagner, And Why They Disliked Each Other's Music
> 
> 
> Opera composers Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi would both be 200 years old this year. We take a crash course in opera appreciation to hear the differences between them.
> ...


I'm glad that article is short, because it doesn't tell us much. It doesn't even tell us "why they disliked each other's music." The truth is that as accomplished composers they were perfectly well aware of each other's virtues. Verdi, like every other notable musician of his time, understood the magnitude of Wagner's contribution and studied his scores, even if he felt that "symphonic opera" would undermine the vocal foundation of the art form. Wagner didn't live long enough to hear _Otello_ or _Falstaff_, in which he would have found, I would hope to his pleasure, an Italian composer coming to terms brilliantly with the challenges facing opera in their time.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

While I recognize the greatness of Wagner's achievement, I much prefer watching/listening to Verdi.


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## FrankE (Jan 13, 2021)

Wagner.
I've tried with Verdi, have more recordings of Verdi and have even gone to more performances of Verdi because there are simply far more productions of his and Italian opera.
Wagner wins over, maybe because I grew up with it when I was little, my half Yekke/Saxon background, having an ancestor who sang Wagner, the sometimes challenging European lore, working at sea on an NL vessel, loving the complexity? Moreover I enjoy listening to Wagner and either habit or ?reasons? causes me to go to them first, to listen more, to the end and look up the libretto and synopsis. 
That some extremists in my community shunned me for mentioning plans to go to Bayreuth again just makes me want to listen more and not be under their control which is their aim.
I've no blood connection with Italy, I haven't been to Italy, know no Italian and can't really get into Italian opera to the same level as German. I'm not sure why it doesn't connect with me in the same way as they can be quite toe-tappy, rumpty tumpty. Maybe that's it. I don't have the musicology knowledge or lexicon to say why.
I've limited space on my telephone for FLAC albums and none of Verdi's works have passed The Acid Test of getting a place on there even though they are awfully short.
Not that I don't like Verdi's operas. I'm listening to Nabucco (Sinopoli) now.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

FrankE said:


> That some extremists in my community shunned me for mentioning plans to go to Bayreuth again just makes me want to listen more and not be under their control which is their aim.
> .


This is ominous, intriguing and downright amusing. Tell us more, unless the extremists would do something unspeakable to you.


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## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

I wanted to mark both, but joined another minority, which voted for Verdi. I love Wagner for a long time and more and more, I'm fond of him and sometimes become addict, I adore him and often feel that I'm a little too otherwise because of it. I clearly understand his greatness and impact on all world art. But I love Verdi no less, but in another way. He may appear more traditional, successive to his predecessor and less ingenious. But I can't imagine opera without Verdi. Verdi is an opera itself. I wouldn't like opera to be restricted to one style or tradition. It's amazing in its diversity. 
It's like in cinema, whom of the geniuses of one epoche would you choose: Antonioni, Bergmann or Fellini?


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

I can’t live without either.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

MAS said:


> I can’t live without either.


Now we know your point of vulnerability in case you step out of line.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)




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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

I did not properly explore the mature Wagner, like Tristan or the Ring yet. I knew Tannhauser and Der Fliegende Hollaender quite well once. It was a nice change against Verdi and Puccini, which is played so often. However, when I listened to these operas too much while doing something in the household or studying, it made me somehow tired or nervous. I know already from the shorter pieces I heard, that the mature Wagner has more of that quality that makes me tired. With Verdi I can relax and feel like at home. (Maybe even better with Donizetti, and my top composer right now is Bellini, but that was not the question). So Verdi has my vote.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

BBSVK said:


> I did not properly explore the mature Wagner, like Tristan or the Ring yet. I knew Tannhauser and Der Fliegende Hollaender quite well once. It was a nice change against Verdi and Puccini, which is played so often. However, when I listened to these operas too much while doing something in the household or studying, it made me somehow tired or nervous. I know already from the shorter pieces I heard, that the mature Wagner has more of that quality that makes me tired. With Verdi I can relax and feel like at home. (Maybe even better with Donizetti, and my top composer right now is Bellini, but that was not the question). So Verdi has my vote.


You listened to Wagner while _studying? _


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## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

Woodduck said:


> You listened to Wagner while _studying? _


Me too. Is it strange?


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## Aerobat (Dec 31, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> You listened to Wagner while _studying? _





ColdGenius said:


> Me too. Is it strange?


Definitely not strange at all. I listen to Wagner (and Verdi) whilst working - usually on proposal documents or client reports. I actually find it *increases* my focus on the task in hand.

At the moment I'm taking a break from writing a proposal for the UK FCA. I've been listening to Tchaikovsky's Iolanta while I work.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

An impediment for me to watching/listening to a complete opera is the investment of time. So I usually watch a scene, or maybe an entire act at a time and then come back to it. I've also had Mozart on in the background )a folder of his great operas) or even [gasp] on shuffle play which essentially turns it into a recital performance.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

i can’t listen to opera as background. It’s either listen to it or nothing!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

MAS said:


> i can’t listen to opera as background. It’s either listen to it or nothing!


Some music can play as a pleasant background and doesn't require that we actually focus on it. Dinner music has a long and respectable hisory. I find very little opera fitting that description. Wagner? Wotan forbid!


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## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

Woodduck said:


> Some music can play as a pleasant background and doesn't require that we actually focus on it. Dinner music has a long and respectable hisory. I find very little opera fitting that description. Wagner? Wotan forbid!


Don Giovanni contains a research on dinner music in 1790-s.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

ColdGenius said:


> Don Giovanni contains a research on dinner music in 1790-s.


I don't think "research" is the word you're looking for. "An example of dinner music," perhaps?


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## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

Woodduck said:


> I don't think "research" is the word you're looking for. "An example of dinner music," perhaps?


Don Giovanni, waiting for Commendatore's statue to dinner, is listening to music: excerpts from Cosa rara, La Nozze de Figaro.


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

I have for years hated the fate of Verdi as, at best, the lesser of two equals in his comparison with Wagner. I've long thought the perceived verdict of the musical intelligentsia that Wagner is on a plane above was indicative of a disproportionate attention to harmony over melody.

I have come to feel that Verdi is...the lesser of two equals. I feel that Wagner is on a plane above and I think the reason is that harmony takes a disproportionate amount of my attention over melody. And all of that without any aspirations on my part to the musical intelligentsia. I remain a lifelong, long-winded member of Music Appreciation 101.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

ScottK said:


> I have for years hated the fate of Verdi as, at best, the lesser of two equals in his comparison with Wagner. I've long thought the perceived verdict of the musical intelligentsia that Wagner is on a plane above was indicative of a disproportionate attention to harmony over melody.
> 
> I have come to feel that Verdi is...the lesser of two equals. I feel that Wagner is on a plane above and I think the reason is that *harmony takes a disproportionate amount of my attention over melody.* And all of that without any aspirations on my part to the musical intelligentsia. I remain a lifelong, long-winded member of Music Appreciation 101.


I'm not sure about being a member of the musical intelligentsia - i suspect I'm somewhere beween the intelligentsia and the dilettantsia - but I think I was attracted more to Wagner than to Verdi for the same reason: the harmony. Verdi was a great melodist from the very beginning, but there have been many great melodists. Wagner's harmonic evolution and mastery, however, is one of the towering and singular achievements in music, leaving his contemporaries at the post and never duplicated since. After decades of hearing them, I still find myself playing certain passages over and over at the piano, incredulous that he came up with things so striking and subtle, yet so natural and inevitable. The magical score of _Parsifal_ has been called a summation of Western harmonic practice up to that point in history, as well as a premonition of things to come.

I should note here the increasingly sophisticated harmony in Verdi's late music. He was keenly aware of the challenges posed by Wagner, and he had the genius to meet them head on without getting run over.

None of this addresses the question of which composer wrote better operas.


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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

Woodduck said:


> I'm not sure about being a member of the musical intelligentsia - i suspect I'm somewhere beween the intelligentsia and the dilettantsia - but I think I was attracted more to Wagner than to Verdi for the same reason: the harmony. Verdi was a great melodist from the very beginning, but there have been many great melodists. Wagner's harmonic evolution and mastery, however, is one of the towering and singular achievements in music, leaving his contemporaries at the post and never duplicated since. After decades of hearing them, I still find myself playing certain passages over and over at the piano, incredulous that he came up with things so striking and subtle, yet so natural and inevitable. The magical score of _Parsifal_ has been called a summation of Western harmonic practice up to that point in history, as well as a premonition of things to come.
> 
> I should note here the increasingly sophisticated harmony in Verdi's late music. He was keenly aware of the challenges posed by Wagner, and he had the genius to meet them head on without getting run over.
> 
> None of this addresses the question of which composer wrote better operas.


Aida is a late opera by Verdi. I don't love it properly, like I do some other operas. But it has been my safe piece to listen to, after I got tired of other music. It somehow evaded being an earworm. Do you have a scientific explanation for this ?

(OK, those trumpet-like things from ballet music got unpleasantly stuck in my head a couple times, but that is an exception)


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

BBSVK said:


> Aida is a late opera by Verdi. I don't love it properly, like I do some other operas. But it has been my safe piece to listen to, after I got tired of other music. It somehow evaded being an earworm. Do you have a scientific explanation for this ?
> 
> (OK, those trumpet-like things from ballet music got unpleasantly stuck in my head a couple times, but that is an exception)


I think your question invites the observation that, as important as it is, harmony isn't everything. Also, that harmony can be at its finest even when it is not reaching for the kind of heights that Woodduck describes above. 

What moves me as much as anything in Aida is Amneris' "E in poter di costoro...." section in the judgement scene - the entire scene moves me greatly - and the combination of simple harmony, un-demonstrative melody, human awareness of her own self-destuction, the opportunity for a Simionato to release her heartbreaking powers.......i.e. the many, many components that we get from opera at its greatest...

Not sure about a scientific explanation other than the supremely poignant psychological accuracy of knowing that, at some point, each of us has been our own worst enemy and here, perhaps Verdi is giving us a chance to shed a tear for ourselves.


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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

ScottK said:


> I think your question invites the observation that, as important as it is, harmony isn't everything. Also, that harmony can be at its finest even when it is not reaching for the kind of heights that Woodduck describes above.
> 
> What moves me as much as anything in Aida is Amneris' "E in poter di costoro...." section in the judgement scene - the entire scene moves me greatly - and the combination of simple harmony, un-demonstrative melody, human awareness of her own self-destuction, the opportunity for a Simionato to release her heartbreaking powers.......i.e. the many, many components that we get from opera at its greatest...
> 
> Not sure about a scientific explanation other than the supremely poignant psychological accuracy of knowing that, at some point, each of us has been our own worst enemy and here, perhaps Verdi is giving us a chance to shed a tear for ourselves.


Your perception is different than mine. I am distanced from the plot, sometimes I do not even know which scene is which, because it is a vinyl experience only. Aida is just somehow easy on my ears, that's what I was trying to say. So I wondered if the harmony is somehow special.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

BBSVK said:


> Aida is a late opera by Verdi. I don't love it properly, like I do some other operas. But it has been my safe piece to listen to, after I got tired of other music. It somehow evaded being an earworm. Do you have a scientific explanation for this ?
> 
> (OK, those trumpet-like things from ballet music got unpleasantly stuck in my head a couple times, but that is an exception)


Alas, I don't have a scientific explanation for anything. I'm also the wrong person to ask about _Aida_, since it's far from being my favorite Verdi. It's a brilliant score with many beauties, but somehow none of the characters touch me.


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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

Woodduck said:


> Alas, I don't have a scientific explanation for anything. I'm also the wrong person to ask about _Aida_, since it's far from being my favorite Verdi. It's a brilliant score with many beauties, but somehow none of the characters touch me.


Same here, the characters do not touch me. But which opera did you mean by this:

"I should note here the increasingly sophisticated harmony in Verdi's late music. He was keenly aware of the challenges posed by Wagner, and he had the genius to meet them head on without getting run over"


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

BBSVK said:


> Same here, the characters do not touch me. But which opera did you mean by this:
> 
> "I should note here the increasingly sophisticated harmony in Verdi's late music. He was keenly aware of the challenges posed by Wagner, and he had the genius to meet them head on without getting run over"


I was thinking mainly of _Otello, Falstaff,_ and the very interesting _Quatro pezzi sacri,_ but Verdi's harmonic sophistication increases throughout his career. His emphasis on melody over harmony remains in force through most of his work. I'd say that among Italian composers, vocal melody and harmonic interest achieve their greatest parity in Puccini, who was a real Wagner devotee and student of his scores.


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## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

BBSVK said:


> Aida is a late opera by Verdi. I don't love it properly, like I do some other operas. But it has been my safe piece to listen to, after I got tired of other music. It somehow evaded being an earworm. Do you have a scientific explanation for this ?
> 
> (OK, those trumpet-like things from ballet music got unpleasantly stuck in my head a couple times, but that is an exception)


I say _de miei pianti la vendetta or dal ciel se compira _when someone outdrives me inaccurately, or just drives like an ***hole. Is it allowed to write this way here?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

the 200th birthday debate


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

Wagner any day of the week (or I should say month).  Verdi has never appealed to me and I vastly prefer Puccini or Mascagni for example if I want to listen to Italian opera. Wagner's music continues to be a huge inspiration to me. I adore _Der Ring des Nibelungen_ and _Parsifal_. I consider these landmark works in opera, which is actually a genre I'm actually not crazy about in general, but when the music is of this caliber, it's difficult to ignore the grandeur, beauty and sheer power it projects to the listener or, at least, _this_ listener anyway. I rate many of Strauss' operas on a similar plane as Wagner's in that I often feel overwhelmed by this glorious music and I love getting lost in each of their sound-worlds.


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## toasino (Jan 3, 2022)

ahammel said:


> I would have voted for Wagner no matter who the other choice was, but as it happens I don't care for Verdi's opera all that much. Maybe it'll click with me someday.


To Each His Own, but in Germany, Verdi Opara's are more popular that Wagner's. I much prefer Verdi, but do like parts of Wagner's operas, as they tend to be too long with less great vocal music or arias. I suppose my favorite Wagner Opera is Lohengrin.


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## Andjar (Aug 28, 2020)

For me Verdi was an absolute genius but he made way too much of that type of music that people of his time wanted to hear...those bolstering , cheaply elevating ,almost militaristic rhythmic arias..ahh...too many of those.

Wagner was probably the greatest music craftsman and a great writer...but not a genius IMHO. Once someone develops that great poliphony driven emotional sense ,masters the narrative structure....can write as many 4 hour long operas as time will allow him. But then again...it might take a lifetime to develop that kind of craftsmanship.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Andjar said:


> For me Verdi was an absolute genius but he made way too much of that type of music that people of his time wanted to hear...those bolstering , cheaply elevating ,almost militaristic rhythmic arias..ahh...too many of those.
> 
> Wagner was probably the greatest music craftsman and a great writer...but not a genius IMHO. Once someone develops that great poliphony driven emotional sense ,masters the narrative structure....can write as many 4 hour long operas as time will allow him. But then again...it might take a lifetime to develop that kind of craftsmanship.


Yours is certainly an original view - so original that I can't understand it at all. What is a "genius," and how does someone who wrote way too much cheaply elevating music qualify as one, while the greatest musical craftsman does not?

To make clear where I'm coming from here: I don't find much cheapness in Verdi (OK, those gypsies and their anvils...), and although Wagner was certainly a master of his craft, "craftsman" is not the first word that comes to mind when I hear or contemplate the _Ring,Tristan_ or _Parsifal. _It might with regard to _Meistersinger_, but then musical craftsmanship is actually part of the plot.


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

Verdi was a wonderful dramatist and really excelled at exactly the things you want from traditional Italian opera. Beautiful melodies and lots of drama. Wagner's music is far more symphonic, the drama more internal. Verdi is for those who lead with their hearts and Wagner their heads maybe.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Op.123 said:


> Verdi was a wonderful dramatist and really excelled at exactly the things you want from traditional Italian opera. Beautiful melodies and lots of drama. Wagner's music is far more symphonic, the drama more internal. Verdi is for those who lead with their hearts and Wagner their heads maybe.


This is a huge generalisation, I know, but Verdi writes for the most part about real people rather than gods, monsters and myths and I think this is part of the reason I personally find Verdi more moving. Though I can be overwhelmed by the music in Wagner's operas, the plots and characters rarely move me to the same degree. Even Tristan's pain in the last act of *Tristan und Isolde *seems epic rather than human.


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## damianjb1 (Jan 1, 2016)

I used to love Verdi much more than Wagner but it's now reversed. I never seem to get to the 'bottom' of Wagner's operas. There's always further to go. Although Verdi is more congenial to divine singing than Wagner. When I want to hear a glorious voice singing glorious melodies then it's Verdi I'd turn to.


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

Tsaraslondon said:


> This is a huge generalisation, I know, but Verdi writes for the most part about real people rather than gods, monsters and myths and I think this is part of the reason I personally find Verdi more moving. Though I can be overwhelmed by the music in Wagner's operas, the plots and characters rarely move me to the same degree. Even Tristan's pain in the last act of *Tristan und Isolde *seems epic rather than human.


I though this too when I went to see Walkure. I would have no doubt greatly enjoyed a performance with great singers as it’s glorious music but sometimes it feels a little too epic. Too interested in heroism etc. Too heterosexual. But I do greatly enjoy the music and Tristan is one of my favourite operas.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Op.123 said:


> I though this too when I went to see Walkure. I would have no doubt greatly enjoyed a performance with great singers as it’s glorious music but sometimes it feels a little too epic. Too interested in heroism etc. Too heterosexual.


I doubt we want to go down that rabbit hole but I wonder where you would point to in Verdi for "less heterosexual" parts...


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## FrankE (Jan 13, 2021)

hammeredklavier said:


> the 200th birthday debate


He could have at least combed his hair for such an occasion.


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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

Kreisler jr said:


> I doubt we want to go down that rabbit hole but I wonder where you would point to in Verdi for "less heterosexual" parts...


As a straight woman, I do not find the romantic love in Verdi's operas to be very inspiring. He was more obsessed by fathers failing at fatherhood. 

As for the homosexual moments, Don Carlo and Roderigo Possa come to mind ;-)


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

BBSVK said:


> As a straight woman, I do not find the romantic love in Verdi's operas to be very inspiring. He was more obsessed by fathers failing at fatherhood.
> 
> As for the homosexual moments, Don Carlo and Roderigo Possa come to mind ;-)


Though the idea of a homoerotic relationship between Carlo and Posa is interesting, I doubt very much that Verdi considered it. It seems more likely that it is a twentieth/twenty-first century interpretation. 

As to your first point, I'd agree that Verdi's fathers are often fascinatingly flawed characters, but don't you find the selfless love Violetta has for Alfredo inspiring, or at least incredibly moving?


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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

Tsaraslondon said:


> ...don't you find the selfless love Violetta has for Alfredo inspiring, or at least incredibly moving?


Sometimes it is about the timing when you see the opera. As a child, I didn't quite comprehend what it is about. Later I happened to see la Traviatta, when I was in a pensive mood reflecting on my own relationships, and, you will be surprised, I was angry at Violetta to no end ! Alfredo was the person she should care about most, yet she was not treating him as an adult, did not involve him in the decision making, left him hurt and dumbfounded... No, this didn't happen to me, but I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of this selfless love.


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

Kreisler jr said:


> I doubt we want to go down that rabbit hole but I wonder where you would point to in Verdi for "less heterosexual" parts...


I’m not sure. There are occasional moments in Wagner which give me a slightly “let me pose for a photo holding this fish I just caught” feeling. But in a good performance that doesn’t matter too much. I love his operas very much. Verdi just appeals to me a little more, it’s more earthy, it doesn’t have the same grandiosity. Wagner suffers much more in atmosphere from poor performance too. Verdi just sounds bad with poor singers, whereas a poor performance of a Wagner opera sounds pompous, hollow and slightly silly.


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## ewilkros (8 mo ago)

Tsaraslondon said:


> This is a huge generalisation, I know, but Verdi writes for the most part about real people rather than gods...


Would it be facile to say that Verdi writes about real people as though they were gods, Wagner writes about gods as though they were real people, and they somehow meet in the middle?


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## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

BBSVK said:


> As a straight woman, I do not find the romantic love in Verdi's operas to be very inspiring. He was more obsessed by fathers failing at fatherhood.
> 
> As for the homosexual moments, Don Carlo and Roderigo Possa come to mind ;-)


Gustav III of Sweden depicted in _Un ballo in maschera _was gay. His real life murderer was a Swedish officer and wasn't his friend. Nothing is known about his private life. So modern directors could offer much in explaining to the audience of dramatic relationship between Gustavo-Riccardo and Renato. And what was the role of Oscar and Amelia?


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## ewilkros (8 mo ago)

ColdGenius said:


> Gustav III of Sweden depicted in _Un ballo in maschera _was gay. His real life murderer was a Swedish officer and wasn't his friend. Nothing is known about his private life. So modern directors could offer much in explaining to the audience of dramatic relationship between Gustavo-Riccardo and Renato. And what was the role of Oscar and Amelia?


There are several "passionate enemies" baritone-tenor matchups--DiLuna/Manrico. Carlo/Alvaro (Forza), Iago/Otello. Somethin' sublimated going on here? (Looking at you, Iago)


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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

Woodduck said:


> Yours is certainly an original view - so original that I can't understand it at all.


I'll remember this line for later use LOL !


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## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

ewilkros said:


> There are several "passionate enemies" baritone-tenor matchups--DiLuna/Manrico. Carlo/Alvaro (Forza), Iago/Otello. Somethin' sublimated going on here? (Looking at you, Iago)


I hesitated to disturb Iago... Carlo and Álvaro are an exemplary bromance.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Tsaraslondon said:


> This is a huge generalisation, I know, but Verdi writes for the most part about real people rather than gods, monsters and myths and I think this is part of the reason I personally find Verdi more moving. Though I can be overwhelmed by the music in Wagner's operas, the plots and characters rarely move me to the same degree. Even Tristan's pain in the last act of *Tristan und Isolde *seems epic rather than human.


Debussy, whose relationship to Wagner was definitely ambivalent, said "If Wagner had been a little more human he would have been altogether great." I think this is a common feeling. Dramatizing archetypes has its pitfalls, one of which is that beings on a superhuman scale may sometimes miss touching our humanity in the places where we normally live. Erotic passion that seems to stop time, obliterate the world, rend the fabric of the universe and transcend death may be something we experience in moments here and there, but not for three hours plus intermissions. It's only young people - certain susceptible ones - who imagine that sort of sustained agony and ecstasy to be possible or desirable. I find myself less inclined to indulge in the Wagner experience as I age, but since the young person who reveled in it remains alive inside this less energetic body, a great performance can still bring the magic back. Maybe I'm lucky that such performances are no longer possible (if they ever were). Wagner himself said that a great performance of _Tristan_ would drive people crazy.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

ewilkros said:


> Would it be facile to say that Verdi writes about real people as though they were gods, Wagner writes about gods as though they were real people, and they somehow meet in the middle?


I'd say that Wagner's gods are more like people than Verdi's people are like gods.


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## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

Woodduck said:


> Debussy, whose relationship to Wagner was definitely ambivalent, said "If Wagner had been a little more human he would have been altogether great." I think this is a common feeling. Dramatizing archetypes has its pitfalls, one of which is that beings on a superhuman scale may sometimes miss touching our humanity in the places where we normally live. Erotic passion that seems to stop time, obliterate the world, rend the fabric of the universe and transcend death may be something we experience in moments here and there, but not for three hours plus intermissions. It's only young people - certain susceptible ones - who imagine that sort of sustained agony and ecstasy to be possible or desirable. I find myself less inclined to indulge in the Wagner experience as I age, but since the young person who reveled in it remains alive inside this less energetic body, a great performance can still bring the magic back. Maybe I'm lucky that such performances are no longer possible (if they ever were). Wagner himself said that a great performance of _Tristan_ would drive people crazy.


O, Wodduck, you are absolutely right. But there are some thoughts. Young people, at least special ones you mention, could give the most powerful emotional response to Wagner. But opera, which stopped to be a part of pop-culture long ago, demands for certain intellectual and emotional background, which is usually accepted with age. Wagner is not an exception here, but his requirements are even more strict.


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