# Opera recommendations



## Patmulligan99 (Dec 10, 2020)

Hi everyone I am a classical piano player trying to explore some opera. I haven’t really found much that I enjoy. I’m looking for slower more relaxing opera. I like four last songs by Strauss. What actually got me interested is the original piece made for the Hannibal movie vide cor meum. I actually love that piece. I’m looking for opera pieces like that. Please open to any recommendations

Thanks!


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Patmulligan99 said:


> Hi everyone I am a classical piano player trying to explore some opera. I haven't really found much that I enjoy. I'm looking for slower more relaxing opera. I like four last songs by Strauss. What actually got me interested is the original piece made for the Hannibal movie vide cor meum. I actually love that piece. I'm looking for opera pieces like that. Please open to any recommendations
> 
> Thanks!


https://www.talkclassical.com/opera/

All the opera talk is in this thread


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## adriesba (Dec 30, 2019)

Hi, welcome to TC! 

I'm not very familiar with it, but from what others have said, _Pelléas et Mélisande _might be a good one to try. _Lohengrin_ might also have some of the qualities you are looking for.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

I have some favorite operas but will leave it to others who know more about it to guide you along. Just as classical music enthusiasts are a select, fanatical and unusual group; opera lovers are even MORE select, MORE fanatical, and MORE unusual; a select group within a select group, if you will.

On a smaller scale, I can help you with a few short works for voice and orchestra that you light like that are along the lines Richard Strauss' _Four Last Songs_, or maybe you already know of them:

Wagner's _Weisendonck Lieder_
Mahler's _Song of the Wayfarer_
Barber's _Knoxville: Summer of 1915_
Barber's _Dover Beach_ (for baritone and string quartet)
Britten's _Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings_


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## Kathy Sheinhouse (Dec 12, 2020)

I am an oboist. I really like opera too, but there are only a few good arrangements for oboe. I have the most fun exploring operatic romantic music that doesn't have to be directly linked to a specific opera. Good luck.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

It is hard to give you a recommendation. If you want to get into opera (and it is totally worth it), then you need to explore and put in some effort. My favorite opera is possibly Die tote Stadt. Slow operas are for example Tristand und Isolde or Pelleas and Mellissande. Another good start might be this movie/opera by Bartok


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

My intro into opera was Wagner's _Der Ring des Nibelungen_ - _Das Rheingold_ is rather easily approachable opera if you find Wagner's style appealing. However, as a go-to intro opera I would suggest _Lohengrin_ as aderiseba did above. It's wonderfully dreamy but the plot is less philosophical than that of _Tristan und Isolde_ (which is definitely not a "relaxing" opera anyways) or _Parsifal_. I also second _Die tote Stadt_ and _Pelléas et Mélisande_. Both are marvellous works! But then there's always an option to listen to Strauss' own operas - _Der Rosenkavalier_, for example. He had quite a unique style.

I think it would also be useful to read the plots and sample the operas. You'd understand their style of composition rather quickly. People get into opera through very many different works and composers - it's good to try a few .


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Kathy Sheinhouse said:


> I am an oboist. I really like opera too, but there are only a few good arrangements for oboe. I have the most fun exploring operatic romantic music that doesn't have to be directly linked to a specific opera. Good luck.


Piano variations are also very nice, welcome by the way .


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Patmulligan99 said:


> Hi everyone I am a classical piano player trying to explore some opera. I haven't really found much that I enjoy. I'm looking for slower more relaxing opera. I like four last songs by Strauss. What actually got me interested is the original piece made for the Hannibal movie vide cor meum. I actually love that piece. I'm looking for opera pieces like that. Please open to any recommendations
> 
> Thanks!


Here's the issue I see. Opera is not only music - it is also drama. And overall, dramas tend not to be relaxing. Certainly, the drama in Wagner occurs at a slower pace than in Verdi (a generalization, I know). And drama generally contains moments where the tension is relaxed. But a relaxed drama seems to me close to an oxymoron.

Having said that, my first suggestion would be _The Magic Flute_. And maybe _Der Rosenkavalier_.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

jegreenwood said:


> Here's the issue I see. Opera is not only music - it is also drama. And overall, dramas tend not to be relaxing. Certainly, the drama in Wagner occurs at a slower pace than in Verdi (a generalization, I know). And drama generally contains moments where the tension is relaxed. But a relaxed drama seems to me close to an oxymoron.
> 
> Having said that, my first suggestion would be _The Magic Flute_.


Good point!

For years I enjoyed excerpts fro opera without ever actually hearing a complete opera. I think the two are two different experiences. If you want to hear beautiful opera melodies and rousing "great moments" from opera, there's Puccini first and foremost, IMO. Then Verdi, and the other Italians such as Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti. Then there's Mozart and Gluck's _Orfeo_. I loved Wagner's excerpts, overtures, and preludes, without ever knowing hardly a thing about the content of his operas. Tchaikovsky's got a few good arias, as does, of all people, Rimsky-Korsakov, who despite being most well-known for _Scheherazade_ and a handful other things, was a prolific opera composer.

My first full-scale opera was Mussorgsky's _Boris Godunov_. I first came by Godunov when I purchased a set of 78 rpm records that featured the baritone/bass, Ezio Pinza, singing excerpts in an Italian translation, where Pinza plays both "Boris Godunov" and "Pimnen the Monk". Even in that version, I could recognize the power of Mussorgsky's musical vision. Later I watched Boris on TV, a PBS broadcast from the USSR, and then I purchased a complete set with George London as "Boris", and it's probably still my favorite opera. Although, I only know it in the Rimsky's edition which I understand is quite different from Mussorgsky's original conception.

Apart from that, there's a handful of other operas, in completion, that I've got to know and like. At one time I was determined to get to know all the great operas so I started in chronological order with Monteverdi's _L'Orfeo_ which I still like a lot, enough so that I purchased two versions of it, and Jordi Savall's really does _L'Orfeo_ in grand fashion! Somehow, after _L'Orfeo_ I got sidetracked and didn't continue chronologically, so I was done with one! I did get to like Puccini, _Turando_t and _Tosca_, being the only ones I've heard and liked from start to finish, and those are rich with melody and passion. _Vanessa_, by Samuel Barber and Gian-Carlo Menotti is a very lyrical, opera that I've come to like, as I'm a big fan of Barber's rich and warm style, and his way with the human voice (Barber himself was a fine baritone!). I really wanted to like Beethoven's _Fidelio_, as Beethoven is my favorite composer, but it never clicked with me. I like the minimalist operas, _Nixon in China_ by John Adams and _Akhnaten_ by Philip Glass, and for some reason, I also like Schoenberg's 12-tone opera, _Moses Und Aron_ to be a powerful interpretation on the book of Exodus.

But if you're looking to find something along the lines of Strauss' Four Last Songs, minimalism and 12-tone is probably not going to fit the bill.

My point is that if you want to hear beautiful sounds and beautiful singing the excerpts are as good a place to go, and you can probably pursue this task better by tracking down singers as opposed to composers by finding the "Greatest Hits" by Pavarotti, Domingo, Franco Corelli, Wunderlich, Leontyne Price, Jessye Norman (the FABULOUS Jessye Norman), Sumi Jo, Dietrich Fischer-Diskau, ect.

That way, in each collection, you'll get a nice survey of various composers of different styles, and you'll build a library of the beautiful opera moments without having to wade through an ocean of librettos, plot synopsis, recitatives, and waiting 45 minutes to hear the aria, duet, or chorus that may seem to make the whole process worth it.

Doing it the other way, where you want to become thoroughly engaged in the drama as well as the music, is fine too though, and is probably what will get you to understand the composers musical vision on a deeper and more profound level.

It all depends what you want to get out of it.


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