# time machine...



## ldiat (Jan 27, 2016)

if one could go back in time. what Opera would you like to be one of the first in the crowd to witness its debut??? why?? (yes these questions arise from taking antibiotic meds minds who were sick)
\


----------



## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Don Carlo (Verdi)- 1867 , why, .............just give it a spin and you know why!


----------



## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

This is an easy one! 5 March 1868 at La Scala, Milan

*Boito's Mefistofele*, because then I'd be able to hear the now lost scenes. I'd also have my future knowledge to know it was going to be a long evening so would be suitably fortified, and with accommodation arranged nearby at the Grand Hotel.

In true Back to the Future style, I will have an almanac to make bets on events to fund my stay, and to pay for subsequent passage to Munich for the premiere of Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg in June.

... and I'd have no interest in returning to the present day.


----------



## Star (May 27, 2017)

I would love to have been present for the first performance of the marriage of Figaro to witness the greatest single advance ever in the history of opera


----------



## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

M-e-f-I-s-t-o-f-e-l-e


----------



## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Pugg said:


> Don Carlo (Verdi)- 1867 , why, .............just give it a spin and you know why!


The version of Don Carlo on that DVD wasn't performed until 1886 (although it adds the opening chorus from the original French version). Do you know Don Carlos and which do you prefer (Don Carlos or Don Carlo?)

N.


----------



## ldiat (Jan 27, 2016)

Don Fatale said:


> This is an easy one! 5 March 1868 at La Scala, Milan
> 
> *Boito's Mefistofele*, because then I'd be able to hear the now lost scenes. I'd also have my future knowledge to know it was going to be a long evening so would be suitably fortified, and with accommodation arranged nearby at the Grand Hotel.
> 
> ...


so now why did someone "cut" or lose scenes?? why would one do that? thanks


----------



## Scott in PA (Aug 13, 2016)

I would have loved to be at the first Tristan to hear Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld and his wife Malvina sing the title roles. Hans von Bulow conducting. 

The Met did a performance of Siegfried in 1896 with Jean de Reszke and Nellie Melba. I believe it was Melba's only Wagner performance. That certainly would have been interesting!


----------



## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

ldiat said:


> so now why did someone "cut" or lose scenes?? why would one do that? thanks


It was famously a VERY long evening, and the audience was unable to appreciate at first listen Boito's quasi-Wagnerian style, although I admit such a term flatters his orchestrational abilities. So chastened, Boito is said to have cut a third of it by the time of its revival 7 years later, with further revisions to follow. We know that some goodies entered the opera after the premiere, so perhaps we're not missing so much. Still, it would be the most delicious rediscovery to find those lost sections, but it appears they are truly lost.


----------



## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

The Ring, of course.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I would say_ Parsifal,_ but I'd have wanted to attend both the first and the second perfomances. At the rehearsal before the first, the rotating stage machine that accomplished the transformation effect malfunctioned, and Wagner assigned to Engelbert Humperdinck the job of inserting several bars of additional music to be used until the device was repaired. Given Wagner's difficulties with his Bayreuth productions, he must have agreed with Engelbert's popular song "It's Not Unusual," but I think all went swimmingly at subsequent performances and Humperdinck's first aid bandage was discarded. So I would like to have been present for the first run of _Parsifal_, not only to experience the work in the house for which it was written and under the direction of the composer and his trusted maestro Hermann Levi, but to hear that non-Wagnerian bit of music - which really _was_ unusual.


----------



## waldvogel (Jul 10, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> I would say_ Parsifal,_ but I'd have wanted to attend both the first and the second perfomances. At the rehearsal before the first, the rotating stage machine that accomplished the transformation effect malfunctioned, and Wagner assigned to Engelbert Humperdinck the job of inserting several bars of additional music to be used until the device was repaired. Given Wagner's difficulties with his Bayreuth productions, he must have agreed with Engelbert's popular song "It's Not Unusual," but I think all went swimmingly at subsequent performances and Humperdinck's first aid bandage was discarded. So I would like to have been present for the first run of _Parsifal_, not only to experience the work in the house for which it was written and under the direction of the composer and his trusted maestro Hermann Levi, but to hear that non-Wagnerian bit of music - which really _was_ unusual.


"It's not Unusual" wasn't sung by the guy who stole his name from the composer of Hansel und Gretel, but by the guy who escaped from the 18th century novel, Tom Jones.


----------



## waldvogel (Jul 10, 2011)

For me, it's opening night at La Scala in 1887. A composer has come out of semi-retirement with a new opera written in the new Wagnerian style -but with all the dramatic and melodic sense that made this composer famous.

Yes, I'm talking about *Otello*.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

waldvogel said:


> "It's not Unusual" wasn't sung by the guy who stole his name from the composer of Hansel und Gretel, but by the guy who escaped from the 18th century novel, Tom Jones.


Thank you for clarifying that. There were indeed some great pop singers in 18th-century novels. It's little appreciated that Gulliver (whose real name was Kevin Gullifer Hopkins-Smith) had a great voice and was on concert tour when his ship was blown off course and he landed among the Brobdingnagians.


----------



## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

The Conte said:


> The version of Don Carlo on that DVD wasn't performed until 1886 (although it adds the opening chorus from the original French version). Do you know Don Carlos and which do you prefer (Don Carlos or Don Carlo?)
> 
> N.


Don Carlo,( with or without the epilogue) by a nose length.


----------



## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Pugg said:


> Don Carlo,( with or without the epilogue) by a nose length.


So Modena or Milan. I'd love to see a performance of the piece that includes the ballet and the only way to do that would probably be to go back in time and see the first Paris performance.

N.


----------

