# Opera hot takes and unpopular opinions



## amadeus1928 (Jun 16, 2021)

I am curious to know what some of your opera hot takes/unpopular opinions are. Here are some of mine:


I don't care for Richard Strauss.
Cosi Fan Tutte is extremely misunderstood. It is satirical and all of the characters are supposed to be terrible people.
If I see another person call Madama Butterfly a "beautiful story" I will get a brain aneurysm
I don't consider The Magic Flute to be a children's opera.
Opera nearly always sounds strange in English. Some exceptions would be stuff that was originally written in English (such as Gilbert and Sullivan).
Speaking of opera languages, I usually prefer to hear the opera in its original language. This isn't always the case though, but I am mostly talking about the opera being in English when it was actually originally in Italian or something.
My favorite Puccini opera is Il Trittico.
Although I really like Carmen it is extremely overperformed and we need to give Bizet's other works more attention.
Baroque and classical opera are inherently inferior to romantic opera. Especially baroque opera.
Tchaikovsky's operas need more attention.
I don't really like countertenors. They sound really strange to me (but there are some exceptions).
Wagner is actually somewhat overrated. But I don't hate him and his music is still good.
O Sole Mio doesn't count as opera.
Turandot is boring.
Literally the only thing I like about Lakme is that the music is very beautiful. But otherwise it is boring and I honestly kind of have issues with the story.
Leonore/Fidelio should be performed more.

I may share some more of my opinions later.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

I do care for Richard Strauss

Cosi is misogynist mince!

I agree about Butterfly. 

Nor do I but I do care that it is racist and misogynistic. 

I have no strong feelings about opera in English but I prefer any opera in its original language. (This covers two points)

Mine is Tosca. 

No strong feelings other than there is a good reason Carmen is more performed. It’s actually rather good!

Well that’s certainly one viewpoint. 

No they don’t. 

I love the countertenor voice. 

Wagner is not overrated.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

That's the beauty of opinions: They differ.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Unless they concur!


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

Here is surely a very unpopular opinion: I like The Flying Dutchman and Tannhauser more than Tristan and Isolde and Parsifal. Opera is not my favourite genre and I don't care about the story or visuals so maybe that explains, at least partly, my preference as I find the music of the early operas much more engaging.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

Barbebleu said:


> Unless they concur!


In which case, they are probably not unpopular!


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Thanks for this thread!
My hot takes have somewhat altered over time
For decades I was indifferent to male singers, but I've come to appreciate many of the great ones over time but never with the fervor of my divas.
Unlike the majority of this forum I am mad for Sutherland. I take solace in the fact that a large part of the opera world shares my views.
For many years I would never listen to Callas after her weight loss but this forum has pushed that up to the mid 50's when she was really hot. I can't listen to her all the time but once a month she can blow me away. 
I am more about the sound than the words, but if I see an opera live I want translations.
There are a few countertenors I would rather hear than any regular male singer today.
Appearance means more to me in men than women singers.
I seldom listen to complete operas but focus on arias and scenes.
The first half of the first act of Die Walkure is boring as hell to me but when it takes off the music is glorious. I am going to burn in hell for that.
I am mad for Alessandra Marc and I think I am the only person on here who shares that opinion.I
I don't listen to Fidelio much but it is one of my favorite operas I have seen in person and went to many performances.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

Rossini's famous comment about Wagner was correct.

Mozart's operas are beautiful and entertaining, but the music quickly become too "samey" and formulaic (with the exception of some parts of _Don Giovanni_).

I love Pavarotti (at least seems to be somewhat of an unpopular opinion around here)

_Der Freischütz_ is better than _Fidelio_ and _Die Zauberflote._

Monteverdi's _L'Orfeo_ is one of the finest operas of all time.

The quality of an opera's story is a significant factor as to whether I enjoy it. I recognize the greatness of the music in many Baroque, bel canto, and verismo operas; but the silly plots leave me disengaged. I much prefer operas based off of literature or mythology.

Enescu's _Oedipe_ is perhaps the greatest opera of the twentieth century.

Two operas that both feature some extraordinary set pieces but which mostly consist of boring, meandering conversations and monologues: _Tristan und Isolde_ and _Der Rosenkavalier_

I like countertenors (with exceptions, of course, just like all voice types).

"Real" operatic voices should not only be "allowed" but encouraged to sing Baroque music.

Famous singers whose talents I readily acknowledge but whose vocal timbres I can't stand: Sutherland, Te Kanawa, Fischer-Dieskau, Gedda, and (gasp!) Ponselle

I prefer listening to opera_ recordings_ to create the story in my head rather than watching it.

I'd rather listen to Humperdinck's _Hänsel und Gretel_ than several other more famous Romantic operas.

I really don't like Massenet.

I absolutely love Callas, but I don't really get the full-blown obsession that has developed around her.

_Eugene Onegin_ is better than the rest of Tchaikovsky's ouevre combined.

Mussorgsky and Janacek over Bellini and Donizetti any day.

I think that's enough spice thrown in the pot for now


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

- With the occasional exception of _Turandot_, the only last act of any Puccini opera that I can tolerate is _Gianni Schicchi_ :lol:

- The best opera based on Shakespeare's _Merry Wives of Windsor_ is Vaughan Williams' _Sir John in Love_

- I really dislike Birgit Nilsson's voice, both spoken and sung, to me it is like fingernails on a blackboard.

- A good performance in English is better than an average performance in the original language.

- My interest in almost all Verdi, Donizetti and Bellini waned as I matured.

- I can easily do without act 2 of_ Die Walkure_ (Rossini had it right.)

- _Gotterdammerung_ would be even better without the Norns.

- Counterternors? Arrrrrgh!


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

> I am mad for Alessandra Marc and I think I am the only person on here who shares that opinion.


No, you're not.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

> Enescu's Oedipe is perhaps the greatest opera of the twentieth century.


Definitely a contenda!



> I prefer listening to opera recordings to create the story in my head rather than watching it.


My preference as well. I get bored much of the time watching operas but I'm never bored when listening to them.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

What is really refreshing about this thread is I am hearing from people I am not familiar with including SanAntone. who has such excellent taste.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

OK, why not? I've been trapped in my apartment for the entire month of August by wildfire smoke and rampant Covid-19, so it probably wouldn't hurt me to blow off some steam. I mean some smoke. So here's a dirty dozen.

1.) I love Handel's arias, but whole Handel operas tax my patience and I can live without them.

2.) I don't like male roles sung by female singers. I would transpose all castrato roles down an octave and give them to men. This wouldn't have bothered Handel, as he approved alto and bass options for arias in _Messiah. _ (Yeah, countertenors are men, but...)

3.) I'm not really fond of any opera between Monteverdi and Beethoven - although, as with Handel, there are many wonderful arias. That includes you, Wolfie, but I do enjoy what Ingmar Bergman did with your _Flute,_ especially since Sarastro is seen studying the role of Gurnemanz backstage.

4.) The repetition, sometimes as many as four identical repetitions, of cadential words and phrases in Mozart's operas makes me want to throw something. It's a great relief to get to Beethoven and find such pointless musical formalities gone.

5.) I think _Fidelio_, along with its predecessor _Leonore,_ is a great opera, ironing board and all. The fact that we are shown scenes of ordinary life among people of no particular distinction only gives deeper meaning to courage and heroism, and makes a stronger statement about democratic values and the dignity of the individual. This would have meant a lot at that time in history, and it should now.

6.) The death of Weber at 39 was as great a loss to opera as the death of Mozart. _Der Freischutz_ is a unique and innovative masterpiece, _Euryanthe_ is flawed but fascinating, and Weber could have overlapped Wagner by several decades, further enriching German Romantic opera.

7.) I like Rossini only when he's funny. And no, I'm not tempted by fat Callas's high notes; if she had a decent bunch of tenors and decent sound I might give _Armida_ another try.

8.) I like Donizetti and Bellini only when they're sung better than they almost always are. But the older I get, the more I feel that way about nearly all opera.

9.) Meyerbeer will never be popular again. It isn't Wagner's fault.

10.) Of Verdi's trio of 1850s hits, I've enjoyed _Rigoletto_ and _La Traviata_ many times, but I can't recall ever sitting all the way through _Il Trovatore,_ in spite of its many fine numbers. That may be why I couldn't tell you the story if my life depended on it, except that the wrong baby was barbecued. Whether there's such a thing as the right baby being barbecued I don't know, but if you've promised a friend to do it at the sound of a distant horn you should probably keep your promise, even if your wife has just given birth right before your eyes.

And that's all I can remember about _Ernani._

11.) I don't think we need to be be much stricter about textual alterations to operas than the composers themselves were. Transposing an aria down to accommodate a singer's lack of a good high C is rarely an artistic crime. Similarly, not all musical numbers are equally good or dramatically essential, and judicious cutting can actually improve the flow of the action. These thing apply mainly to "numbers" operas, and cuts are generally damaging in, say, Wagner from the _Ring_ and _Tristan_ on, with apologies to aging backsides like mine. The "traditional" cuts in _Tristan_ may be justified as voice-savers for tenors, but it didn't turn out that way for poor Helge Brilioth at the Met in 1972, who ran out of voice anyway.

12.) I enjoyed _Elektra_ in the 1960s because I liked hearing Birgit Nilsson make child's play of it. She isn't here for it now, and so neither am I. I have enough trouble with my own family.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Why does it not surprise me that I agree with all of Woodduck’s points, with the possible exception of number 7. If I never heard Rossini again it would be a day too soon.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

OK. Here goes.

1. Like Allegro, I usually prefer to listen to _recordings_ so I can create the story and characters in my imagination. So many productions these days just annoy me as they seem to have been produced by people who don't have a musical bone in their bodies.

2. I make no apologies for loving Callas. She was one of the greatest _musicians_ of the twentieth century (not quite the same as saying she was one of the greatest _voices_, though in her prime it was certainly a very impressive instrument.)

3. I've given up on *Norma*. If Callas isn't singing it, I can't really be bothered. With her it's one of the greatest operatic masterpieces ever written. The ony singer who has even come close is Caballé in Orange. I'd even prefer to hear Callas in Paris in 1964/1965 to other sopranos in the role, for all that she's only comfortable in about 75% of it.

4. Unless listening to a recital I prefer to listen to a whole opera or at least an act at a time.

5, I don't object to cuts. In fact sometime I prefer them (Germont's tediously banal cabaletta in Act II of *Traviata* anyone? He's already held up the action long enough wth _Di Provenza il mar_, beautiful though it is. The sooner Alfredo interrupts him the better.)

6. I like Wagner but I don't worship at the shrine and I'm still finding *Parsifal* a hard nut to crack. And he's very time consuming. Listening to a Wagner opera is quite a commitment.

7. Sutherland usually irritates the hell out of me. The appalling diction really annoys me.

8. I really dislike *Wozzeck*, *Lulu* and *Moses and Aaron*. In fact there are very few "modern" operas I do like. I like Britten but that's almost it when it comes to operas written after WWII.

9. Verdi is King, but Berlioz might have been if he had written more operas.

10. Corelli comes in for a great deal more praise than he warrants. I absolutely agree that the voice was a magnificent instrument and he was a charismatic performer, but, without a strong hand at the helm, he could be a vulgar singer and I wish he'd steered clear of French opera altogether. (Ducking for cover).

That'll do for now.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I'm not interested in operas before Rossini and von Weber, not even Mozart and certainly not Handel.
Although I like/love Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti and Puccini, I can do without Verdi.
Wagner is my favourite opera composer, but I can't get into the Meistersinger.
Atonal is in general fine with me, but not in opera - not even Berg.
I love lots of English operas, but can't stand non-English operas sung in English.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> Here is surely a very unpopular opinion: I like The Flying Dutchman and Tannhauser more than Tristan and Isolde and Parsifal.


If one adds in "Lohengrin" I think that this is/was the popular opinion until quite recently, if one goes by "broad" popularity, not preferences among card-carrying Wagnerians. 
In Germany and probably Austria, excerpts like the ouvertures of these operas, the sailor's or pilgrims' choruses and of course the notorious bridal chorus were really popular among people who would never sit through all of Tristan or Parsifal.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

amadeus1928 said:


> I am curious to know what some of your opera hot takes/unpopular opinions are. Here are some of mine:
> 
> Cosi Fan Tutte is extremely misunderstood. It is satirical and all of the characters are supposed to be terrible people.


I don't think the satirical dimension is completely missed by most listeners. But I don't agree that it's only satirical; the characters are as terrible as most people are... After all, cheating on a partner or not is far closer to most peoples life experiences than trying to get a partner out of a dungeon.



> I don't consider The Magic Flute to be a children's opera.


It obviously isn't a children's opera.



> Baroque and classical opera are inherently inferior to romantic opera. Especially baroque opera.


That's wrong but hardly unpopular, at least with respect to baroque, not to the best of Gluck and Mozart. It was the received wisdom until a few decades ago and almost taken for granted in all the opera guides or popular music history introductions I read as a teenager in the late 1980s.



> I don't really like countertenors. They sound really strange to me (but there are some exceptions).


They were almost never used in actual 18th century baroque opera. If there were not enough castrati, women were used for their roles.



> Leonore/Fidelio should be performed more.


Do you mean the older versions in particular or the standard final version or any?


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> _Der Freischütz_ is better than _Fidelio_ and _Die Zauberflöte._


I dont think it is but it is a marvellous piece and internationally underrated compared to the other two. They are all slightly flawed (but virtually all operas are) and none is great as a model for writing operas because they are all three quite unique (which was a problem of the early romantic German opera).



> Monteverdi's _L'Orfeo_ is one of the finest operas of all time.


I think this is not an unpopular opinion but maybe it is more frequently uttered because of reverence for the "first opera" of history.



> The quality of an opera's story is a significant factor as to whether I enjoy it. I recognize the greatness of the music in many Baroque, bel canto, and verismo operas; but the silly plots leave me disengaged. I much prefer operas based off of literature or mythology.


But the Baroque operas are often based on mythology and still silly... it is not a contradiction.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> Mozart's operas are beautiful and entertaining, but the music quickly become too "samey" and formulaic (with the exception of some parts of _Don Giovanni_).


"In Mozart's time, the symphonic tone poem did not yet exist, but passages in Idomeneo show that Mozart was a born master of the genre, painting with iridescent orchestral color. The circumstances of this opera inspired Mozart to enter a musical world that he never again had an opportunity to revisit." https://packhum.org/idomeneo.html


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Woodduck said:


> OK, why not? I've been trapped in my apartment for the entire month of August by wildfire smoke and rampant Covid-19, so it probably wouldn't hurt me to blow off some steam. I mean some smoke. So here's a dirty dozen.
> 
> 1.) I love Handel's arias, but whole Handel operas tax my patience and I can live without them.


I have not seen any on stage but they apparently can work well. I have seen Purcell's _Dido and Aeneas_ which is very short and a great piece and even the silly _King Arthur_ on stage which is saved by the great music. I think Handel's (and others) high/late baroque operas are just a bit too long. His _Acis and Galatea_ is fine at about 90 min although quite modest in overall emotional scope and limited in characters. A full Seria of 2 hours might be short enough but the typical 3 hours is taxing for me as well. (It gets much better immediately with the slightly shorter and more varied (because of choirs etc.) dramatic oratorios like _Saul_ or _Semele_.)



> 5.) I think _Fidelio_, along with its predecessor _Leonore,_ is a great opera, ironing board and all. The fact that we are shown scenes of ordinary life among people of no particular distinction only gives deeper meaning to courage and heroism, and makes a stronger statement about democratic values and the dignity of the individual. This would have meant a lot at that time in history, and it should now.


I agree. It is one of the greatest operas but seems much maligned by a certain type of opera lover or maybe also by a certain type of Beethoven lover. I also think it is musically often underrated because people either take it for granted that Beethoven writes great music or they get hung up on one or two pieces using operatic clichés (the "Gold" aria and Pizarro's revenge fantasy). Even Marzelline's aria on the ironing board has that incredibly middle section that combines the hope for love and the escape from all the restrictions of her current situation, it's basically a proto-feminist piece. 



> 6.) The death of Weber at 39 was as great a loss to opera as the death of Mozart. _Der Freischutz_ is a unique and innovative masterpiece, _Euryanthe_ is flawed but fascinating, and Weber could have overlapped Wagner by several decades, further enriching German Romantic opera.


I think it was a far greater loss. Mozart achieved almost everything that could be expected (he certainly did in opera, I think) but Weber (who might be my favorite "flawed/promising" composer) left only _Freischütz_ as a piece that actually works on stage. It's marvellous but I think too unique to serve as the main good example for German Romantic opera. With another 10 years and improving upon _Euryanthe_ and _Oberon_ in stageability Weber might have produced operas on the level of _Lohengrin_.


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## mjohnh18 (Apr 13, 2017)

1) The only act of La bohéme worth listening to is Act III. The even-numbered acts of that opera are just plain bad. For the most part I agree with Britten's assessment of it.

2) Cav/Pag are both better works than anything Puccini composed (with the exception of Fanciulla).

2) Wagner may have been more influential, but Strauss is just as good of a composer.

3) Sutherland's middle and lower voices are incredibly ugly.

4) Most comic operas don't work. At all.

5) Handel/Rossini/Mozart are meant to be sung by big voices, not small, pinched voices as is so prevalent today.

6) Zeani is probably the greatest operatic singer on record. Her artistry is as impressive as Callas', and her voice is much more beautiful.

7) I have no idea why Scotto became so famous. Some praise her acting, I find it very distasteful. Her voice is even more distasteful.

8) Verdi is probably the greatest opera composer of all time because he was so consistently good across his three "periods." Nabucco and Macbeth are masterpieces, so are Rigoletto and Boccanegra, and so are Don Carlo, Aida, and Otello. 

9) The Epilogue to Billy Budd is the best ending of any opera I've listened to.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

1. Ernani's horn
2. Cosi
3. Merry Widow
4. Rossini stuff(except the Cat Song)
5. Dancing (except occasional)
6. Eurotrash and Regi
7. Most English (Menotti fare excepted)
8. Hubristic directors who change composers' intent
9. E ta-a-a-ardi done by almost every Violetta
10. The overly dramatic Adriana reading done by anybody
11. Live animals onstage
12. Phony curtain calls (Gheorghiu/Netrebko/Grigolo)
13. La Rondine
14. "Stage business" that disrupts singers and singing
15. Singers that stand and deliver
16. Lovers who never even look at one another
17. Standing ovations to a fault
18. The applauders before the orchestra stops and the curtain comes down
19. Applause that breaks a mood at solemn moments (Otello's Ave Maria)
20. Unrealistic casting


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

1. I rarely listen to an entire opera in one sitting. I often prefer to tackle one act at a time as I can struggle to keep focused after an hour or so.

2. If all we had were the plots, I'd never have given opera a second thought. I find many libretti highly contrived and cliche-ridden with one-dimensional characters and ridiculous situations. Great music pulls me through this stuff, fortunately. Thank goodness for lovely voices, burnished orchestras, and innovative costumes and scenery!

3. Handel operas can also tax my patience - but due to intense feelings of guilt, I like to blame that on my abysmal attention span.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Aside from *Mozart*, *Rossini*, *Verdi*, and *Puccini*, I can live without all the rest, with the exception of _Pelléas et Mélisande_.

20th century opera, especially works like _Wozzeck_, _Lulu_, and _Moses und Aron_, are beyond ugly and unlistenable to me. Operatically trained singers wobbling, hooting, and shrieking atonal melodies is one definition of torture.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

nina foresti said:


> 17. Standing ovations to a fault


Tell me about it! I remember the days when standing ovations were reserved for something really impressive. Nowadays people stand for anything. I've been twice to the theatre (both musicals) and both were very good and we enjoyed them, but I didn't think they warranted the near hysterical standing ovation at the end. It annoys me because I can only see the stage by standing up also, though I usually defiantly refuse to - unless, as already stated, I've been REALLY impressed.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

SanAntone said:


> 20th century opera, especially *works like Wozzeck*, _Lulu_, and _Moses und Aron_, *are beyond ugly and unlistenable to me*. Operatically trained singers wobbling, hooting, and shrieking atonal melodies is one definition of torture.


After about 20 minutes of Wozzeck, I vowed to myself to never again listen to whatever abomination that is supposed to be cause it sure ain't music.


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> After about 20 minutes of Wozzeck, I vowed to myself to never again listen to whatever abomination that is supposed to be cause it sure ain't music.


What is your definition of music?


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

Yeesh, I guess I should have added the fact that I love _Wozzeck_ and _Moses und Aron_ to my unpopular opinions!


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

1. I can't tolerate Italian opera except for Puccini and Verdi.

2. Major opera singers taking a turn at Baroque opera are difficult to endure with their tendency to overwhelm the proceedings.

3. All the gushing praise for Callas who I can easily live without. She's only human like the rest of us.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

1. I love Callas warts and all, but prefer her fat, even though I appreciate her artistry in 1954/1955 and beyond.

2. I love Franco Corelli's voice and can forgive his faults.

3. I love *Lohengrin*, *Der Ring des Nibelungen*, but for the rest, I'd cut or shorten his other operas especially *Tristan*, *Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg*, *Parsifal*.

4. I love the Mozart/Da Ponte operas, but I think I prefer to _listen_ to them rather than see them. They can have _longueurd_ and be deadly dull.

5. The point of Händel operas was to display voices . Every repetition should have variations to show off the singers' mastery.

6. *Der Rosenkavalier* is unbearable in its comedy. German "humor" is not funny to me. The duets and trios with the sopranos/mezzo, though, are heavenly.

7. Aside from "Marietta's Lied," I can do without *Die Tote Stadt*.

8. I am sick of *Carmen*, too. As well as *Tosca*, *La Boheme* in the theatre.

9. They can't cast decent opera these days. My golden opera seasons were in the 1970s and 1980s.

10. I went to the opera for thirty years unwittingly looking for Callas's successor. Never found her. That is why we have the Cult of Callas.

11. Any opera production with the singers in modern dress (street clothes) is like a rehearsal to me. Unless the libretto requires it. 
Opera should be a fantasy, be magical.

12. Did Callas' ascendancy make it OK for the singers that followed to have obviously flawed techniques? Are the wobbly voices of singers today allowed because of her!

13. I am sick of Placido Domingo. He should've retired decades ago and his baritone period is preventing younger singers from taking the stage.

14. I detest the controversy over "blackface." Should we only cast Black singers in Black roles? Are there good Black *Otello* tenors? Or *Aida*s? Should only Japanese sopranos be cast in *Madama Butterfly*? Similarly, should there be no black, Asian, Hispanic, chorus members of operas that take place in 16th or 17th, or 18th Century Venice, or Sweden, or England where it would anachronistic for them to be there? Let's get back the Egyptian makeup! It's _just makeup! _ not an insult to members of a race!

15. Oh, yeah, Ponselle is not a good *Norma* just because she had an aria or duet successfully recorded. Sheesh! Also, I find her somewhat awkward in some sections in fast passage work in *Norma* and *La Traviata *. So there! 

16. I don't mind cuts in operas - I never was a fan of the every-note-the-composer-wrote must be included school. So, if *Don Carlo* is cut, and I'd never heard the ur-complete version, I probably wouldn't notice, especially in this opera.

17. Speaking of *Don Carlo*, i prefer the opera in Italian - it sounds to me more effective!

There's is much more where that came from!


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

I like your style. Let's do this!

1) Most Italian operas have the most absurd, borderline-histrionic plots imaginable. You do NOT listen to an Italian opera for the plot unless the libretto is based on another work (ex: Macbeth)
2) The majority of "baroque singers" sound like a cross between a castrated court eunuch, an old woman and a dorky theatre kid 
3) Actually, the entire opera world has been hijacked by malignant gay men with bizarre, gaudy tastes (speaking as a gay man, and someone who knows plenty of other gay men who are wonderful, and I can guarantee you there are plenty of wonderful gay men here who know I'm right)
4) Rossini's best works are his dramatic operas (and there are several), not his comedies. 
5) Turandot is a narcissist 
6) Marilyn Horne sounds like a cafeteria lady. 
7) Maria Callas had screechy high notes for over half her career. The lower half of her voice is 10x better than any other soprano in history, but the degree to which people sweep the problems related to head voice under the rug is really something.
8) *Carmen...is...NOT...a...soprano...role!*
9) Fewer and fewer boys are interested in opera because it's been leeched of all it's masculinity (especially in the states). If you go back to the days of Robert Merrill, Mario del Monaco, Jerome Hines and even lyric tenors like Beniamino Gigli and Giuseppe di Stefano, the majority of singers had plenty of masculinity without sounding boorish or overly aggressive. 
10) If you don't have a well produced voice, I don't care how good you dynamics are, how "expressive" you are, how good your "musicianship" is (the people who go on about this are often the people for whom it is the worst), or how well you can act. You cannot sing.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Maria Callas consistently (and no doubt intentionally) sang out of tune -- i.e., too sharp. It can work for a single aria, but any longer and it becomes irritating.

Pavarotti was a great tenor in his prime, and so was Placido Domingo, but by the time The Three Tenors came along, Jose Carreras was by far the best of the three.

It is not possible to sit all the way through most of Wagner's operas. His music is best heard in excerpt form.

That's all I can do before some of you would get way too upset.



BalalaikaBoy said:


> I like your style. Let's do this!
> 7) Maria Callas had screechy high notes for over half her career. The lower half of her voice is 10x better than any other soprano in history, but the degree to which people sweep the problems related to head voice under the rug is really something.


Yes, and imho that's because especially her high notes tended to be sharp, I suspect intentionally for dramatic effect, a technique others have copied. I think the rest of your points are very good too, only I think many would agree with them. As for gay men in opera, well, I happen to know personally two who may be among those you criticize (one of them, anyway), but overall the contribution of gay men to opera and classical music generally has been enormous. And not just by Tchaikovsky.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

MAS said:


> I love the Mozart/Da Ponte operas, but I think I prefer to _listen_ to them rather than see them. They can have _longueurd_ and be deadly dull.


That's really interesting. I've always felt that I'd rather see them than listen to them at home. Among other things, you can't make enough trips to the refrigerator or the toilet to fill all those musically vacuous recitatives. I thoroughly enjoyed _Nozze_ live and _Cosi_ on video, but can't get through either of them on recordings.



> *Der Rosenkavalier* is unbearable in its comedy. German "humor" is not funny to me. The duets and trios with the sopranos/mezzo, though, are heavenly.


My feelings, too, about _Rosenkavalier._ That woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman makes me want to claw my eyes out.



> They can cast decent opera these days. My golden opera seasons were in the 1970s and 1980s.


You must mean "can't," unless you're Rip van Winkle.



> I detest the controversy over "blackface." Should we only cast Black singers in Black roles? Are there good Black *Otello* tenors? Or *Aida*s? Should only Japanese sopranos be cast in *Madama Butterfly*? Similarly, should there be no black, Asian, Hispanic, chorus members of operas that take place in 16th or 17th, or 18th Century Venice, or Sweden, or England where it would anachronistic for them to be there? Let's get back the Egyptian makeup! It's _just makeup! _ not an insult to members of a race!


Yes (sigh). It's the sort of PC nonsense - rooted in an insecurity so intense that it tries to make the whole world a safe space - that would make me embarrassed to be politically liberal if the alternative were not more horrible still.



> There's is much more where that came from!


The dam is broken.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> You must mean "can't," unless you're Rip van Winkle.


I do indeed mean _can't _. Thanks for catching that!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> The majority of "baroque singers" sound like a cross between a castrated court eunuch, an old woman and a dorky theatre kid


That leaves only the kid to do the dirty deed.



> Actually, the entire opera world has been hijacked by malignant gay men with bizarre, gaudy tastes (speaking as a gay man, and someone who knows plenty of other gay men who are wonderful, and I can guarantee you there are plenty of wonderful gay men here who know I'm right)


...as well as some who don't know what you're talking about. Evidently there are advantages to being more or less in the closet and accepting visitors by invitation only.



> *Carmen...is...NOT...a...soprano...role!*


How about having her sung by a malignant gay man with bizarre, gaudy tastes?



> Fewer and fewer boys are interested in opera because it's been leeched of all it's masculinity (especially in the states). If you go back to the days of Robert Merrill, Mario del Monaco, Jerome Hines and even lyric tenors like Beniamino Gigli and Giuseppe di Stefano, the majority of singers had plenty of masculinity without sounding boorish or overly aggressive.


There's something going on here...

But seriously (can we do serious here?), we don't need to reach that far for an explanation. Fewer people of all sorts, as a proportion of the population, are interested in opera, and the malignant gay producers of television programs aren't bringing it to them as their benign straight (or closeted) predecessors did. It's hard to get interested in something you never hear or see.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

fluteman said:


> Maria Callas consistently (and no doubt intentionally) sang out of tune -- i.e., too sharp. It can work for a single aria, but any longer and it becomes irritating.
> 
> Pavarotti was a great tenor in his prime, and so was Placido Domingo, but by the time The Three Tenors came along, Jose Carreras was by far the best of the three.
> 
> ...


I've seen Parsifal, Gotterdammerung and Siegfried with great casts and gorgeous sets and they did not seem overly long. Last night the first half of the first act of Walkure at an outside venue with amplification and a hidden stage from my seat except for two tvs with no translation and it felt endless. It got better after they fell in love as the music is so grand and the singers were wonderful.

I mostly listen to early Callas before '56 and I don't hear the sharp bit except for the fact that she has a ton of squillo which could make you hear sharp with all the overtones. I hear her singing on pitch. I am not a Callas expert, though.

I agree about the Three Tenors. It really wasn't opera as it was amplified. Sorry, I am old fashioned. Carreras's best days were also well behind him. He was great when young and so gorgeous. 
BTW I don't know how to do the quote thingy.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

fluteman said:


> Maria Callas consistently (and no doubt intentionally) sang out of tune -- i.e., too sharp. It can work for a single aria, but any longer and it becomes irritating [...] imho that's because especially her high notes tended to be sharp, I suspect intentionally for dramatic effect, a technique others have copied.


This made me very curious, as I've been listening to Callas all my life and have a fine sense of pitch. What I think you're hearing is mostly an effect of vibrato. Vibrato does entail a variation of pitch, and singer's vibratos vary in the ways the pitches are touched upon. In some singers the center of the tone seems more toward the trough (bottom) of the pitch span, in some more toward the crest (top). With Callas, on high notes, the written/sung pitch is more toward the trough, which puts the larger part of the vibrato's pitch span above the written/sung note. This is quite common in singers' high notes, and can add an extra excitement to them. Of course it can be excessive, and given Callas' increasing problem with high notes its presence is not always pleasant.

Dipping into some Callas on YouTube, I don't hear anything like a "consistent" sharpness in her singing. Her intonation is generally very good, and better than some singers, among whom flattening - true flattening - of high notes is not uncommon.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I've seen Parsifal, Gotterdammerung and Siegfried with great casts and gorgeous sets and they did not seem overly long. Last night the first half of the first act of Walkure at an outside venue with amplification and a hidden stage from my seat except for two tvs with no translation and it felt endless. It got better after they fell in love as the music is so grand and the singers were wonderful.
> 
> I mostly listen to early Callas before '56 and I don't hear the sharp bit except for the fact that she has a ton of squillo which could make you hear sharp with all the overtones. I hear her singing on pitch. I am not a Callas expert, though.
> 
> ...


I don't hear the Callas sharp singing either, but Stefan Zucker says she sings with _scatto_, and emphasizes the last syllable of some of the phrases she sang, which might've given the impression she sang sharp? Most of the time she had Impeccable tuning. In her late career when he was so insecure, her intonation could suffer.

https://www.belcantosociety.org/store/audio/musicdownloads/medea-callas-2/

On your comment about Wagner operas, if you have great singers, his operas can seem shorter. If you don't like one of 
his operas, though, it can seem interminable! In a performance of *Meistersinger * in San Francisco, a friend was singing in the final chorus, so I had to stay until the end and it was sheer torture!


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

MAS said:


> I don't hear the Callas sharp singing either, but Stefan Zucker says she sings with _scatto_, and emphasizes the last syllable of some of the phrases she sang, which might've given the impression she sang sharp? Most of the time she had Impeccable tuning. In her late career when he was so insecure, her intonation could suffer.
> 
> https://www.belcantosociety.org/store/audio/musicdownloads/medea-callas-2/
> 
> ...


In the Lucia sextet when Callas hits that isolated high note dead center on pitch it was sensational! 
I remember you hated Meistersinger LOL


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I agree about the Three Tenors. It really wasn't opera as it was amplified. Sorry, I am old fashioned. Carreras's best days were also well behind him. He was great when young and so gorgeous.


Yes, though I happen to be a straight man, I have to agree the young Carreras was a good looking guy. The surprising thing is -- so was Pavarotti! There's a picture of him shirtless when he was in his teens. Completely ripped, sixpack abs, thin as can be. And a great young voice. Alas, in middle age, as his voice dried and thinned out, he only performed more and more, so that's what many people remember best.

The Three Tenors were all charisma and star power. The three voices were well past their prime.



Seattleoperafan said:


> In the Lucia sextet when Callas hits that isolated high note dead center on pitch it was sensational!
> I remember you hated Meistersinger LOL


Don't hate it, just can't sit through the whole thing in one go. And playing even excerpts was hard work, even when I was young.

As for Callas, yes, she could sing in tune, she wasn't Florence Foster Jenkins. But she had a technique for sharpening climactic passages. I see from a quick search this has been discussed here at TC before. And certainly elsewhere. So I'll let it go. Agree, or not.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Seattleoperafan said:


> In the Lucia sextet when Callas hits that isolated high note dead center on pitch it was sensational!
> I remember you hated Meistersinger LOL


As I recall, Joanie did a pretty good job with that note, especially in the 1960s!


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

I was just reading-watching an episode of *The Gilmore Girls*, in which one of the minor characters says to the fat lady: "Did you hear Marilyn Horne is really a man? I hadn't heard that one in a really long time.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

SanAntone said:


> No, you're not.


I just gave Alessandra a positive review of her Tucker Gala win performance on Youtube and she wrote me a nice thank you reply!


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I just gave Alessandra a positive review of her Tucker Gala win performance on Youtube and she wrote me a nice thank you reply!


This recital CD was my introduction to her:


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

-Singers with large, projected voices, Tebaldi, Milanov, 50s Callas, Nilsson, etc. can be forgiven for their tendencies to sing slightly off-pitch, especially on high notes.

-Mushy diction ruins even an otherwise great voice.

-Great modern operas are equal as works of art to the operas of the romantic era, albeit very different.

-Comic operas are rarely as successful as tragedies and are, for the most part, light entertainment.

-Renata Scotto had an extremely unpleasant voice.

-If performed, operas with harmful racial stereotypes, such as Turandot, should be staged with as much care as possible.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

SanAntone said:


> This recital CD was my introduction to her:


Probably many people's introduction. I picked up a used copy and was stunned by the beauty and focus of her voice.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

Celloman said:


> What is your definition of music?


So my comment was a hyperbole and not meant to be taken literally that Wozzeck is not music. 
But I do find it utterly dull and missing anything even remotely close to engaging.

I don't like any of Berg's works so keep that in mind for context.


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> So my comment was a hyperbole and not meant to be taken literally that Wozzeck is not music.
> But I do find it utterly dull and missing anything even remotely close to engaging.
> 
> I don't like any of Berg's works so keep that in mind for context.


Have you heard his Violin Concerto? It's quite dramatic, melodic, and even transcendent in places. That might be a foot in the door - if you're up for that sort of thing.

But to each his/her own.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

Celloman said:


> Have you heard his Violin Concerto? It's quite dramatic, melodic, and even transcendent in places. That might be a foot in the door - if you're up for that sort of thing.
> 
> But to each his/her own.


I did give it a try a couple of times a few years ago - no success. I might give it another go soon, who knows, I might have matured to appreciate it.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Op.123 said:


> -Singers with large, projected voices, Tebaldi, Milanov, 50s Callas, Nilsson, etc. can be forgiven for their tendencies to sing slightly off-pitch, especially on high notes.


_hard_ disagree on this one. to me, that's like saying an orchestra is okay playing out of tune because they're performing the soundtrack of the Lord of the Rings. opera must always be beautiful, musical and melodious. even Callas, one you mentioned, was quotes as saying "music is supposed to sooth the ear, this is why I don't agree with modern music). Spend a week listening to Kirsten Flagstad, Frida Lieder, Elena Nicolai, Fiorenza Cossotto and Rosa Ponselle and tell me if you still disagree 

PS: Nilsson pretty much never sang out of tune. she is the epitome of a dramatic soprano with laser-like precision and high notes without an ounce of strain.



> -Mushy diction ruins even an otherwise great voice.


this isn't a deal breaker for me, but I understand the sentiment



> -Great modern operas are equal as works of art to the operas of the romantic era, albeit very different.


not saying you're wrong, but, such as?



> -Comic operas are rarely as successful as tragedies and are, for the most part, light entertainment.


yes



> -Renata Scotto had an extremely unpleasant voice.


yes



> -If performed, operas with harmful racial stereotypes, such as Turandot, should be staged with as much care as possible.


Turandot is basically from an imaginary kingdom in Asia. it's not closely based enough on a culture to really be stereotyping anyone (and if it were, it would be like the equivalent of stereotyping the Roman Empire or the court of Henry the VIII, not stereotyping anything connected to a modern culture)


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## silentio (Nov 10, 2014)

This thread is a good place for me to confess that I find many of Verdi's popular tenor arias, especially the cabaletta, very cringey. Just simply can't stand _"Questa o quella"_, _"La donna è mobile"_,_"Di quella pira"_, "O mio rimorso" etc. There is something about these melodies that irritate me. But I like his music for tenor post-La forza del destino.

Chorus is another thing in opera I find cringey more often than not. There are very few operas that I can enjoy the chorus, like Idomeneo, Gotterdammerung (the music for the choir is savage!), Parsifal, Simon Boccanegra, Otello, Benvenuto Cellini, and Carmen.

I think Handel and earlier music are hampered by the lackluster singing of HIP "specialists" (I think could put it worse but don't want to stir up a modern vs. old singers debate here). Of course, the music is too static and episodic for the modern taste, not to mention those damn recitatives that only their composers can love. But we have such great examples like "_Care selve_" sung by Norena and Quartararo, or "_Ombra mai fu_" by Wunderlich to appreciate how transcendental they can be. With voices like that, and with conductors like Toscanini, Beecham or Dorati, I don't mind a 3-4 hour opera with an incredibly stupid plot.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

amadeus1928 said:


> Wagner is actually somewhat overrated. But I don't hate him and his music is still good.


What could Wagner change to earn a higher, non-overrated rating? He had the entirety of the holocaust thrust upon his works, and yet he still prevails, and will for all eternity, his works are just that good. But no, I look forward to your pronouncements of Wagner's disquality, your lecturing opinion more important and severe than 6 million dead Jews. Tough order, my dear. Wouldn't want to be in your shoes! :tiphat:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Couchie said:


> What could Wagner change to earn a higher, non-overrated rating? He had the entirety of the holocaust thrust upon his works, and yet he still prevails, and will for all eternity, his works are just that good. But no, I look forward to your pronouncements of Wagner's disquality, your lecturing opinion more important and severe than 6 million dead Jews. Tough order, my dear. Wouldn't want to be in your shoes! :tiphat:


He said only _somewhat_ overrated, green man. Let's take "somewhat" to mean something approximate to microscopically, infinitesimally and imperceptibly, but unquestionably, by any measure, insignificantly and inconsequentially. This will still not satisfy you or me, but then what _does_ (other than Wagner, I mean)?


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> _hard_ disagree on this one. to me, that's like saying an orchestra is okay playing out of tune because they're performing the soundtrack of the Lord of the Rings. opera must always be beautiful, musical and melodious. even Callas, one you mentioned, was quotes as saying "music is supposed to sooth the ear, this is why I don't agree with modern music). Spend a week listening to Kirsten Flagstad, Frida Lieder, Elena Nicolai, Fiorenza Cossotto and Rosa Ponselle and tell me if you still disagree
> 
> PS: Nilsson pretty much never sang out of tune. she is the epitome of a dramatic soprano with laser-like precision and high notes without an ounce of strain.
> 
> ...


A) I more meant that I'd rather listen to well-sized voices that occasionally sing a slightly flat high C than small, constricted voices singing perfectly on pitch. Nilsson's high notes were very good but her middle could be pitchy sometimes, especially outside her main repertoire.

B) Modern operas such as Saariaho's L'Amour de Loin, Birtwistle's Mask of Orpheus and so on. There are a good number of really first class operas written in the past 50 years.

C) Turandot has a trio of characters named Ping, Pang and Pong, exhibits two of the main fetishizations of Asian women, the 'evil dragon lady' as Turandot and the 'lotus blossom' as Liu and productions frequently use appropriated costumes, makeup and set design.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> He said only _somewhat_ overrated, green man. Let's take "somewhat" to mean something approximate to microscopically, infinitesimally and imperceptibly, but unquestionably, by any measure, insignificantly and inconsequentially.


Exactly. It's kind of like how you didn't specify what you meant by "something" in _"The repetition, sometimes as many as four identical repetitions, of cadential words and phrases in Mozart's operas makes me want to throw something."_ [#13]
But I (naturally) take it to mean: _"The repetition, sometimes as many as four identical repetitions, of cadential words and phrases in Mozart's operas makes me want to (snatch and) throw his fluffy powdered wig as far away as I can, shouting "Clarity! Control! Containment! ay Caramba!**""_
(btw, I still think it was Cute of you to have said it**, LOL.)


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

silentio said:


> This thread is a good place for me to confess that I find many of Verdi's popular tenor arias, especially the cabaletta, very cringey. Just simply can't stand _"Questa o quella"_, _"La donna è mobile"_,_"Di quella pira"_, "O mio rimorso" etc. There is something about these melodies that irritate me. But I like his music for tenor post-La forza del destino.
> 
> Chorus is another thing in opera I find cringey more often than not. There are very few operas that I can enjoy the chorus, like Idomeneo, Gotterdammerung (the music for the choir is savage!), Parsifal, Simon Boccanegra, Otello, Benvenuto Cellini, and Carmen.
> 
> I think Handel and earlier music are hampered by the lackluster singing of HIP "specialists" (I think could put it worse but don't want to stir up a modern vs. old singers debate here). Of course, the music is too static and episodic for the modern taste, not to mention those damn recitatives that only their composers can love. But we have such great examples like "_Care selve_" sung by Norena and Quartararo, or "_Ombra mai fu_" by Wunderlich to appreciate how transcendental they can be. With voices like that, and with conductors like Toscanini, Beecham or Dorati, I don't mind a 3-4 hour opera with an incredibly stupid plot.


Ombra mai fu makes all the rest worth it. Not that I've ever seen or heard an entire production of Xerxes all the way through.

Reading this thread made me look back to the worst opera I ever did sit all the way through. No competition there, it's Les Cloches de Cornville by Robert Planquette. By the end, you hope Jack the Ripper will appear and finish off the entire cast as soon as he's done with Lulu.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Xerxes is hardly considered one of Handel's major operas. I have not seen any on stage yet but e.g. Rinaldo, Rodelinda, Ariodante, Giulio Cesare, Alcina all have been staged successfully for many decades (and overall their plots are not sillier than 19th century opera. Of course there are people who will never like them but there are also people who will never like Wagner or early 19th century belcanto or Verismo.

But for this thread:

- As demonstrated by the last two pages, many opera fans are too obsessed with (often dead) singers, voices and minutiae of singing.

- While there are huges differences between styles of musical theatre throughout history opera is not only about singing, so this obsession is rather alienating to newbies or occasional friends of opera.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Kreisler jr said:


> Xerxes is hardly considered one of Handel's major operas. I have not seen any on stage yet but e.g. Rinaldo, Rodelinda, Ariodante, Giulio Cesare, Alcina all have been staged successfully for many decades (and overall their plots are not sillier than 19th century opera. Of course there are people who will never like them but there are also people who will never like Wagner or early 19th century belcanto or Verismo.
> 
> But for this thread:
> 
> ...


For many opera fans, like baseball fans, nostalgia is a strong component. I am in this camp. There are some good singers today but they pale in comparison to our lost paragons of the past. I have enjoyed productions and singers in my lifetime, though.


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

Kreisler jr said:


> - As demonstrated by the last two pages, many opera fans are too obsessed with (often dead) singers, voices and minutiae of singing.


Well produced voices are essential for Opera. If there were an abundance of real operatic voices then I imagine nobody would seem quite so obsessed in the same way. It doesn't mean people don't love the music but it's the difference from seeing Brahms second piano concerto performed on a honkytonk to a concert grand.


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## ThaNotoriousNIC (Jun 29, 2020)

Still have a lot to listen to but here are some unpopular/controversial opinions I have with opera:

1) I respect Mozart's operas a great deal for setting the bar for all subsequent opera, but I hardly go out of my way to listen to any of them. I used to listen to his operas a lot when I was first getting into the genre, but once I found my niche of composers and eras of music I prefer, there was no longer a place for Mozart to be frequently played on my playlists.

2) I have listened to a few Handel operas, but I have reached the conclusion that I think had Bach wrote opera, he would have created much superior work to Handel. Bias towards the Passions and my dive into the cantatas are likely influencing my opinion, but I much prefer listen to Bach's vocal work then Handel's operas.

3) This is likely an unpopular opinion, but does anyone think that Donizetti and Bellini created better bel canto opera than Rossini? Don't get me wrong, I love La Cenerentola and I think Rossini's opera is good, but I can't help but feel that Donizetti and Bellini did it better. I often listen to the likes of Lucia di Lammermoor or Bellini's Il Puritani and Norma over Rossini most of the time.

4) I believe on the first page of this forum someone mentioned dislike for Madama Butterfly and I agree with them. The plot really hurts it for me.

5) I can't get into operas by Berg, Britten, or other 20th century composers. I think my limit is Strauss.

6) This might not be a controversial opinion, but I think that Russian opera should be brought into opera house repertoire more aside from just Eugene Onegin and Boris Gudonov. Some mighty fine operas by Korsakov and other operas by Tchaikovsky that I think merit more attention.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Not sure if this is a controversial opinion or not but I've always felt neither Gheorghiu nor Alagna reached their true potential because they started to believe all the hype surrounding them and so never fully developed. I saw both of them near the beginning of their rise to fame (Alagna in *Roméo et Juliette* and Gheorghiu first in the secondary soprano role in *Chérubin* and then as Violetta). They were both really good then, but the hype that sprung up around them after these performances somehow stunted their development. I remember seeing a TV programme shortly after Alagna's Roméo performances, at which marketing people discussed him as if he was just a commodity, which to them no doubt he was. Likewise, Gheorghiu's Violetta was acclaimed as the best since Callas, but, good though it was, it didn't yet scale those heights, though I felt it had the capacity to do so. After all, Callas had sung the role quite a lot in theatres in Italy and South America before those revelatory performances at La Scala in 1955, which set the tone of all subsequent performances by her. This was Gheorghiu's first attempt. If she hadn't believed all the hype, she might have become a greater artist.


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## amadeus1928 (Jun 16, 2021)

When I mentioned Leonore and Fidelio, yes I was talking about both versions. Both versions of the opera should be performed more.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

ThaNotoriousNIC said:


> 2) I have listened to a few Handel operas, but I have reached the conclusion that I think had Bach wrote opera, he would have created much superior work to Handel. Bias towards the Passions and my dive into the cantatas are likely influencing my opinion, but I much prefer listen to Bach's vocal work then Handel's operas.


I think the first does not follow from the last. IMO it is a fantasy that Bach would have composed great operas.

There is no single dramatic aria left in any of the Passions (there was one (Zerschmettert mich) in an early version of the St. John). All the dramatic music in 3+ hours St. Matthew amounts to about ten minutes or less of choir and recitative passages.

They are great, no doubt. But Bach's music seems to me fundamentally contemplative, rarely dramatic, even less operatic.

The secular cantatas are hardly dramatic either. What passes for humour in the Peasant and Coffee cantata is not very funny. As great as Bach's choral/vocal/instrumental pieces are, I see very little indication that he would have been a great composer of baroque opera (he would have had to follow the basic schemes of the genre, which would not have played to his strengths).
I think that the main composer who created superior dramatic work to Handel's operas was Handel himself with the operatic oratorios that are basically operas but usually more varied, such as Hercules, Semele, Saul, Samson.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

---------------------------------


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

hammeredklavier said:


> Ok, but I don't find Bach's "operatic" elements in his "Neapolitan" masses any less impressive; the juxtapositions of arias and choruses and all their fluidity.
> I also recognize Handel's strengths (such as his "dramatic" use of the chorus; A~men~!, Hal~lelujah~!) in his liturgical and dramatic music, but they were easily surpassed by the later composers. (The Baroque style of singers "taking turns" in singing "dramatic arias" wasn't really that great anyway imv) Also, I hate to say it, but his "weakness" in using of chromaticism for dramatic effect is hard to ignore. He himself ridiculed Gluck's use of counterpoint, but I don't find him really exceptional with counterpoint either.
> Like, when I listen to his direct successors, and then Handel, I can't really tell what's great about Handel other than some excerpts of "heavenly arias" (ex. Lascia Chio pianga). He just feels like an "outdated", "downgraded" version in all other aspects (even including orchestration).
> I wouldn't say the same for Bach's masterpieces.


If the question is whether Bach's music is "dramatic" in the specific sense pertinent to opera, a form of theater dependent on music for affect and pacing, I would have to agree with Kreisler jr that for the most part it is not. I don't see in this post of yours any evidence to the contrary; the "Gloria" you've posted is not remotely dramatic, as indeed such elaborate contrapuntal writing typically is not.

You are using the word "dramatic" in a looser sense that doesn't really address the question at hand. Used in the stricter sense of "theatrically viable," I agree with those who think that Handel is a more dramatic composer than Bach. How successfully Bach could have drawn on his bag of tricks had he actually tackled opera, we'll never know, but the contrapuntal richness which is his particular glory is something for which he would have only occasional use.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

---------------------------


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> If the question is whether Bach's music is "dramatic" in the specific sense pertinent to opera, a form of theater dependent on music for affect and pacing, I would have to agree with Kreisler jr that for the most part it is not. I don't see in this post of yours any evidence to the contrary; the "Gloria" you've posted is not remotely dramatic, as indeed such elaborate contrapuntal writing typically is not.
> 
> You are using the word "dramatic" in a looser sense that doesn't really address the question at hand. Used in the stricter sense of "theatrically viable," I agree with those who think that Handel is a more dramatic composer than Bach. How successfully Bach could have drawn on his bag of tricks had he actually tackled opera, we'll never know, but the contrapuntal richness which is his particular glory is something for which he would have only occasional use.


Posted twice by mistake.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Much of Bach is so so to me, but music such as The Brandenberg Concerti, Mass in B Minor and the Magnificat in D are absolutely amazing. I have a Bach organ works disc played by Cameron Carpenter that I have worn out.
> A whole Handel opera can often be tedious, but some of his arias such as Ah mio cor from Alcina or Cara spoza from Rinaldo are among the most emotionally moving and beautiful arias of all time to me. His Water Music and the Messiah are truly timeless.
> They both wrote tons of music and not all of it is of the same level of brilliance to me.


 I am ashamed to say I do wish for more showy high notes in Handel, who typically eschews such effects for elegance, like Mozart.
Often Mozart can be most beautiful, but I'd much rather see a Verdi. Donizetti or Wagner opera. Too long and not enough "showy" music for me. I like high notes with drama.


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## ThaNotoriousNIC (Jun 29, 2020)

Interesting points against my take on Bach taking on opera. I can agree with the take that Bach's music is a bit more contemplative. The arias in the passions and cantatas are not really there to move drama and given the form of music he was writing, pacing is brought forward with often unremarkable recitative. The sake of the aria in the Bach cantata or passion is often a reflection of events that transpired via recitative or on emotions. I find there to be plenty of emotion and moving music in Bach's arias, but perhaps as you have all stated, that may not have lend itself to the fullest extent to opera.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

hammeredklavier said:


> I think you're right. It's hard to describe why; perhaps the reason why I always feel Handel's strengths aren't significant compared to Bach's is because it always seems like they were "surpassed" by the immediate "successors" such as Gluck and Benda (more than Bach's were), and the way I feel about the style of Baroque opera. And when I listen to, for instance,
> 
> 
> 
> ...


For me much of Bach is so so, but his masterpieces, The Brandenbergs, Mass in B Minor and the Magnificat in D are among the best of music. I have an all Bach organ disc by Cameron Carpenter I wore out. His best organ music sounds like it was composed at a much later period to me.
I am no a huge Handel opera fan but I enjoyed Julius Caesar a lot. I would have waited in line for days to see Sutherland's Alcina in Venice. Much of my enjoyment of Handel depends on superlative singers. He has moments when he stands out such as Ah mio cor from Alcina and Cara spoza, which are among the most emotionally moving arias of all time.
I like listening to Mozart arias, but his operas can be long. I keep wishing for some crowd pleasing high notes. Too elegant. I'd much rather go to a Verdi, Wagner or Donizetti opera.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Bach and Opera (Bach Cantatas Website)
"Inotmark wrote (September 10, 1999): A lot of arias and duets and even some entire cantatas are entirely dramatic, but very difficult to stage. Cantata BWV 60, _es ist genug_, is a dialog between fear and hope which is as operatic as anything in its musical structure, but represents a psychological drama more than a physical drama."
14:40 Choral - Es is genung


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Seattleoperafan said:


> The Brandenberg Concerti, *Mass in B Minor* and the Magnificat in D are absolutely amazing.





Seattleoperafan said:


> The Brandenbergs, *Mass in G Minor* and the Magnificat in D are among the best of music.


Did you mean the B minor or the G minor in the second comment? The G minor is nowhere as popular as the B minor, though I appreciate it as much as the B minor. 
Btw, look at these "dramatic" juxtapositions in the A major: 
5:49 



 (6:14, 7:00, 7:29, 8:17, 8:52, 9:41, 10:15)


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

I unfortunately never saw it, but Peter Sellars staged two of Bach's Cantata (_Meine Herze schwimmt in Blut_ and _Ich habe genug_) for the great mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. In the latter she was dressed in a hospital gown, trailing drips and drains. Given she was already fighting the cancer which eventually killed her, some found these performances unbearably moving, whilst others absolutely hated them. Here it was the circymstances of the performance that created the drama and I have no doubt that I too would have been extremely moved. I'm not sure if this would have worked with anyone else though.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

hammeredklavier said:


> Did you mean the B minor or the G minor in the second comment? The G minor is nowhere as popular as the B minor, though I appreciate it as much as the B minor.
> Btw, look at these "dramatic" juxtapositions in the A major:
> 5:49
> 
> ...


 So sorry! B minor Mass is what I meant. I know it well and don't know why I wrote it wrong.. Magnificat in D. Both great music with exciting choral music.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

22:07 {Mass in C minor, K. 427 (417a): Benedictus}
38:03 {Mass in C minor, K. 427 (417a): Laudamus te}
1:20:18 {Mass in C minor, K. 427 (417a): Kyrie}
1:47:27 {Mass in C minor, K. 427 (417a): Qui tollis}







hammeredklavier said:


> "Nevertheless, for Berlioz, Mozart's main achievement as an opera composer is Don Giovanni. Like other contemporary writers, he calls Mozart 'l'auteur de Don Juan'. It is amazing, however, to observe his limited and one-sided view of this work, too. He wrote quite extensive reviews of Don Giovanni in 1834-35, when the opera was given for the first time at the Opéra (previously it was performed at the Théâtre Italien and at the Odéon), in a new French version by Deschamps and a musical adaptation by Castil-Blaze, which was an important event in Parisian musical life of the 1830s.
> This performance is described in detail in Katharine Ellis's 1994 article. The music was transposed to suit Adolphe Nourrit (the great tenor singer of the day) in the role of Don Giovanni, originally a baritone part. Mozart's two-act opera was divided into five, and the plot changed considerably: Anna commits suicide at the end and Don Juan has a nightmare foretelling his own death. The 'scena ultima' was cut and the opera ended, after Don Giovanni's destruction, with Anna's funeral, to the sound of 'O voto tremendo' from Idomeneo and *the 'Dies irae' from the Requiem.* A ballet (with excerpts of other works by Mozart) was inserted into the ball scene, in accordance with the tradition of French grand opera.
> The changes in the libretto were influenced by E.T.A. Hoffmann's story Don Juan (1813): the narrator of this tale attends an imaginary performance of Don Giovanni and falls in love with the singer representing Donna Anna, who dies right after the performance. The story includes a romanticized interpretation of Mozart's work, portraying Don Giovanni as an ideal character with sublime aspirations, who is truly in love with Donna Anna. She loves him in return, but denies her love because Don Giovanni has killed her father; she is supposed to die before marrying Don Ottavio."
> < Mozartian Undercurrents in Berlioz | Benjamin Pearl | P.26~27 >


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

With once exception, “Air on a G-string,” I find Bach’s music rather dry. I’d take Händel‘s music over any of JS Bach’s. Also Mozart’s over Bach’s. Etc.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

I think people are misled by a few great passages in the Bach Passions, such as "Sind Blitze, sind Donner", a few turbae choirs and evangelist passages that are really dramatic. I am far from disputing that this is great and gripping music and agree that it might work better for us than most opera seria.
But such passages could hardly have been put into opera seria where almost everything needed to be in arias. (Obviously, choruses from mass like that "Gloria" have nothing to do with opera, it's just the non-argument again that because Bach was superior in polyphonic choruses he should have been superior in opera...) 

While I think baroque opera still is a bit underappreciated and ridiculed as endless chains of arias, I do agree that e.g. Bach's passions are overall more successful and "better" than most baroque operas. But this is not mainly/only because they are by uber-genius Bach but because they are a different genre than opera and Bach's strengths in chorale setting would not have availed him in opera seria. 
And another dimension of opera vs. (most) oratorio/cantata is characterization of people. There are not really people in Bach's passions. They have no arias, only recitatives. Whereas Handel does really bring fairly complex people like Cleopatra, Alcina, Rodelinda (or Saul, Samson, Semele) onto the stage.

Uber-genius Bach was just not interested in opera and it's pure speculation how convincing his operas would have been. I have never anyone seen claim what a loss it was that none of Beethoven's other plans for operas and oratorios came to fruition but I have die-hard Bachians seen posting danced versions of the St. John's passion in threads for "Best ballet". This is just ridiculous...

And I think Handel was so much better than Gluck that the bit of more freedom Gluck had in his late operas does not make them overall more convincing than Handel's. Mozart's Idomeneo does improve upon both, but this is 50 years later.
Same for later oratorios vs. e.g. Messiah. 
Sure, many of Handel's have a few weaker pieces (but even the St. John's has that bass aria "Mein lieber Heiland, lass dich fragen"? a rather boring piece and many listeners find the St. Matthew way too long, just look up how it was cut to shreds even until the mid-20th century in most performances) but for me at their best they have a power that Haydn or Mendelssohn could not match (which does not make the latters oratorios weak pieces, but they don't supersede or improve on Handel's best).


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Kreisler jr said:


> Sure, many of Handel's have a few weaker pieces (but even the St. John's has that bass aria "Mein lieber Heiland, lass dich fragen"? a rather boring piece and many listeners find the St. Matthew way too long, just look up how it was cut to shreds even until the mid-20th century in most performances) but for me at their best they have a power that Haydn or Mendelssohn could not match (which does not make the latters oratorios weak pieces, but they don't supersede or improve on Handel's best).


I'm surprised you find that St. John's Passion bass aria boring. I thoroughly enjoy it, and the choral contribution is compelling.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

The choral contribution saves this aria a bit, I still find it rather boring (and it's "teurer Heiland" but I am leaving the error above to show that I quoted from memory ). Despite my first name I never really got into the Johannespassion. I recognize that it is more dramatic than the overlong St. Matthew but I have always preferred the former. (Not an uncommon preference, despite Schumann and a few other prominent musicians preferring St. John)

I have no problem with people who think that everything Bach did is the best (although I disagree) but the line to silly fandom is crossed for me with the claim that he would have been the best in things he *didn't do* (like opera or ballet) and apparently never had any intention to.

Back to unpopular opinions

- (Someone said it probably already above) The disadvantage of opera in a language the audience does not understand is greater than that from slightly awkward sounding translations. This is clouded nowadays because the singing is usually too hard to understand even in the audience's language and when translations are used they are often horribly bad and outdated.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Kreisler jr said:


> I have no problem with people who think that everything Bach did is the best (although I disagree) but the line to silly fandom is crossed for me with the claim that he would have been the best in things he *didn't do* (like opera or ballet) and apparently never had any intention to.


Bach certainly achieved enough in what he actually did that we don't need to claim for him the capacity to do everything. But this claim is, I think, even more commonly made for Mozart than for Bach. That may be slightly more justified, as Mozart did superb work in every genre then available to him and probably tried more things in his short lifetime than any other composer. Still, some of the claims made for a hypothetical old Mozart seem more like wishful thinking than thoughtful wishing.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Kreisler jr said:


> Obviously, choruses from mass like that "Gloria" have nothing to do with opera, it's just the non-argument again that because Bach was superior in polyphonic choruses he should have been superior in opera...


That's an "operatic technique" the generation prior to Bach and even some of his own contemporaries opposed, in religious music.
Bach and Opera
"But one of the complaints about Bach was that his cantatas were too operatic. More than any other composer he introduced the Italian opera style into church music, something his predecessor Johann Kuhnau had always resisted."
Christer Malmbergs värld - Musik - Klassisk musik - Wolfgang Amadé Mozart
"Since opera was the foremost musical genre of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it is hardly surprising that operatic elements should have found their way into the sacred music of the time. This caused the development of the "stilus ecclesiasticus mixtus" or mixed church style, which combined traditional contrapuntal choruses with coloratura solo arias and ensembles. This development began mainly in Naples, hence the term Neapolitan Mass. The imposing solemn Mass or Missa solemnis split the text of the Ordinary of the Mass into separate pieces, like the individual numbers in an opera, a practice which contemporary theoreticians such as Johann Joseph Fux and Meinrad Spiess opposed."


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> Rossini's famous comment about Wagner was correct._ (Sometimes, yes)_
> 
> Mozart's operas are beautiful and entertaining, but the music quickly become too "samey" and formulaic (with the exception of some parts of _Don Giovanni_). _(Yes)_
> 
> ...


VERY nice post. I added my comments (with your permission, I want to believe, just after yours)


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

The "recitatives" in this are striking:


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## amadeus1928 (Jun 16, 2021)

MAS said:


> 14. I detest the controversy over "blackface." Should we only cast Black singers in Black roles? Are there good Black *Otello* tenors? Or *Aida*s? Should only Japanese sopranos be cast in *Madama Butterfly*? Similarly, should there be no black, Asian, Hispanic, chorus members of operas that take place in 16th or 17th, or 18th Century Venice, or Sweden, or England where it would anachronistic for them to be there? Let's get back the Egyptian makeup! It's _just makeup! _ not an insult to members of a race!


So basically you just admitted that you only want to see white people onstage.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

amadeus1928 said:


> So basically you just admitted that you only want to see white people onstage.


He most certainly did not. He wants to see singers, of any race, use makeup to look like what they're playing without people screaming "racism," just as actors always have. So do I.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> He most certainly did not. He wants to see singers, of any race, use makeup to look like what they're playing without people screaming "racism," just as actors always have. So do I.


It seems to me that we are beginning to forget what stagecraft is. The whole point of acting is pretending to be something we are not, hence I have no problem with straight actors playing gay roles or vice versa.

I don't know whether this recent spat has made it across the pond, but English (and Jewish) actress Maureen Lipman has been spouting her mouth off about Helen Mirren playing Golda Meier in a new biopic, her point being that the role shoud have been played by a Jewish actress. Presumably she'd have also objected to Ben Kingsley's Oscar winning turn as Gandhi. Maybe Meryl Streep shouldn't have played Margaret Thatcher because she's American. I could go on.


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

[

"14. I detest the controversy over "blackface." Should we only cast Black singers in Black roles? Are there good Black *Otello* tenors? Or *Aida*s? Should only Japanese sopranos be cast in *Madama Butterfly*? Similarly, should there be no black, Asian, Hispanic, chorus members of operas that take place in 16th or 17th, or 18th Century Venice, or Sweden, or England where it would anachronistic for them to be there? Let's get back the Egyptian makeup! It's _just makeup! _ not an insult to members of a race! "

I have never understood how a person wearing make-up and performing Otello is wrong! I have discussed it and never heard a good explanation. From the brief clips I've seen of Al Jolson, I completely understand why that sort of thing was racist but I don't see the connection beyond the make-up.


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

This ended up being a wish list!

1. I want to have spirited intelligent debate with other informed opera lovers and then I want them to acknowledge that I'm right!

2. I want to wear a jacket and tie to the opera the way I used to but still be wearing jeans a sweater and a blazer!

3. I want to be able to continue to say " I sit upstairs!....$35 a ticket!!!....there's nothing in New York that gives you that quality at that price!!!" while I have the experience I have when I splurge and sit downstairs!

4. I want to hear early 70's Pavarotti and Caballe sing "Una Furtiva Lagrima" and "D'amor sul'ali rose" one more time.

5. I want to love "Tristan und Isolde".

6. I want to look at wrapped LP's under a Christmas tree- on the side of course, leaning against the wall - wondering if they got me the right one!

7. I want my friend Michael to come back and hear people discussing Puccini with no apologies!

8. I want to go on the Saturday Afternoon Opera Quiz without the fear that they'll ask about a genre I know nothing about!

9. I want to hear a brand new opera that is still "killing it" 5 years after its premier!

And finally...

10. I want to find a forum somewhere, where even if they DON'T AGREE with me ( please see number 1), they at least turn me on to new music and ideas and singers I've never heard of or experienced!!!! Where do you find something like that???..awwwe!!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

ScottK said:


> This ended up being a wish list!
> 
> 1. I want to have spirited intelligent debate with other informed opera lovers and then I want them to acknowledge that I'm right!
> 
> ...


Nice wish list. The most I can offer you is the first half of #1.


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

Woodduck said:


> Nice wish list. The most I can offer you is the first half of #1.


You know I had you in mind when I wrote the last part of #1 :lol:!


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## amadeus1928 (Jun 16, 2021)

Woodduck said:


> He most certainly did not. He wants to see singers, of any race, use makeup to look like what they're playing without people screaming "racism," just as actors always have. So do I.


OP said that it is okay for a white person to play a POC role but that a POC playing a white role is historically inaccurate.


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## amadeus1928 (Jun 16, 2021)

ScottK said:


> [
> 
> "14. I detest the controversy over "blackface." Should we only cast Black singers in Black roles? Are there good Black *Otello* tenors? Or *Aida*s? Should only Japanese sopranos be cast in *Madama Butterfly*? Similarly, should there be no black, Asian, Hispanic, chorus members of operas that take place in 16th or 17th, or 18th Century Venice, or Sweden, or England where it would anachronistic for them to be there? Let's get back the Egyptian makeup! It's _just makeup! _ not an insult to members of a race! "
> 
> I have never understood how a person wearing make-up and performing Otello is wrong! I have discussed it and never heard a good explanation. From the brief clips I've seen of Al Jolson, I completely understand why that sort of thing was racist but I don't see the connection beyond the make-up.


Blackface (and brownface, and yellowface) is inherently bad, *even if there is no malicious intent behind it*.

If you wouldn't do Porgy and Bess in blackface then why would you do Otello in blackface.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

amadeus1928 said:


> Blackface (and brownface, and yellowface) is inherently bad, even if there is no malicious intent behind it.


Why is it "inherently bad"? There are cultural and historical reasons why it is offensive in the US, but what reason do you see to say that there is something "inherently" wrong about someone of one skin color changing it to look like another for the purpose of drama? Is dying hair inherently wrong? Wearing contacts of another eye color? Those things don't have the same historical baggage behind them so they don't offend us, but there is no significant difference between them. I can see you arguing that it is at the present moment always a bad idea or offensive given the cultural and historical context, but "inherently"?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

amadeus1928 said:


> Blackface (and brownface, and yellowface) is inherently bad, *even if there is no malicious intent behind it*.
> 
> If you wouldn't do Porgy and Bess in blackface then why would you do Otello in blackface.


Words are only names, not things, and they come loaded with meanings that may be misleading and prejudicial. The term "blackface" refers to a particular form of entertainment in which white people perform silly and degrading parodies of black people. It isn't a synonym for dark makeup. If we call changing one's complexion to play a role in a drama "blackface," we're attributing racism where it needn't exist, and our objection says more about us than it does about drama, actors or directors.

_Porgy and Bess_ is about black people. It's music and libretto attempt to portray black life of a particular time and place. Do you really want the characters who sing "Summertime" and "It ain't necessarily so" looking like blond Norwegians? I performed as a chorus member in Berlioz's _Les Troyens_. I played a Carthaginian, an inhabitant of what is now the north African country of Tunisia. I had to spray my hair black and my face and arms brown to look like an Arab. It was fun. It was make-believe. It was art. Theater is art, and it is fun. Theater makeup is not blackface.

People really need to lighten up.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Words are only names, not things, and they come loaded with meanings that may be misleading and prejudicial. The term "blackface" refers to a particular form of entertainment in which white people perform silly and degrading parodies of black people. It isn't a synonym for dark makeup. If we call changing one's complexion to play a role in a drama "blackface," we're attributing racism where it needn't exist, and our objection says more about us than it does about drama, actors or directors.
> 
> _Porgy and Bess_ is about black people. It's music and libretto attempt to portray black life of a particular time and place. Do you really want the characters who sing "Summertime" and "It ain't necessarily so" looking like blond Norwegians? I performed as a chorus member in Berlioz's _Les Troyens_. I played a Carthaginian, an inhabitant of what is now the north African country of Tunisia. I had to spray my hair black and my face and arms brown to look like an Arab. It was fun. It was make-believe. It was art. Theater is art, and it is fun. Theater makeup is not blackface.
> 
> People really need to lighten up.


Back before the nonsense, Martina Arroyo was a blond Valkyrie in pale pink body paint. Her mother had to be asked to leave the Met auditorium because she couldn't stop laughing. I don't think this priceless scene could happen today. Price always was made up like a Caucasian character unless she was Aida. What is the difference?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Back before the nonsense, Martina Arroyo was a blond Valkyrie in pale pink body paint. Her mother had to be asked to leave the Met auditorium because she couldn't stop laughing. I don't think this priceless scene could happen today. Price always was made up like a Caucasian character unless she was Aida. What is the difference?


If we grant the basic legitimacy of using makeup, we can take this on a case-by-case basis. Some characters have a designated ethnicity or physical appearance, but many don't, and sensibilities change. A black valkyrie may have been disturbing to a 19th-century audience, but who cares now? Valkyries are imaginary beings, but even many of the leading characters in the standard repertoire, though they may be princesses, dukes or peasants in European settings, have no essential ethnic origin or look, and no dramatic values are compromised by multi-racial casting. I would suggest leaving most performers their native ethnic looks unless something in the libretto, or some implicit dramatic purpose, indicates otherwise.


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

amadeus1928 said:


> Blackface (and brownface, and yellowface) is inherently bad, *even if there is no malicious intent behind it*.
> 
> If you wouldn't do Porgy and Bess in blackface then why would you do Otello in blackface.


Most of what I would say has been said. For me, the major thought is the one expressed by Woodduck, that the degrading and racist practice known as "blackface" is not in any way the same thing as an actor using makeup to darken their skin.

However, I must say that I've never given thought to the idea of an actor darkening their skin to perform in Porgy and Bess. But the term " blackface" needs to be removed, for the reason mentioned.

If *you wouldn't find it acceptable to put on dark makeup to perform in Porgy and Bess then why would you perform in Otello wearing dark makeup?
*
It's a question worth thinking about. I think it's a very good question. And the elements that make it worth considering are not all about the present societal context.

I agree it would be ill advised for a Caucasian actor to play Porgy with dark makeup on and I don't feel the same about Otello. I can think of many factors...but my reason for thinking this is not as rock solid as my thoughts about "blackface".

I will have to think about this.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

ScottK said:


> I agree it would be ill advised for a Caucasian actor to play Porgy with dark makeup on and I don't feel the same about Otello. I can think of many factors...but my reason for thinking this is not as rock solid as my thoughts about "blackface".
> 
> I will have to think about this.


_Porgy_ is a unique work. It's specifically about black people and black culture in a way that most operas about, say, Germans and Italians are not specifically about white people but simply about German and Italian people. Porgy has racial identity as a basic premise. For that reason it's traditionally performed with all-black casts, and this is certainly the right way to do it when black singers are available.

Otello is called a "blackamoor," and he's clearly intended to be of African origin and dark-skinned. The dramatic function of his "blackness" or brownness is debatable, and many feel that some negative stereotyping is involved in Shakespeare making him so gullible, emotionally volatile and murderous, never mind the fact that men avenging themelves by killing their wives and rivals is not a practice that respects national or cultural boundaries. Personally, I don't think the character really bears, or needs, much psychoanalyzing.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> If we grant the basic legitimacy of using makeup, we can take this on a case-by-case basis. Some characters have a designated ethnicity or physical appearance, but many don't, and sensibilities change. A black valkyrie may have been disturbing to a 19th-century audience, but who cares now? Valkyries are imaginary beings, but even many of the leading characters in the standard repertoire, though they may be princesses, dukes or peasants in European settings, have no essential ethnic origin or look, and no dramatic values are compromised by multi-racial casting. I would suggest leaving most performers their native ethnic looks unless something in the libretto, or some implicit dramatic purpose, indicates otherwise.


That makes sense. We had a Black Guinevere in Merlin and after the first glance who cared.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

amadeus1928 said:


> So basically you just admitted that you only want to see white people onstage.


Nope. That's not what I said. Makeup is not insulting to any race.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Two thoughts on this:

1) When Kaufmann sang Otello at the ROH a few years back he had very subtle darkening make up that made him look like a North African, which may well be historically accurate for the character. Nobody batted an eyelid. (I think something similar was done when Antonenko sang the role in Italy.)

2) What about "womanface"? Do we need to ban Rupaul's drag race?

N.


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## ClassicalPower (12 mo ago)

Have you ever take a listen to "Elektra"? Probably yes but if not it may be a good reason to care for R.Strauss... it's a monumental artwork in my opinion and it's quite hard to simple "not care about it" ahah, totally a different world from Tchaikovsky's operas which are also extraordinary in their own way, as it's always with Tchai. And I agree with the user which particularly apreciated Eugene Onegin!


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## amadeus1928 (Jun 16, 2021)

The Conte said:


> 2) What about "womanface"? Do we need to ban Rupaul's drag race?


"Womanface" doesn't exist.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

amadeus1928 said:


> "Womanface" doesn't exist.


womanface
A man with a womanly face or a man who is very feminine.
Sergy Sarkisian is a womanface


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

When it comes to blackface the people whose opinions we should be listening to are those in the black community. Operatic black-face differs form old black-face minstrelsy in that it is at least a less vulgar, more realistic attempt to appear black, the skin is darkened but the mouth area is not left white to portray larger lips and movements and mannerisms are not accentuated as to demean black people. That does not mean that the practice is wholly acceptable, however. If a black man is to play the conte di Luna in Il Trovatore their face is not lightened, if a black woman plays Violetta neither is hers, and who complains? So why obsess over making sure those who portray black people on-stage look black? And if we were to go deeper why is the slave-girl Aida so often darkened but the princess Amneris regularly allowed to retain a lighter complexion? And if a black singer is required then hire a black singer, there is no argument in terms of quality nowadays as a role such as Otello for instance is hardly, if ever, cast ideally, most sounding like strangled mezzos.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Op.123 said:


> When it comes to blackface the people whose opinions we should be listening to are those in the black community. Operatic black-face differs form old black-face minstrelsy in that it is at least a less vulgar, more realistic attempt to appear black, the skin is darkened but the mouth area is not left white to portray larger lips and movements and mannerisms are not accentuated as to demean black people. That does not mean that the practice is wholly acceptable, however. If a black man is to play the conte di Luna in Il Trovatore their face is not lightened, if a black woman plays Violetta neither is hers, and who complains? So why obsess over making sure those who portray black people on-stage look black? And if we were to go deeper why is the slave-girl Aida so often darkened but the princess Amneris regularly allowed to retain a lighter complexion? And if a black singer is required then hire a black singer, there is no argument in terms of quality nowadays as a role such as Otello for instance is hardly, if ever, cast ideally, most sounding like strangled mezzos.


The black community, like most if not all communities, is not a monolith. There are likely to be differences of opinion on this even within the black community. That said, I agree that nobody has suggested "whiteface" for black singers, so why do we need blackface?

When it comes to Aida and Amneris. The difference in skin tone is meant to denote the fact that Amneris is a lighter skinned Egyptian, whereas Aida is a darker skinned Nubian. Something is lost when the singers playing the two parts have the same colour skin.

N.


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

The Conte said:


> The black community, like most if not all communities, is not a monolith. There are likely to be differences of opinion on this even within the black community. That said, I agree that nobody has suggested "whiteface" for black singers, so why do we need blackface?
> 
> When it comes to Aida and Amneris. The difference in skin tone is meant to denote the fact that Amneris is a lighter skinned Egyptian, whereas Aida is a darker skinned Nubian. Something is lost when the singers playing the two parts have the same colour skin.
> 
> N.


I was never suggesting the black community is unified in their views on the matter, it is a complex issue. All in all, if history told a different story I wouldn't have a problem with the practice but I don't see it as fully justified or necessary.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Op.123 said:


> When it comes to blackface the people whose opinions we should be listening to are those in the black community. Operatic black-face differs form old black-face minstrelsy in that it is at least a less vulgar, more realistic attempt to appear black, the skin is darkened but the mouth area is not left white to portray larger lips and movements and mannerisms are not accentuated as to demean black people. That does not mean that the practice is wholly acceptable, however. If a black man is to play the conte di Luna in Il Trovatore their face is not lightened, if a black woman plays Violetta neither is hers, and who complains? So why obsess over making sure those who portray black people on-stage look black? And if we were to go deeper why is the slave-girl Aida so often darkened but the princess Amneris regularly allowed to retain a lighter complexion? And if a black singer is required then hire a black singer, there is no argument in terms of quality nowadays as a role such as Otello for instance is hardly, if ever, cast ideally, most sounding like strangled mezzos.


There are two flaws in your reasoning. 1. The term "operatic blackface" is already loaded. Blackface is not and never was equivalent to theatrical makeup worn for specific dramatic purposes. The difference is in its basic purpose and meaning, not in its superficial appearance. Obviously, we would never make Otello look like Al Jolson, but that isn't the point. And NO black person actually looks like Al Jolson. 2.) With most roles it makes no difference what the singer's ethnicity or skin tone is. There are only a few instances where the drama specifically designates, or strongly implies, these things. Aida and Otello are just about the only examples ever raised in these discussions. Would an opera dealing with slavery in the American south be satisfactorily staged with all-white or all-black singers? And should it not be performed if not enough black singers were available for all the parts? Would darkening the complexions of a few white people so as to fill out a crowd scene be objectionable? Do you suppose the black singers in the cast would be offended? Or might they, like most theater people, enjoy the make-believe and get a good laugh out of seeing their white colleagues trying to look like them?

We need to be sensitive, but also sensible.


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> There are two flaws in your reasoning. 1. The term "operatic blackface" is already loaded. Blackface is not and never was equivalent to theatrical makeup worn for specific dramatic purposes. The difference is in its basic purpose and meaning, not in its superficial appearance. Obviously, we would never make Otello look like Al Jolson, but that isn't the point. And NO black person actually looks like Al Jolson. 2.) With most roles it makes no difference what the singer's ethnicity or skin tone is. There are only a few instances where the drama specifically designates, or strongly implies, these things. Aida and Otello are just about the only examples ever raised in these discussions. Would an opera dealing with slavery in the American south be satisfactorily staged with all-white or all-black singers? And should it not be performed if not enough black singers were available for all the parts? Would darkening the complexions of a few white people so as to fill out a crowd scene be objectionable? Do you suppose the black singers in the cast would be offended? Or might they, like most theater people, enjoy the make-believe and get a good laugh out of seeing their white colleagues trying to look like them?
> 
> We need to be sensitive, but also sensible.


I mean, an opera about slavery would, I hope, be treated much the same as Porgy and Bess, if there weren't black performers to perform it then it would not be performed. Rather that than white singers makeup-ed to look black trying to portray the tragedy of a race they aren't part of. To me, sensitive and sensible would mean choosing either to perform these operas with singers of the designated ethnicities or performing it without blackface. These are both valid options and neither are inherently offensive.


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

Here are mine, and I'm doing them only because I want to put my first one out there

-20th century opera is the best period for opera, although Wagner & Verdi give the 20th century a run for its money
-Except for Monteverdi and Purcell, one should only listen to operas written after Figaro. 
-Recitative is a crime against humanity. 
-Rossini is an abomination.
-La Boheme sucks.
-Madama Butterfly is disgusting.
-Turandot is Puccini's best opera, pity he didn't get to finish it himself, Tosca is a close second (although I don't think that's a hot take).
-If you like listening to individual selections and cuts from operas I assume you don't really like music. 
-Added to that, CD's made up of big numbers and arias should be removed from the face of the Earth. 
-The words might be just as important as the music, but only if you're really invested in an opera, if you're not 100% into it, it's all just blabber, the music is king. 
-Being hung up on divas and the like is child-like behavior, it's the same as discussing any other pop star and frankly embarassing.


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

Op.123 said:


> Rather that than white singers makeup-ed to look black trying to portray the tragedy of a race they aren't part of.


Genuine question, not rhetorical...is it your understanding - and also is it your preference - that when a non-black singer performs the role of Otello without darkening their skin, they are relinquishing entirely the element of Otello as a dark skinned man? As opposed to maintaining that identity but choosing not to display it with a make-up practice deemed unacceptable.


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

ScottK said:


> Genuine question, not rhetorical...is it your understanding - and also is it your preference - that when a non-black singer performs the role of Otello without darkening their skin, they are relinquishing entirely the element of Otello as a dark skinned man? As opposed to maintaining that identity but choosing not to display it with a make-up practice deemed unacceptable.


If there are suitable ways of maintaining the identity of being an 'outsider' for instance then I have no problem with that. If they wish to relinquish the element entirely then that's okay too. Better than a practice steeped in racism either way. Otello is an opera written by a white man based on a play written by a white man so I don't see Otello's identity important beyond the confines of the drama. If they wish for him to be portrayed as Black then hire a Black tenor.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

allaroundmusicenthusiast said:


> -Being hung up on divas and the like is child-like behavior, it's the same as discussing any other pop star and frankly embarassing.


Someone gets it (mixed opinions on the rest. at least 2-3 of them are utter sacrilege haha)


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> Someone gets it (mixed opinions on the rest. at least 2-3 of them are utter sacrilege haha)


Not responding to your quote but asking a question of you I've wanted to but keep forgetting. You seem to be the one here most fond of discussing vocal technique. Have you ever posted a thread, or has anyone else you know of posted a thread that spends time discussing chest voice in the female voice. I'd love to hear more discussion and examples about that topic.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

ScottK said:


> Not responding to your quote but asking a question of you I've wanted to but keep forgetting. You seem to be the one here most fond of discussing vocal technique. Have you ever posted a thread, or has anyone else you know of posted a thread that spends time discussing chest voice in the female voice. I'd love to hear more discussion and examples about that topic.


I'd be willing to consider that


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> I'd be willing to consider that


I'd be a most willing reader and listener. I've always been more of a male voice afficionado and the very different way the female chest voice functions is unfamiliar territory to me. I'm guessing you WILL hear from a few others if you did it !!!


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## OffPitchNeb (Jun 6, 2016)

I wonder why do we have too few great (either objective or subjective) operas to enjoy? Compare to novels, plays, and movies, the number of staples in standard operatic repertoire is abysmal. I think by focusing on a few popular, crowd-pleasing works, record labels and impresario did a huge disservice to many great works.

Do we really need another Aida, La Boheme, Figaro, Fidelio, on disc, etc., why that slot can be given to Pfitzner's Palestrina, Busoni's Doktor Faust, Enescu's Œdipe, Martinu's Julietta, Faccio'S Amletto, Cherubini's, Spotini's, Mercadante's, Glinka's, Rimsky-Korsakov's many once blockbusters?

We often heard stories about how great singers in the past had trouble convincing recording labels and opera house managers to stage certain less popular works for them.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

allaroundmusicenthusiast said:


> -20th century opera is the best period for opera, although Wagner & Verdi give the 20th century a run for its money


My alternative hot take would be, that opera already smelled funny in the 1920s and has been dead (in the sense of contemporary operas having real cultural relevance) after WW 2. It's a living museum. Almost no operas after Puccini and prime Strauss made it and alternative musical theatre is mostly lightweight and not comparable to the best of opera between 1600 and 1930s.



> -Except for Monteverdi and Purcell, one should only listen to operas written after Figaro.


If one replaces Monteverdi and Purcell with Gluck and Mozart, this was basically the common opinion of any opera guide until the 1980s, i.e. it's basically grandpa's take on opera...



> -Turandot is Puccini's best opera, pity he didn't get to finish it himself, Tosca is a close second (although I don't think that's a hot take).


You might not get a majority but it does not seem *that* controversial. I haven't heard all of Puccini's but I don't care for Butterly and La Bohème, and Tosca and Turandot are my favorites, then Gianni Schicchi.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

> -20th century opera is the best period for opera, although Wagner & Verdi give the 20th century a run for its money


No, most 20th century operas are mediocre at best, unless they were written by composers from the 19th century who lived into the 20th, or they drew on and developed the traditions of 19th century opera.



> -Except for Monteverdi and Purcell, one should only listen to operas written after Figaro.


Gluck wrote several worthwhile works.



> -Recitative is a crime against humanity.


Yet 20th century opera is usually nothing but recitative, just worse recitative than you find in earlier opera. Oh there's some noise about "symphonic composition" or whatever, but it's usually a sea of orchestral soup with endless clipped vocal lines that are essentially recitative and no melody.



> Rossini is an abomination


Lots of variation in quality. _Guillaume Tell_ is an excellent opera, though.



> La Boheme sucks


Why?



> Madama Butterfly is disgusting


Why?



> -If you like listening to individual selections and cuts from operas I assume you don't really like music.


Why? Many operas have numbers that stand alone as pieces of music. Listening to them individually is a perfectly valid way to explore them. Also, many operas work better as whole works in performance than on CD, where performances tend to be more sedate, especially during the "in between parts".


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

OffPitchNeb said:


> I wonder why do we have too few great (either objective or subjective) operas to enjoy? Compare to novels, plays, and movies, the number of staples in standard operatic repertoire is abysmal. I think by focusing on a few popular, crowd-pleasing works, record labels and impresario did a huge disservice to many great works.
> 
> Do we really need another Aida, La Boheme, Figaro, Fidelio, on disc, etc., why that slot can be given to Pfitzner's Palestrina, Busoni's Doktor Faust, Enescu's Œdipe, Martinu's Julietta, Faccio'S Amletto, Cherubini's, Spotini's, Mercadante's, Glinka's, Rimsky-Korsakov's many once blockbusters?
> 
> We often heard stories about how great singers in the past had trouble convincing recording labels and opera house managers to stage certain less popular works for them.


If opera were less expensive to produce, opera companies would take more chances with more obscure or difficult works. We're fortunate to have recordings.


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

OffPitchNeb said:


> I think by focusing on a few popular, crowd-pleasing works, record labels and impresario did a huge disservice to many great works.
> 
> Do we really need another Aida, La Boheme, Figaro, Fidelio, on disc, etc., why that slot can be given to Pfitzner's Palestrina, Busoni's Doktor Faust, Enescu's Œdipe, Martinu's Julietta, Faccio'S Amletto, Cherubini's, Spotini's, Mercadante's, Glinka's, Rimsky-Korsakov's many once blockbusters?
> .


$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.....but you know that! It's not cynicism its just the way of the business world and record companies and opera houses are businesses. Those other titles are for TC folk, and on that note I'll give your titles a try!


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

In the minority I am sure, and I've heard all the reasons why it is necessary, but that Postlude at the end of Don Giovanni ruins my day and the dramatic ending that it should be.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

nina foresti said:


> In the minority I am sure, and I've heard all the reasons why it is necessary, but that Postlude at the end of Don Giovanni ruins my day and the dramatic ending that it should be.


Yours appears to have been the generally held view until sometime in the 20th century. It's so much more fun to end with a trip to hell.


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

nina foresti said:


> In the minority I am sure, and I've heard all the reasons why it is necessary, but that Postlude at the end of Don Giovanni ruins my day and the dramatic ending that it should be.


I agree. I've also always felt that Boris should end with Boris death scene and then lo and behold....this season the Met does that version and it didn't work!!! BUT...as Woodduck said recently discussing the fine points of what creates stature in a role, an individual performer ( or in my case performance) can carry the argument, pro or con! But I'd love to find out with Don Giovanni!


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

nina foresti said:


> In the minority I am sure, and I've heard all the reasons why it is necessary, but that Postlude at the end of Don Giovanni ruins my day and the dramatic ending that it should be.


...besides, Im always going "is this one Tutto nel mondo e buria ?"


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

the progression of Renee Fleming's singing is something like this:
in order:
1) *good, simple singing*: So far so good.
2) *jazz habits starting to creep in*: No worries, no one is perfect. Still mostly natural sounding and easy to listen to.
3) *large expansion of repertoire*: Some of it seemed a bit forced, but I get that while I prefer singers who stick to a somewhat conservative rep range, one needs to be realistic about marketability and the modern state of the industry. At least she went for bel canto coloratura rep and not...Turandot and late Verdi. We're still not to the point where I'm comfortable getting super judgmental. 
4) *Increasingly tasteless ornamentation*: to clarify, not "tasteless" like "histrionic" (we all can think of examples of that...), but tasteless like "doesn't get the bel canto style of music on a gut level", similar to how your average conservative woman would make a fool of herself trying to go to a black church in southern Georgia and do gospel runs (ironically, the gospel work she has done is... actually pretty good).

....we are approaching the part where I start to get judgmental. 
5) *Excessive, over-interpretation in order to seem "artistic" and stay relevant:* this is where things start to get a bit ostentatious and quality really takes a dive. 
6) *fake, affected "vulnerability":* after thinking about this a bit, this is a wider class issue as much as it is one of musicianship. There is a tendency among the artistic side of the upper class (today it's mostly liberals, in the past it has been various points on the political spectrum) to display fake, unrealistic displays of "vulnerability", as if to say "look how rich I am! I can afford to be this fragile!" (think southern bells pretentiously fainting and needing smelling salts. same idea). Opera as an artform is full of emotional expression. No one is going to dispute that, but this type of singing bears zero resemblance to how and when normal humans express emotion. It seems...completely disconnected from anything real, not relatable, like a halfhearted attempt to appeal to "the weird people" and failing even at that. Obviously, a person acting emotionally is not always going to be logical or view things in proper proportion, but if the person is not immature or narcissistic, most people's emotions "make sense" on some level if you take the time to listen, and that kind of genuine, relatable display of feeling just isn't there.

here is an example from a master class about a decade ago. 





"you're opening up and singing too rich and too full in the passaggio"
um....what?

"that's way too much...muscle" 
She's is, in fact, singing with too _little_ engagement of the right muscles. that was the main problem from the get go in an otherwise reasonably nice voice.

Notice how the singer sounds more clear and open in the beginning and ends up sounding increasingly ingolata, a bit strained, etc at the class goes on.


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> *Excessive, over-interpretation in order to seem "artistic" and stay relevant:* this is where things start to get a bit ostentatious and quality really takes a dive[/B]..


Could listen to you talk about that stuff till.... BUT, I am wondering how dates fit in here and if the descent of her interprative judgement that you see is confined to a repertoire. I saw her last set of Marschallins at the Met and found it the most restrained and most moving of the three times I saw her in the role. I don't know her on records very well....the poet Randall Jarell complained that the poet Richard Wilbur never went too far, but never went far enough. Sounds possible an artist late in career, however ill-advised, could feel they had not adequately plumbed the depths of their artistic soul. But you're right...that fact doesn't make something over interpreted sound okay.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> the progression of Renee Fleming's singing is something like this:
> in order:
> 1) *good, simple singing*: So far so good.
> 2) *jazz habits starting to creep in*: No worries, no one is perfect. Still mostly natural sounding and easy to listen to.
> ...


I can't tell what you intend to show with the Fleming master class, which is really a coaching session rather than a voice lesson. I do observe Fleming trying to get the singer not to blast out her upper middle range, which in her opening performance sounds bloated and vibrato-ridden in the modern fashion. Fleming's admonition, "you're opening up and singing too rich and too full in the passaggio" makes sense to me. Fleming also offers good advice about the shaping of the music. I don't notice any of your criticisms of Fleming's own singing coming into play.

Thus far I've been happily oblivious to the fake vulnerability of the elite artistic class, and am quite sure that none of the "liberals" I know exhibit it. I suspect I needn't worry about any who might decide to make use of it, and I don't plan to listen for it in Fleming's singing.


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## Shaafee Shameem (Aug 4, 2021)

Woodduck said:


> I can't tell what you intend to show with the Fleming master class, which is really a coaching session rather than a voice lesson. I do observe Fleming trying to get the singer not to blast out her upper middle range, which in her opening performance sounds bloated and vibrato-ridden in the modern fashion. Fleming's admonition, "you're opening up and singing too rich and too full in the passaggio" makes sense to me. Fleming also offers good advice about the shaping of the music. I don't notice any of your criticisms of Fleming's own singing coming into play.
> Thus far I've been happily oblivious to the fake vulnerability of the elite artistic class, and am quite sure that none of the "liberals" I know exhibit it. I suspect I needn't worry about any who might decide to make use of it, and I don't plan to listen for it in Fleming's singing.


Sorry to intrude into your conversation, but I hear no blasting of the upper middle in the student. Conversely, she is unable to produce strong sounds, due to the lack of development. Notice how the sound has no depth to it, and sounds very thin and nasal. The obtrusive vibrato is probably due to constriction. When Fleming encourages the student whose voice is already underdeveloped to make weak sounds, it further exacerbates the issues, making the student even more constricted and nasal. 
I think what Balalaika boy is trying to convey by over-interpretation and false artistry is the unnecessary exaggeration of dynamics; to sing with constricted, tight pianissimo and glottal attacked, violent fortissimo. Dynamics should be relative to each other, and should flow from one to the next, and never stand out as a conspicuous, obtrusive effect. In the 1968 interview with John Ardoin, Callas says that if a fortissimo following a pianissimo is too loud or vice versa, it would spoil the total effect, and sighs that this was one of the things that she hoped the audience would understand better. In most contemporary singing, we notice this sort of overdone dynamic contrasts, which seem very contrived and unmusical. The best way to use dynamics in bel canto, where not much is written in the score, is to follow the orchestral lines.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Shaafee Shameem said:


> I think what Balalaika boy is trying to convey by over-interpretation and false artistry is the unnecessary exaggeration of dynamics; to sing with constricted, tight pianissimo and glottal attacked, violent fortissimo.


If that is what Balalaikaboy means by 'excessive, over-interpretation in order to seem "artistic" and stay relevant' and 'fake, affected "vulnerability"', he will have to say so himself. Frankly, I doubt that Ms. Fleming's artistic efforts are in any way insincere, that she feels driven to 'seem' artistic, or that she has any fear of not being relevant. This isn't to say that I don't have reservations about some of her work; she has a very active brain, and can get caught up in a search for some expressive inflection for every moment in the music where simplicity and clarity of line would be better. Music can be overworked, and this is especially true of the bel canto rep. Callas had an infallible instinct for this.



> Dynamics should be relative to each other, and should flow from one to the next, and never stand out as a conspicuous, obtrusive effect.


That depends. There are plenty of moments in opera where strong and sudden dynamic contrasts are appropriate. Opera is drama, after all.



> In most contemporary singing, we notice this sort of overdone dynamic contrasts, which seem very contrived and unmusical.


To the extent that singers use dynamics at all - and it's shocking how many don't even try - excessive contrast is mainly a function of an inability to move comfortably from soft to loud and back, or to sing softly without loss of tonal body. Lacking that technical resource, singers trying to be expressive resort to cruder effects.



> The best way to use dynamics in bel canto, where not much is written in the score, is to follow the orchestral lines.


What does that mean? What exactly are you following? In much bel canto repertoire the orchestra isn't doing very much, and it's up to the singer to supply dynamic shaping to the musical line.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Shaafee Shameem said:


> I think what Balalaika boy is trying to convey by over-interpretation and false artistry is the unnecessary exaggeration of dynamics; to sing with constricted, tight pianissimo and glottal attacked, violent fortissimo. *Dynamics should be relative to each other, and should flow from one to the next, and never stand out as a conspicuous, obtrusive effect. In the 1968 interview with John Ardoin, Callas says that if a fortissimo following a pianissimo is too loud or vice versa, it would spoil the total effect, and sighs that this was one of the things that she hoped the audience would understand better. In most contemporary singing*, we notice this sort of overdone dynamic contrasts, which seem very contrived and unmusical. The best way to use dynamics in bel canto, where not much is written in the score, is to follow the orchestral lines.


Yes! That was a lot of what I was getting at, especially the part in bold (unless there is some sudden shift where it is appropriate. ex: something explodes in the middle of the recitative). Most of the time though, it shouldn't be an abrupt break. If you sing Caro Mio Ben, Ave Maria (any of them), Vissi D'arte or Martern Aller Arten like that, you're not going to sound "musical", you're just going to sound "weird and distracting"


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> I can't tell what you intend to show with the Fleming master class, which is really a coaching session rather than a voice lesson.


Right, but while there is an important difference between the two, you should not give interpretative advice that gets in the way of proper vocal development. for example:



> I do observe Fleming trying to get the singer not to blast out her upper middle range, which in her opening performance sounds bloated and vibrato-ridden in the modern fashion. Fleming's admonition, "you're opening up and singing too rich and too full in the passaggio" makes sense to me. Fleming also offers good advice about the shaping of the music. I don't notice any of your criticisms of Fleming's own singing coming into play..


But this is a misdiagnosis to begin with. The problem isn't "being too rich and open", it's "being too _pushed_", Many of my conversations here have involved issues with restricting the chest register, but this time, it's the head register which is restricted when the singer presses or goes ingolata. That's why the singer has to push up the larynx to reach the top notes which sound screechy and lack the "deep oooo" of good release into the head voice. You need to open up _more_ to resolve that issue ("place the note on the breath" is a phrase often used), not open up less.

I'm cognizant that this is not an issue Fleming can hope to address in 30 minutes, and that some level of exaggeration is necessary for purposes of illustration, but either way, she shouldn't be telling the singer to do something that goes against basic level vocal technique like that. That's only going to make things worse.


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

Translate to male voices, and the idea of lightening through the passagio, if one wants to sing artistically..with options.... is to me a given. The one thing I did notice in the soprano before Renee started working was the positioning in the upper voice...getting herself to a position where she could indeed muscle her way into the note. I can't help but believe that the beauty that is in the sound would suffer over time with this approach. Right now she has youth! And ( I didn't finish the video) I did think the lightening Renee was getting from her sounded productive, both for artistic merit in this rendition and for the over all health of the voice.....now that I'm an expert on chest voice!


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> Yours appears to have been the generally held view until sometime in the 20th century. It's so much more fun to end with a trip to hell.


To me, without the final scene, the work doesn't feel "complete" as a dramma giocoso. Maybe I've been too much brainwashed by the aesthetic doctrine and lost my innocence.

Btw, this is pretty much the commendatore saying "your time is up" to Don Giovanni 
10:14







Woodduck said:


> It's as if Mozart felt he had to reassure his fans (such as you) that he would not lose them in a Gothic labyrinth in which their enlightened sensibilities would be darkened for all eternity. You poor thing.


Oh, you're being too factual about my guilty pleasures, dear Mr. Woodduck.. way too factual..


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## Shaafee Shameem (Aug 4, 2021)

Woodduck said:


> If that is what Balalaikaboy means by 'excessive, over-interpretation in order to seem "artistic" and stay relevant' and 'fake, affected "vulnerability"', he will have to say so himself. Frankly, I doubt that Ms. Fleming's artistic efforts are in any way insincere, that she feels driven to 'seem' artistic, or that she has any fear of not being relevant. This isn't to say that I don't have reservations about some of her work; she has a very active brain, and can get caught up in a search for some expressive inflection for every moment in the music where simplicity and clarity of line would be better. Music can be overworked, and this is especially true of the bel canto rep. Callas had an infallible instinct for this.


Indeed, I was merely expressing what I thought he meant by over interpretation, and this topic was something that TIO touched repeatedly. I did not mean to disparage Fleming as insincere and I did not mention anything about her wanting to stay relevant either. What I noted was that there is an increasing tendency for strong dynamic contrasts these days, in ways that were not there in the several generations that came before.



Woodduck said:


> That depends. There are plenty of moments in opera where strong and sudden dynamic contrasts are appropriate. Opera is drama, after all.


Indeed opera is drama, but it is still stylized drama, and all the dramatic choices should also be musical, particularly in classical and bel canto opera. There is nothing wrong with dynamic contrast per se, forgive me if it came across that way. As I said above, Verdi asks for a fortissimo following a pianissimo in Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking scene. Similarly many composers have written scenes with contrasting dynamics. What I meant was exaggerating a pianissimo and a fortissimo by most modern singers. Even a pianissimo needs to have depth in the sound. Very thin, constricted pianissimo that is used to emphasize 'vulnerability' as Balalaika boy states is unrealistic and at times unmusical even. Same for the fortissimo.



Woodduck said:


> To the extent that singers use dynamics at all - and it's shocking how many don't even try - excessive contrast is mainly a function of an inability to move comfortably from soft to loud and back, or to sing softly without loss of tonal body. Lacking that technical resource, singers trying to be expressive resort to cruder effects.


I agree. This is what I meant by false artistry. The contrast is the result of inadequacy, not a scrupulous artistic choice.



Woodduck said:


> What does that mean? What exactly are you following? In much bel canto repertoire the orchestra isn't doing very much, and it's up to the singer to supply dynamic shaping to the musical line.


Sorry I should have been more elaborate here. What I meant was that there are always slight crescendoes and diminuendoes in the accompaniment, however slight, and when singers mirror this effect, as Callas does most often, Patti does in her 'Ah non credea', the result is musically immaculate.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Shaafee Shameem said:


> Indeed, I was merely expressing what I thought he meant by over interpretation, and this topic was something that TIO touched repeatedly. I did not mean to disparage Fleming as insincere and I did not mention anything about her wanting to stay relevant either.


I know. Those were B-boy's implications. I think he was reading too many personal attributes into her artistic choices.



> Indeed opera is drama, but it is still stylized drama, and all the dramatic choices should also be musical, particularly in classical and bel canto opera. There is nothing wrong with dynamic contrast per se, forgive me if it came across that way.


Of course.



> Even a pianissimo needs to have depth in the sound. Very thin, constricted pianissimo that is used to emphasize 'vulnerability' as Balalaika boy states is unrealistic and at times unmusical even. Same for the fortissimo. This is what I meant by false artistry. The contrast is the result of inadequacy, not a scrupulous artistic choice.


A number of factors might cause singers to engage in exaggerated effects. One that I wouldn't underestimate is our increasing distance from the music in question. We simply don't have the idioms "in the blood" as did singers from the early history of recordings, and thus we search for ways to make the music interesting to people in our faster, noisier, more nervous and overstimulated - yet paradoxically more timidly "correct" and straightlaced, as we try to understand what we're doing - era.

I might call a reliance on unsubtle effects a "semiconscious artistic choice," limited by our contemporary sensibilities. Add to this the deficiencies of technique that make more subtle dynamic gradations possible, and we get performances that lack organicity, personality, and memorability, for which exaggerated dynamic (and other) effects fail to compensate. I think it's fair to say that Renee Fleming, a fine singer and musician blessed with a beautiful voice, reveals her modernity to a sometimes annoying degree in her search for expressive effects (which do make her memorable, but not always in the best way). In her case it isn't a lack of technique, and it isn't insincerity. It's very much the restlessly questing, overly intellectual, late-20th-century woman she is, bless her heart. :angel:



> What I meant was that there are always slight crescendoes and diminuendoes in the accompaniment, however slight, and when singers mirror this effect, as Callas does most often, Patti does in her 'Ah non credea', the result is musically immaculate.


How many dynamic indications are there in the accompaniments of most bel canto arias? Without scores handy, I'm guessing very few. The tendency was for composers to specify dynamic variations in greater detail as styles of music evolved to incorporate more complex orchestral writing, with the orchestra carrying more of the dramatic effect and the singer correspondingly less. Bellini and Donizetti could confidently leave much to the intuition of singers, conductors and orchestras, which certainly makes things harder for modern singers not imbued with the style and not possessed of finished techniques.


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## Shaafee Shameem (Aug 4, 2021)

Woodduck said:


> A number of factors might cause singers to engage in exaggerated effects. One that I wouldn't underestimate is our increasing distance from the music in question. We simply don't have the idioms "in the blood" as did singers from the early history of recordings, and thus we search for ways to make the music interesting to people in our faster, noisier, more nervous and overstimulated - yet paradoxically more timidly "correct" and straightlaced, as we try to understand what we're doing - era.
> 
> I might call a reliance on unsubtle effects a "semiconscious artistic choice," limited by our contemporary sensibilities. Add to this the deficiencies of technique that make more subtle dynamic gradations possible, and we get performances that lack organicity, personality, and memorability, for which exaggerated dynamic (and other) effects fail to compensate. I think it's fair to say that Renee Fleming, a fine singer and musician blessed with a beautiful voice, reveals her modernity to a sometimes annoying degree in her search for expressive effects (which do make her memorable, but not always in the best way). In her case it isn't a lack of technique, and it isn't insincerity. It's very much the restlessly questing, overly intellectual, late-20th-century woman she is, bless her heart. :angel:


I agree to an extent, that these unidiomatic effects are attempts at modernization, but while that wouldn't make Fleming insincere, it would still make her incorrect, wouldn't it? Most of the popular operas are from the 18th and 19th centuries, and the characters are mostly even older, hence trying to modernize an art that is intrinsically of the past is to, musically and dramatically, dissolute its very essence and identity isn't it? Callas said that opera is very old fashioned and possibly even ridiculous, but the singers must try to make it as credible as possible. And this credibility should be found again intrinsically, from within the music, not by extrinsic modifications to the style and essence of it.
As to whether it is a lack of technique or not, constricted pianissimo is very much a technical flaw isn't it? It is because Fleming is unable to produce a full, floating sound, that she resorts to tight, hushed pianissimos.



Woodduck said:


> How many dynamic indications are there in the accompaniments of most bel canto arias? Without scores handy, I'm guessing very few. The tendency was for composers to specify dynamic variations in greater detail as styles of music evolved to incorporate more complex orchestral writing, with the orchestra carrying more of the dramatic effect and the singer correspondingly less. Bellini and Donizetti could confidently leave much to the intuition of singers, conductors and orchestras, which certainly makes things harder for modern singers not imbued with the style and not possessed of finished techniques.


There are not as many as in later opera, indeed, but more than in the vocal score. It is as you say because of the composers' faith in the artistry and good taste of the singer, and these were passed down for generations by teachers to their students, a tradition that could trace back to the composers themselves. While we do not have such teachers today, we have adequate compensation in recordings left by great singers, leading back to even the 1840s. If only modern singers would listen and learn.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Shaafee Shameem said:


> I agree to an extent, that these unidiomatic effects are *attempts at modernization, but while that wouldn't make Fleming insincere, it would still make her incorrect, wouldn't it?* Most of the popular operas are from the 18th and 19th centuries, and the characters are mostly even older, hence *trying to modernize* an art that is intrinsically of the past is to, musically and dramatically, dissolute its very essence and identity isn't it? Callas said that opera is very old fashioned and possibly even ridiculous, but the singers must try to make it as credible as possible. And this credibility should be found again intrinsically, from within the music, not by extrinsic *modifications* to the style and essence of it.


I didn't say that Fleming - or anyone else - was _trying_ to "modernize" music. My whole point was that people's ideas about musical interpretation are determind by their intrinsic identities, as formed by the culture in which they live. They don't have to _try_ to be inauthentic; on the contrary, it takes a special artist with special sensibilities (and, of course, a suitable technique) to be authentic when performing old music (to the extent that anyone _can_ be authentic about performance practices from before the age of recording).



> As to whether it is a lack of technique or not, constricted pianissimo is very much a technical flaw isn't it? It is because Fleming is unable to produce a full, floating sound, that she resorts to tight, hushed pianissimos.


I don't agree that Fleming couldn't produce a good, floating piano. She wasn't equal to the very best, but then many otherwise great singers didn't have fine, soft high notes in their arsenal.



> There are not as many as in later opera, indeed, but more than in the vocal score. It is as you say because of the composers' faith in the artistry and good taste of the singer, and these were passed down for generations by teachers to their students, a tradition that could trace back to the composers themselves. While we do not have such teachers today, we have adequate compensation in recordings left by great singers, leading back to even the 1840s. If only modern singers would listen and learn.


I suspect many modern singers do listen, but know that they can sing like Battistini only in their dreams.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> But this is a misdiagnosis to begin with. The problem isn't "being too rich and open", it's "being too _pushed_", Many of my conversations here have involved issues with restricting the chest register, but this time, it's the head register which is restricted when the singer presses or goes ingolata. That's why the singer has to push up the larynx to reach the top notes which sound screechy and lack the "deep oooo" of good release into the head voice. You need to open up _more_ to resolve that issue ("place the note on the breath" is a phrase often used), not open up less.
> 
> I'm cognizant that this is not an issue Fleming can hope to address in 30 minutes, and that some level of exaggeration is necessary for purposes of illustration, but either way, she shouldn't be telling the singer to do something that goes against basic level vocal technique like that. That's only going to make things worse.


For clarification, I'm making this point from a good deal of hard experience rather than just being a critic (not that that's what I'm saying Woodduck is doing. I know he's an experienced singer). I studied voice seriously for a number of years, and pushing was a problem that popped up more than once for me in a way that forced me to investigate it more thoroughly. As such, I stand by my assertion that you would be hard pressed to find a circumstance where "less open" is good advice for any singer, and I think it's a troublesome concept to introduce even if one is primarily focused on interpretation rather than technique.


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## Shaafee Shameem (Aug 4, 2021)

Woodduck said:


> I don't agree that Fleming couldn't produce a good, floating piano. She wasn't equal to the very best, but then many otherwise great singers didn't have fine, soft high notes in their arsenal.






The tension of the neck muscles and facial contortions are signs of constriction.




Conversely, Caballe displays complete ease here. No neck tension or contortions. The same with Tebaldi in the Boheme videos you have shared many times.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> I don't agree that Fleming couldn't produce a good, floating piano. She wasn't equal to the very best, but then many otherwise great singers didn't have fine, soft high notes in their arsenal.


I would call her floating piano passible, but that's a bloody difficult technique to split hairs on. Soprani like Nilsson and Caballe with legendary fil de voce are freaks of nature, as are singers like Tetrazzini who can piano notes at/above high C with just as much body as the rest of her voice.

Personally, I wouldn't mind if the majority of singers just gave a good mp rather than trying to attempt either of those (a professional singers should have a good piano, but not necessarily and ability to maintain it over longer passages at the top of their range, and certainly not necessarily a good pianissimo). I even made a thread on this issue because good soft singing is *hard*. It's an advanced technique that many teachers just expect you to start using right out the gate, and most people run into constriction and disconnection problems that affect the rest of their singing. imo, singers should have at least a year of good training before even touching piano (longer if we're talking about extended, high tessitura passages. that's an inappropriate demand on beginner singers), and at least 3 before even starting to play with pianissimo (probably more like 5 years. I think I met ONE voice student at uni who had a convincing and consistent pianissimo).

My approach to piano was generally something like "sing everything else one dynamic higher, then what was once mp will be considered p". My approach to pianismo was "that's funny...while we're at it, let's have that contralto go sing The Bell Song or do a convincing Musetta":lol:


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> I would call her floating piano passible, but that's a bloody difficult technique to split hairs on. Soprani like Nilsson and Caballe with legendary fil de voce are freaks of nature, as are singers like Tetrazzini who can piano notes at/above high C with just as much body as the rest of her voice.
> 
> Personally, I wouldn't mind if the majority of singers just gave a good mp rather than trying to attempt either of those (a professional singers should have a good piano, but not necessarily and ability to maintain it over longer passages at the top of their range, and certainly not necessarily a good pianissimo). I even made a thread on this issue because good soft singing is *hard*. It's an advanced technique that many teachers just expect you to start using right out the gate, and *most people run into constriction and disconnection problems that affect the rest of their singing*. imo, singers should have at least a year of good training before even touching piano (longer if we're talking about extended, high tessitura passages. that's an inappropriate demand on beginner singers), and at least 3 before even starting to play with pianissimo (probably more like 5 years. I think I met ONE voice student at uni who had a convincing and consistent pianissimo).
> 
> My approach to piano was generally something like "sing everything else one dynamic higher, then what was once mp will be considered p". My approach to pianismo was "that's funny...while we're at it, let's have that contralto go sing The Bell Song or do a convincing Musetta":lol:


My vocal journey was similar in that I pushed. I was never able to achieve the necessary relaxation in the muscles around the throat. An esteemed piano teacher at school who loved opera wanted to hear me because he thought my speaking voice was resonant. We went into the recital hall for him to give a listen and after about a minute he said "...no, you don't have the same resonance when you sing as you do when you speak." And that never really changed.

Keeping this in the realm of tenors, with whom I am more confident speaking technically (and who have fewer examples of proper soft singing in their upper voices than sopranos) I agree that 
*most people run into constriction and disconnection problems that affect the rest of their singing.* and to my ear that is exactly what Fleming is trying to rectify in the students approach. I agree with the rest of your assessment of the timing of attempting these things because, simply achieving the beginnings of proper support and relaxation takes a long time. Nucci says he sang for five years without being allowed to work on music. Even if this is an exageration, it gives an idea of what the approach was.

If the discussion is focused on those who can sing floated A's and B flat's, with men we are indeed talking about rare territory. Less rare for sopranos but you're right, still special stuff.

But there is alot of time spent between the break and the very top - a great deal of the important time is spent here - and achieving softness on G's and A flats and, even tougher I'm sure, right on the break - as you say not pp but p and mp - is essential to express so much of this music properly. I do not believe that Fleming is incorrect to be leading a student with this voice to be lightening up her approach down low. The filling out of that lighter sound is a question of, among other things, proper support and a letting go with the throat muscles she is using to attempt it right now...work for the practice room.

Teacher language varies . To my ear, the fullness that Fleming hears in this student's use of the passagio is akin (not identical) to the pushing that balalaika boy speaks of. If it is not addressed properly it will " *affect the rest of her singing*" The natural, and relatively small rises and falls within the musical line are going to happen far more easily if she can achieve the smaller sound Fleming is asking for...supported and filled out!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Well, we're really down in the weeds here, aren't we? I suspect that whoever originated a thread called "hot takes and unpopular opinions" never envisioned esoteric, picayune and peevish debates over things voice teachers fight about. 

But carry on.


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

So instead we’ll start reviewing the reviewers? I can find it a little weedier when there starts to be a lot of words on the page. Not sure I always know when “we” have crossed into the picayune.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

ScottK said:


> Not sure I always know when "we" have crossed into the picayune.


I'm not sure either, but it's a great word and I just had to slip it in somewhere.


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

Woodduck said:


> I'm not sure either, but it's a great word and I just had to slip it in somewhere.


....................


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Well, we're really down in the weeds here, aren't we? I suspect that whoever originated a thread called "hot takes and unpopular opinions" never envisioned esoteric, picayune and peevish debates over things voice teachers fight about.
> 
> But carry on.


The title is literally "Opera Hot Takes and Unpopular Opinions". I don't think expecting the kind of discourse one would have with the queen over afternoon tea was a reasonable frame going into things.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> The title is literally "Opera Hot Takes and Unpopular Opinions". I don't think expecting the kind of discourse one would have with the queen over afternoon tea was a reasonable frame going into things.


Is that a hot take or an unpopular opinion?


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## gsdkfasdf (11 mo ago)

1. Baritones > tenors, and as a soprano I often prefer listening to more mezzo-y sounding sopranos, but at the same time...
2. Coloratura makes opera a lot more interesting. One of those days where I liked Rossini a bit better because he wrote a lot of coloratura mezzo/contralto roles for his wife
3. Bel canto and verismo are possibly the best eras of opera. 
4. We need to treat singers as more expendable. I feel like in America especially the entire industry coddles singers a bit and a consequence is that they don't get to do roles that are more thrilling and exciting until they're in their 40s. In the past you have Callas debuting Tosca in her teens, Adelina Patti making her debut in Lucia at 17, Tebaldi singing dramatic roles in her teens, and Sybil Sanderson singing Esclarmonde at 24. The only soprano I can think of who did anything similar is Alex Penda (who's still very alive and kicking). I think at least that would help the industry as a whole. One of the teachers in the past used to force his potential students to sing incorrectly the first lesson, and if they came back able to sing he would teach them. 
5. Modern productions for the sake of modern are not very enjoyable. 
6. Blackface and darkening your skin are two very different things. A bad spray tan isn't blackface. Deliberately painting your face a dark color and leaving out the mouth prepping for a minstrel show is. I'd argue that Otello can be framed as a commentary on the hypocrisies and prejudices of society originating from superficial features, and part of why that is the case is his skin color. It is central to the plot, and no one is mocking him. For Aida, perhaps slightly less so. Of course you can always paint your Amneris and 
Desdemona and Iago paper white. Sometimes the America-centric perspectives on everything makes me a little surprised. 
7. Recitatives are boring except a few (i.e. e strano from traviata)
8. High notes are often necessary to keep the audience's anticipation. 
9. Mozart (well, the stuff young singers get handed) is boring and young singers shouldn't be forced to sing only Mozart. Most of the young singers of the past weren't limited to Mozart and turned out just fine. The only Mozart aria that I really enjoyed singing was batti batti. Same with baroque. 
10. Letter scene from Onegin is one of the most epic pieces. Nothing else comes close except maybe act IV of Trovatore
11. I'm part Chinese and I've given up on accuracy in opera. The less you expect of it the better, because whatever Turandot is set in, it's decisively NOT China. The Met has a beautiful production but the costumes are so inaccurate that I cannot keep a straight face while watching. Reminds me of a kid's approximated doodles to be honest because they have some of the key elements but the way it's put together is hilarious. 
12. The amount of layers to a career these days is ridiculous especially in America. Private lessons conservatory more conservatory YAP competitions lead roles management... I think it's utterly depraved and the huge price tags on everything are not helpful. I actually prefer the European system of having singers start singing roles as early as possible, and the Russians are known to just throw young singers (and dancers) onstage even when they don't have entirely secure technique or musicality. I rather appreciate this approach because doing something is a much better way to learn. I often wonder if the sopranos we considered great in the past would have careers today
13. Yeah I just dislike the way opera is run in America. 
14. A lot of operettas are better than "actual" serious opera. 
15. Fat Callas was best Callas and I hate the insistence of realistic casting. Realistic casting would be a 15 year old singing Lauretta and a 20 year old singing Tosca, which would never happen today. I would rather hear a beautiful voice. 
16. Younger spinto/dramatic voices should get to sing roles appropriate for them instead of "waiting" which never happened with the singers from the past that everyone idolises. Same as #4 just more specific. Singing with solid technique almost never results in a busted voice unless a singer takes on something that they absolutely has no business touching, and singers should take more lessons - the standard 1 lesson per week is not enough.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

gsdkfasdf said:


> Modern productions for the sake of modern are not very enjoyable.


Totally agree. I just can't comprehend the obsession with period performance practices and instruments, but if you do a traditional production you are a slack jawed reactionary.



gsdkfasdf said:


> I'm part Chinese and I've given up on accuracy in opera. The less you expect of it the better, because whatever Turandot is set in, it's decisively NOT China.


Agreed, we shouldn't expect an opera written by an Italian who had never been to China to be historically accurate. It's clearly using the setting in an imaginative way. Turandot is one of the few operas that I think does well with an abstract production.



gsdkfasdf said:


> Younger spinto/dramatic voices should get to sing roles appropriate for them instead of "waiting" which never happened with the singers from the past that everyone idolises. Same as #4 just more specific. Singing with solid technique almost never results in a busted voice unless a singer takes on something that they absolutely has no business touching, and singers should take more lessons - the standard 1 lesson per week is not enough.


Singers of the past in Italy would often have lessons every day which they worked other jobs and/or received municipal stipends to pay for. They studied for years, and then would start out in regional theaters and work their way up. Some singers had very restricted, step by step education, and some launched into big roles right away. Giuseppe Danise spent a year singing only tones before he could move onto scales, and eventually songs. Of course, there's a difference between having someone do tones with a big voice and having someone sing Mozart with a small light voice that you force them into because you think young voices should sound light.


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## gsdkfasdf (11 mo ago)

Exactly! I've seen so many productions that are ridiculous and I have to wonder just why would they do this to an otherwise enjoyable opera. There are quite a few modern productions that are lovely, but sometimes it just doesn't work...argh. New =/= better. Sometimes going with the full on period costume looks amazing and there's nothing wrong with either if it works and supports the story rather than trying to hinder it. 

I agree with your last point completely. Forcing a singer to sound constricted because they're young (and young =/= sounding super light) is always a terrible move. Dessay still sounded like a songbird at the end of her career and 20 year old Callas sounded like a dramatic mezzo. The better move is really just to sing as effectively as possible and figure it out from there rather than go in thinking that a young singer must sound one way or another, but this idea of young = light is so pervasive and doesn't make a lot of sense. Sure, most sopranos start out as soubrettes or light lyrics but opera is basically the art of exceptions and freak voices.


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## gsdkfasdf (11 mo ago)

Extra hot takes: I find it kind of silly when people get all hung up on opera being a super formal affair. I honestly don't think so - I'd rather bring back the chatting and sherbet-sellers if it keeps opera alive, and when I watch things at home, it's nice to occasionally have discussions with the people around you about what's going on, especially during slower moments. 

I think it was during one of Lisette Oropesa's recitals, but people got so hung up over the tenor singing Alfredo's part. I don't care - he sounded excellent, and she seemed quite happy with it. If only we get to sing along with the choruses when we go to an opera...and have a bit more fun during recitals. I love live performances, but I do wish that we could live it up a little. Opera isn't just the serious stuff (although most of what gets put on is the serious/tragic rep)

Still waiting for opera becoming a "sign for a season with us" affair. I don't think the frequent travel does any favors for singers (it's so drying and being fatigued/stress does horrible things to your voice). The best solution I can think of is offering both and letting say a few sign on for resident artist for the season and having a few guest artists. That way if people want to travel they can, but if they don't and if it affects their voice they don't have to. Just because we can doesn't mean we have to. I think they still do it in Germany but in America there's no career if you don't travel because the same house won't hire you for more than one or two productions even if you're a superstar. Better performances, more unique experiences for the opera travellers, and less stress on singers. I also wonder if the perceived decline we see has anything to do with the higher demands on singers.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

gsdkfasdf said:


> Extra hot takes: I find it kind of silly when people get all hung up on opera being a super formal affair. I honestly don't think so - I'd rather bring back the chatting and sherbet-sellers if it keeps opera alive, and when I watch things at home, it's nice to occasionally have discussions with the people around you about what's going on, especially during slower moments.
> 
> I think it was during one of Lisette Oropesa's recitals, but people got so hung up over the tenor singing Alfredo's part. I don't care - he sounded excellent, and she seemed quite happy with it. If only we get to sing along with the choruses when we go to an opera...and have a bit more fun during recitals. I love live performances, but I do wish that we could live it up a little. Opera isn't just the serious stuff (although most of what gets put on is the serious/tragic rep)
> 
> Still waiting for opera becoming a "sign for a season with us" affair. I don't think the frequent travel does any favors for singers (it's so drying and being fatigued/stress does horrible things to your voice). The best solution I can think of is offering both and letting say a few sign on for resident artist for the season and having a few guest artists. That way if people want to travel they can, but if they don't and if it affects their voice they don't have to. Just because we can doesn't mean we have to. I think they still do it in Germany but in America there's no career if you don't travel because the same house won't hire you for more than one or two productions even if you're a superstar. Better performances, more unique experiences for the opera travellers, and less stress on singers. I also wonder if the perceived decline we see has anything to do with the higher demands on singers.


When Speight Jenkins was here we had a young artists program and we could fill lots of roles with our student opera singers. My sister was so lucky to be a house soprano in Germany. Joan Sutherland was lucky to have her husband who always travelled with her to keep the grind of an international career more pleasant. Some regretted his conducting but I doubt she would have sung nearly as long as she did with her family by her side. Today's opera world is difficult.


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## khalid (11 mo ago)

Unpopular opinions from a new member:

I can't stand Björling and de los Ángeles tones despite their perfect technique. In contrast, I highly enjoy Olivero and Tagliavini despite their sometimes questionable technique.

Mozart operas are overrated. Good overtures, few great arias but in general, it's quite boring and I'll take Rossini's buffa over him anytime.

As big of a Callas fan I am, I just can't stand her Tosca. She gave the best insight in the role but her thick tone doesn't make it for me as Tosca, I'll go for Tebaldi. Ironically I think Callas was the greatest Maddalena(Chénier) ever. Head and shoulders above the rest. a role isn't associated with her and only sang few times with minimum rehearsal.

Sutherland isn't really a bel canto voice. There's more to bel canto than florid singing and trills. Not to mention her fabled high notes aren't really part of bel canto. I think she was perfect for Handel, Meyerbeer, Massenet, and Offenbach. Lucia can pass as the tessitura isn't low and there are many places for fioriture. But Norma? Elvira? It just doesn't work.

Lastly, Sutherland again, she was one of the greatest interpretives (despite sometimes the dictions get in the way), a side usually neglected or even criticized. And her humorous roles like Rosalinda in Fledermaus are even better.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

OffPitchNeb said:


> Do we really need another Aida, La Boheme, Figaro, Fidelio, on disc, etc., why that slot can be given to Pfitzner's Palestrina, Busoni's Doktor Faust, Enescu's Œdipe, Martinu's Julietta, Faccio'S Amletto, Cherubini's, Spotini's, Mercadante's, Glinka's, Rimsky-Korsakov's many once blockbusters?


+ Der Schulmeister MH204, Der Englische Patriot MH285, Beschluss-Arie MH295, and especially Die Ährenleserin MH493 (1788), which is said to contain greater boldness of chromatic language, Lied-like qualities of the northern tradition (as opposed to coloratura) than Haydn's earlier works, and 3 instances of homage to Mozart's Don Giovanni.




Ich suche die Natur. Edle Wahrheit! Zeig die Wege, wo ich selbe finden kann. Mach das Mark des Geistes rege, zeig mir deine Tritte an. Lass mich finden, aus was Gründen eine Kunst beträchtlich sei. Weg mit Schmink' und Tandelei! Ich suche die Natur.
I seek Nature. Noble Truth! Show the ways where I can find the same. Stir the spirit's depths; show me your steps. Let me find for what cogent reasons an art merits consideration. Away with decoration and ostentation! I seek Nature.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

gsdkfasdf said:


> Extra hot takes: I find it kind of silly when people get all hung up on opera being a super formal affair. I honestly don't think so - I'd rather bring back the chatting and sherbet-sellers if it keeps opera alive, and when I watch things at home, it's nice to occasionally have discussions with the people around you about what's going on, especially during slower moments.
> 
> I think it was during one of Lisette Oropesa's recitals, but people got so hung up over the tenor singing Alfredo's part. I don't care - he sounded excellent, and she seemed quite happy with it. If only we get to sing along with the choruses when we go to an opera...and have a bit more fun during recitals. I love live performances, but I do wish that we could live it up a little. Opera isn't just the serious stuff (although most of what gets put on is the serious/tragic rep)
> 
> Still waiting for opera becoming a "sign for a season with us" affair. I don't think the frequent travel does any favors for singers (it's so drying and being fatigued/stress does horrible things to your voice). The best solution I can think of is offering both and letting say a few sign on for resident artist for the season and having a few guest artists. That way if people want to travel they can, but if they don't and if it affects their voice they don't have to. Just because we can doesn't mean we have to. I think they still do it in Germany but in America there's no career if you don't travel because the same house won't hire you for more than one or two productions even if you're a superstar. Better performances, more unique experiences for the opera travellers, and less stress on singers. I also wonder if the perceived decline we see has anything to do with the higher demands on singers.


I don't know about today but wouldn't a big star like Nilsson be booked for two or three months at a time at the Met or LaScala, greatly decreasing travel? I think some stars like Warren and Merrill were exclusive to the Met. I don't think it is like that anymore. Also back in the 30's stars never flew but took steamers which was likely healthier.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

hammeredklavier said:


> + Der Schulmeister MH204, Der Englische Patriot MH285, Beschluss-Arie MH295, and especially Die Ährenleserin MH493 (1788), which is said to contain greater boldness of chromatic language, Lied-like qualities of the northern tradition (as opposed to coloratura) than Haydn's earlier works, and 3 instances of homage to Mozart's Don Giovanni.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


You are a caution H. Your name is legend in these parts. At least it never fails to get a big laugh!:lol: (with thanks to Woody Allen)


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Joan Sutherland was lucky to have her husband who always travelled with her to keep the grind of an international career more pleasant. Some regretted his conducting but I doubt she would have sung nearly as long as she did with her family by her side. Today's opera world is difficult.


I think she would've retired 10 years earlier had it no been for Ricky.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

MAS said:


> I think she would've retired 10 years earlier had it no been for Ricky.


Aha! So _he's_ the culprit!


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

MAS said:


> I think she would've retired 10 years earlier had it no been for Ricky.


Schwarzkopf would definitely have retired earlier if it weren't for Legge encouraging her to carry on. She actually says so in the book _Listening with Schwarzkopf_. She didn't like any of her late recordings and only continued doing recitals because he wanted her to so much. When he died she abruptly cancelled all her future contracts and never sang in public again.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Schwarzkopf would definitely have retired earlier if it weren't for Legge encouraging her to carry on. She actually says so in the book _Listening with Schwarzkopf_. She didn't like any of her late recordings and only continued doing recitals because he wanted her to so much. When he died she abruptly cancelled all her future contracts and never sang in public again.


Do you know which recordings (some of which we might now enjoy) didn't meet her standards?


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Do you know which recordings (some of which we might now enjoy) didn't meet her standards?


Definitely the final recital for Decca and the Frauenliebe und Leben. She was not all that keen on the Mozart Concert Arias she did with Szell in the late 1960s, thinking that the voice no longer had the freshness for Mozart. You should try and get a copy of Alan Sanders and John Steane's book _Elisabeth Schwarzkopf: A Career on Record_. It makes for fascinating reading, particularly the listening sessions with Schwarzkopf herself.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

OffPitchNeb said:


> Do we really need another Aida, La Boheme, Figaro, Fidelio, on disc, etc., why that slot can be given to Pfitzner's Palestrina, Busoni's Doktor Faust, Enescu's Œdipe, Martinu's Julietta, Faccio'S Amletto, Cherubini's, Spotini's, Mercadante's, Glinka's, Rimsky-Korsakov's many once blockbusters?


+ Franz Ignaz von Beecke (1733-1803); none of his stage works have been recorded

Roland (opera) - 1770?
Claudine from Villa Bella (singspiel in one act with libretto by Goethe) - 1780
The jubilee wedding (comic opera in 3 acts with libretto by Weiße) - 1782
The grape harvest (singspiel in 2 acts) - 1782
List against List (The Bell) (singspiel) - c.1785
The heart retains its rights (singspiel) - 1790
The destroyed pastoral celebration (pastoral) - 1790
Nina (singspiel) - 1790
some of his instrumental stuff:









"Von Beecke served in the Bavarian Dragoon Regiment of Zollern from 1756, during which time he fought in the Seven Years' War. He served with distinction and was promoted to Captain. He was known at the time chiefly for his great skill in playing the harpsichord, although he composed a wide range of music as well, having studied with Christoph Willibald Gluck. He died in Wallerstein, Germany.
In 1775, von Beecke met the 19-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Munich and the two engaged in a piano playing competition at the well-known inn Zum Schwarzen Adler. The poet and composer Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart, who was in the audience, wrote in his Teutsche Chronik (27 April 1775) that in his opinion, von Beecke played far better than Mozart: "In Munich last winter I heard two of the greatest clavier players, Mr Mozart and Captain von Beecke. Mozart’s playing had great weight, and he read at sight everything that we put before him. But no more than that; Beecke surpasses him by a long way. Winged agility, grace and melting sweetness.""


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Definitely the final recital for Decca and the Frauenliebe und Leben. She was not all that keen on the Mozart Concert Arias she did with Szell in the late 1960s, thinking that the voice no longer had the freshness for Mozart. You should try and get a copy of Alan Sanders and John Steane's book _Elisabeth Schwarzkopf: A Career on Record_. It makes for fascinating reading, particularly the listening sessions with Schwarzkopf herself.


I’ve just ordered a copy from Amazon. Expected delivery at the end of next week. I’m looking forward to reading it.


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## Yabetz (Sep 6, 2021)

hammeredklavier said:


> + Franz Ignaz von Beecke (1733-1803); none of his stage works have been recorded
> 
> Roland (opera) - 1770?
> Claudine from Villa Bella (singspiel in one act with libretto by Goethe) - 1780
> ...


 Poor old Mozart must've been like the gunslinger in the Westerns that every other gunslinger wants a showdown against. "I heard you're pretty fast..."


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> The repetition, sometimes as many as four identical repetitions, of cadential words and phrases in Mozart's operas makes me want to throw something. It's a great relief to get to Beethoven and find such pointless musical formalities gone.






(3:09~3:22)

I've wondered what you meant by that. I think I know now.
I find none of such devices in Reichardt's works from Berlin. Also, there are no seccos; only accompagnatos or spoken speech in his. One of them is actually 'through-composed', as I discussed in the thread <Mozart and through-composition>.

I mean, think about it; there was(were) a contemporary(s) of Mozart who wrote his(their) operas without _"such pointless musical formalities"._


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

What was the example from Mozart?
It is not pointless if it fits/serves musical pacing or sth. like that. Like the coda of Beethoven's 5th finale


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Kreisler jr said:


> What was the example from Mozart?


I'm pretty sure it's something like this. At 0:15 (and then at 0:24), notice the repeat (also the Paisiello example posted in #167)-




and this (@ 1:35)




It would be interesting to compare Seria vs Buffa / German vs Italian, to deduce a hypothesis about this stylistic pattern. For example, the few recorded works of Holzbauer seem to contain a lot of coloratura, but not this sort of stylistic repeat (as far as know).


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

hammeredklavier said:


> I'm pretty sure it's something like this. At 0:15 (and then at 0:24), notice the repeat (also the Paisiello example posted in #167)-
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Those are good examples of the use of literal figure and phrase repetition - both the music and the words set to it - a pervasive feature of Mozart's operatic writing. Phrases may repeat as many as four times. This is not found in his non-vocal music, which makes me think that its main purpose is to get the libretto across clearly, since sung words can be missed by the audience when they fly by quickly.

This aspect of Mozart's operatic style, along with abundant secco recitative, somewhat puts me off his operas, or parts of them. The use of spoken dialogue in _Zauberflote_ comes as a relief, and the musical freshness is welcome too. He did express a desire not to bore people with an excess of recitative, and had he lived longer he would certainly have been happy to see the secco variety become obsolete.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> Those are good examples of the use of literal figure and phrase repetition - both the music and the words set to it - a pervasive feature of Mozart's operatic writing. Phrases may repeat as many as four times. This is not found in his non-vocal music, which makes me think that its main purpose is to get the libretto across clearly, since sung words can be missed by the audience when they fly by quickly.
> This aspect of Mozart's operatic style, along with abundant secco recitative, somewhat puts me off his operas, or parts of them. The use of spoken dialogue in _Zauberflote_ comes as a relief, and the musical freshness is welcome too. He did express a desire not to bore people with an excess of recitative, and had he lived longer he would certainly have been happy to see the secco variety become obsolete.


I totally understand (as I do all your "reservations" about Mozart). The said "cadential phrase repeat" pattern (including the Paisiello example, which I posted in #167) doesn't bother me at all. It seems to me like expressions of "joys of life". But have you ever thought about -
1. Is this primarily a main feature of his Da Ponte operas? Or do you find this element to be abundant in Die Zauberflöte as well?
2. Whatabout Mozart's contemporaries who mostly wrote liederspiels or singspiels lacking recitativo seccos and the kind of "cadential phrase repeat" pattern shared by Paisiello and Mozart, and at the same time have their own "strengths" of fluidity of vocal writing and chromatic harmony?





the measures inside the box: by the shift, [Cb, Ab, Eb]—[B, G#, E], the altered, A flat minor triad, i6 (G sharp minor, enharmonically) leads to V64 of A minor, acting as a transition between the section in A flat and the one in A minor








Can they be considered to have an "advantage" over Mozart, in this context?

Are you bothered by the phrase style of something like this, from 1769, too? -


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

hammeredklavier said:


> 1. Is this primarily a main feature of his Da Ponte operas? Or do you find this element to be abundant in Die Zauberflöte as well?


There is nothing in _Zauberflote_ that annoys me.



> 2. Whatabout Mozart's contemporaries who mostly wrote liederspiels or singspiels lacking recitativo seccos and the kind of "cadential phrase repeat" pattern shared by Paisiello and Mozart, and at the same time have their own "strengths" of fluidity of vocal writing and chromatic harmony?


I'm not interested enough in the Classical period to have this discussion. I've listened to plenty of it in the past, but I'm mostly finished with it now.












> Can they be considered to have an "advantage" over Mozart, in this context?


It's very hard to obtain an advantage over Mozart.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> It's very hard to obtain an advantage over Mozart.


Why? Because he's _Divine_ Perfection?


hammeredklavier said:


> There are of course things found in Mozart that are not found in the other, almost forgotten composer, (and vice-versa). For example, vast stretches of Alberti bass patterns like the one that opens K.496, a style of which many consider as an abomination, as did a certain "objectivist" Bach admirer who kept appearing on the forum under different names.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

hammeredklavier said:


> Why? Because he's _Divine_ Perfection?


Your ears will tell you. Or they won't.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> Your ears will tell you. Or they won't.


One more question; what do you think about








 "I didn't see the merits of X's music...


"I didn't see the merits of X's music until I had N hours of listening to it" Let's say there are composers (or works) "A" and "B". With A, you didn't see his (its) "merits" at first, but you've had roughly 1000 hours of listening to his music (it), and now you "recognize" them. (At least you...




www.talkclassical.com






hammeredklavier said:


> *"I didn't see the merits of X's music until I had N hours of listening to it"*
> 
> Let's say there are composers (or works) "A" and "B".
> With A, you didn't see his (its) "merits" at first, but you've had roughly 1000 hours of listening to his music (it), and now you "recognize" them. (At least you think you do.)
> ...


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

hammeredklavier said:


> One more question; what do you think about
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I find such comparisons completely inconsequenial and indicative of nothing in particuar.


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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

I finally have and outrageous idea to post here: please, have somebody rewrite the libretto of Verdi's Ernani !!! 
The music is great, but the story is dragging the opera down.


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## Dick Johnson (Apr 14, 2020)

BBSVK said:


> I finally have and outrageous idea to post here: please, have somebody rewrite the libretto of Verdi's Ernani !!!
> The music is great, but the story is dragging the opera down.


Verdi was occasionally attracted to outrageously unrealistic librettos - I think it appealed to his stage sense and his vision for the possibility of opera as simultaneously unrealistic and transformative. Ernani and Trovatore are both good examples.


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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

Dick Johnson said:


> Verdi was occasionally attracted to outrageously unrealistic librettos - I think it appealed to his stage sense and his vision for the possibility of opera as simultaneously unrealistic and transformative. Ernani and Trovatore are both good examples.


Yes, but Il Trovatore is not nearly half as bad as Ernani.


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## damianjb1 (Jan 1, 2016)

Here are mine:

I don't particularly like the music of Richard Strauss.

I find most 'bel canto' opera extremely boring

I think Handel Opera's go on way too long

I can't stand the sound of Gwyneth Jones and Leonie Rysenak's voices

I think some so called 'golden age singers' are overrated.

I find most (not all) of Elizabeth Schwarzkopf's recording unpleasant and I don't understand how so many people find her voice 'beautiful'.

Meyerbeer is boring. So is Delibes.

Richard Bonynge wasn't a very good conductor and that had a negative impact on Joan's singing.


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## damianjb1 (Jan 1, 2016)

> I detest the controversy over "blackface." Should we only cast Black singers in Black roles? Are there good Black *Otello* tenors? Or *Aida*s? Should only Japanese sopranos be cast in *Madama Butterfly*? Similarly, should there be no black, Asian, Hispanic, chorus members of operas that take place in 16th or 17th, or 18th Century Venice, or Sweden, or England where it would anachronistic for them to be there? Let's get back the Egyptian makeup! It's _just makeup! _not an insult to members of a race!


_Yes (sigh). It's the sort of PC nonsense - rooted in an insecurity so intense that it tries to make the whole world a safe space - that would make me embarrassed to be politically liberal if the alternative were not more horrible still._

Actually, it's not PC nonsense. Real human beings with dark skin find black face extremely offensive. Lots and lots of them And the history behind it is appalling. It's not about trying to make the whole world a safe space. It's about treating people with respect. I don't think acknowledging the horrific treatment of black people is PC nonsense. And "black face" is an important part of that history.
And yes - Asian people apparently find "yellow face" equally offensive.

Should only black singers sing Otello or Aida? Of course not. No-one is saying that.
But we don't need a minstrel show when a non-black singer is singing those role.

"It's _just makeup! _not an insult to members of a race!"
Actually it is and insult. And that's because many many many members of that race say it is.
We don't get to decide what other people should or shouldn't find offensive.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

damianjb1 said:


> I think Handel Opera's go on way too long


Try this version- https://www.washingtonpost.com/arch...st-hits/623150ae-746c-41b3-a434-3c3ed42162fd/ "In its orginal form "Radamsisto" is one of Handel's longest operas, "four hours of not always inspired music," according to Simon, whose first task was to put together an edition suitable for today's audiences. "The biggest problem for today's audiences. "The biggest problem was trying to restrain one's self-indulgence, and not be seduced by the lesser material," explained Simon, who pared the opera down to 2 1/2 hours and reduced its three acts to two."


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

damianjb1 said:


> _Yes (sigh). It's the sort of PC nonsense - rooted in an insecurity so intense that it tries to make the whole world a safe space - that would make me embarrassed to be politically liberal if the alternative were not more horrible still._
> 
> Actually, it's not PC nonsense. Real human beings with dark skin find black face extremely offensive. Lots and lots of them And the history behind it is appalling. It's not about trying to make the whole world a safe space. It's about treating people with respect. I don't think acknowledging the horrific treatment of black people is PC nonsense. And "black face" is an important part of that history.
> And yes - Asian people apparently find "yellow face" equally offensive.
> ...


Your last sentence is very true. A couple of other things are also true:

1. There are no such entities as "black people" and "yellow people," all members of which categories think and feel alike. There is no such thing as a "black person" or a "yellow person," these categories being of limited use for limited, defined social purposes which are at least as apt to be pernicious as to be benign. It's the prerogative of any individual to self-identify as "black," or "yellow" or "white," but not that person's, or any other person's, pregogative to decide what things others should or must find objectionable or insulting.

2. Operas about people of African descent are not "minstrel shows," and makeup used to indicate the ethnicity of a character is not "blackface." Those terms refer to a specific form of entertainment which caricatures both the appearance and behavior of people defined by Euro-Americans as "black" and inferior, people who were excluded from artistic and entertainment venues and could appear there only by an act of appropriating their identities and presenting crass and degrading caricatures of them. Portraying Otello or Aida as an African has nothing whatever to do with the burlesque known as blackface. In fact, given that Aida and Otello are both fundamentally sympathetic figures whose ill-treatment Verdi clearly intended to inspire sympathy in all of us, and given that both operas give us protagonists in interracial love relationships, an excellent argument can be made that these operas constitute criticisms of racism, not expressions of it. But that criticism can only be effective if the ethnic identities of the characters are made apparent.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

^^I mostly agree with that but do have some issues with the last statement. The audience does not need to be figuratively hit over the head to understand the intended criticism.


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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

damianjb1 said:


> Richard Bonynge wasn't a very good conductor and that had a negative impact on Joan's singing.


She was active for a very long time and some attribute it to Bonnynge.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Becca said:


> ^^I mostly agree with that but do have some issues with the last statement. The audience does not need to be figuratively hit over the head to understand the intended criticism.


Point taken, but I don't think a little brown makeup to make Otello swarthier than his bride hits anyone over the head. Maybe I'm just a kid at heart, but I like theatrical illusion and having things look like what they're supposed to be. I'm sure Set Svanholm's Otello needed quite a bit of help from the makeup department not to look like a Siegfried who got lost on his way to Brunnhilde's rock. The route through Venice is quite a detour.


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## damianjb1 (Jan 1, 2016)

BBSVK said:


> She was active for a very long time and some attribute it to Bonnynge.


For sure. But singers learn so much from conductors. To limit yourself to one (especially one who isn't all that great) I think deprived her and us from who knows what greatness. You only have to listen to her Turandot with Mehta to hear what he was able to get out of her.


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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

damianjb1 said:


> For sure. But singers learn so much from conductors. To limit yourself to one (especially one who isn't all that great) I think deprived her and us from who knows what greatness. You only have to listen to her Turandot with Mehta to what he was able to get out of her.


I am often bothered by very fast tempi. Bonynge conducted fast, because Sutherland could sing that way, he adjusted to her, but sometimes I feel something got lost in that speed.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

BBSVK said:


> She was active for a very long time and some attribute it to Bonnynge.


You would not have had Sutherland without Bonynge. It wasn't just the pushing her into coloratura, but life on the road is just a dreadful life and Joan always had her family and support with her which gave her the stability Callas lacked which was so tragic in the long run. I don't know what she did with Adam but I suspect he came along with a tutor at least through grade school. You got the sense Joan was very stable and everyone who worked with her loved her. Nilsson was also lucky in that her husband was very wealthy and ran his own business and would fly and stay with her on long stays. I think happy home lives played prominently into the very long careers of both Nilsson and Sutherland. With Callas her personal life ended up having an adverse effect on her career sadly. I suspect the lonely life on the road helped fuel Bjorling's and Steber's alcohol addictions.


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## damianjb1 (Jan 1, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> Your last sentence is very true. A couple of other things are also true:
> 
> 1. There are no such entities as "black people" and "yellow people," all members of which categories think and feel alike. There is no such thing as a "black person" or a "yellow person," these categories being of limited use for limited, defined social purposes which are at least as apt to be pernicious as to be benign. It's the prerogative of any individual to self-identify as "black," or "yellow" or "white," but not that person's, or any other person's, pregogative to decide what things others should or must find objectionable or insulting.
> 
> 2. Operas about people of African descent are not "minstrel shows," and makeup used to indicate the ethnicity of a character is not "blackface." Those terms refer to a specific form of entertainment which caricatures both the appearance and behavior of people defined by Euro-Americans as "black" and inferior, people who were excluded from artistic and entertainment venues and could appear there only by an act of appropriating their identities and presenting crass and degrading caricatures of them. Portraying Otello or Aida as an African has nothing whatever to do with the burlesque known as blackface. In fact, given that Aida and Otello are both fundamentally sympathetic figures whose ill-treatment Verdi clearly intended to inspire sympathy in all of us, and given that both operas give us protagonists in interracial love relationships, an excellent argument can be made that these operas constitute criticisms of racism, not expressions of it. But that criticism can only be effective if the ethnic identities of the characters are made apparent.


What is the big deal? I've seen 3 performances of Otello in the last 10 years. The tenor wore blackface in one of them - not in the other two. A lack of blackface made zero difference to the quality of the performance. ZERO!! Aida is the same. The last production I saw, Aida, Amnesia and Radames all had the same colour skin and the drama and performance were not diminished in any way at all.
I'm quite aware that Opera's about people of African descent are not minstrel shows. But the reference is close enough to cause a significant proportion of the people in question offence.
Are people seriously saying that a performance of Aida with the greatest singers in the world would someone be invalid because the lead soprano's makeup wasn't of a particular shade?
I never said that all black or Asian people think and feel alike. But enough find this stuff grossly offensive. Can't we just be polite and have consideration for other people's feelings?


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

damianjb1 said:


> What is the big deal? I've seen 3 performances of Otello in the last 10 years. The tenor wore blackface in one of them - not in the other two. A lack of blackface made zero difference to the quality of the performance. ZERO!! Aida is the same. The last production I saw, Aida, Amnesia and Radames all had the same colour skin and the drama and performance were not diminished in any way at all.
> I'm quite aware that Opera's about people of African descent are not minstrel shows. But the reference is close enough to cause a significant proportion of the people in question offence.
> Are people seriously saying that a performance of Aida with the greatest singers in the world would someone be invalid because the lead soprano's makeup wasn't of a particular shade?
> I never said that all black or Asian people think and feel alike. But enough find this stuff grossly offensive. Can't we just be polite and have consideration for other people's feelings?


A good friend is a Libyan, next to where the Moors are from. He is about as dark skinned as Sophia Loren... though not as pretty.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

Although the original language is always preferable aesthetically, there's nothing wrong or blasphemous about performing an opera in translation, especially if it makes it accessible to the people in the place where it's being performed. Individual translations made to be singable are sometimes (maybe often) not very good, but in there's nothing wrong with it in principle as is sometimes said. There are many great recordings of arias and some of complete operas in translation.


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## damianjb1 (Jan 1, 2016)

Seattleoperafan said:


> A good friend is a Libyan, next to where the Moors are from. He is about as dark skinned as Sophia Loren... though not as pretty.


Exactly.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

vivalagentenuova said:


> Although the original language is always preferable aesthetically, there's nothing wrong or blasphemous about performing an opera in translation, especially if it makes it accessible to the people in the place where it's being performed.






"I agree that the original German is beautiful. However, since Mozart wrote the opera for the common people (hence it being in German rather than French or Italian which only the aristocracy spoke), having it translated for the "common person" makes sense in this instance." -Tessa Bryce, a youtuber


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

damianjb1 said:


> Here are mine:
> 
> I don't particularly like the music of Richard Strauss.


Me neither. Personally, I think Puccini was a better opera composer.



damianjb1 said:


> I think some so called 'golden age singers' are overrated.


Which ones?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

vivalagentenuova said:


> I think Puccini was a better opera composer.


I agree. Strauss for my purposes is a composer of scenes and "opera highlights."


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## damianjb1 (Jan 1, 2016)

vivalagentenuova said:


> Me neither. Personally, I think Puccini was a better opera composer.
> 
> 
> Which ones?


Erna Berger. Elisabeth Schumann. Luigi Alva. Luisa Tetrazzini. 
None of them are bad. I just think there have been later singers with similar voice types that are better.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

hammeredklavier said:


> I'm pretty sure it's something like this. At 0:15 (and then at 0:24), notice the repeat (also the Paisiello example posted in #167)-


@1:15 ("Non dubitar, o Figaro")





spontaneous and machine gun-like.


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