# If only you could...



## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

This has almost certainly been done before but...

If you could be the protagonist (or one of) in TWO works as a sort of wish fulfillment - what would they be? Lets include opera roles for fun also 

I'll start with TWO that just roll off the top of my head:

Piano in Schumann Piano Concerto
Baritone in Carmina Burana

But, given my predilection for freely changing my mind, I may be back! (especially to rock out some moar contemporary stuff)

Discussion welcomed


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## GioCar (Oct 30, 2013)

conductor in Wagner's Ring

piano in Schubert's Wanderer Fantasie

Two just coming to mind


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I would love to be the principal clarinet that provides the beginning of Prokofiev's Piano Concerto #3 which is then quickly joined by Angelina Jolie as the second clarinet.

The violin as it makes its first entrance in the Bartok Violin Concerto #2. So throaty and earthy. Soooo sexy!


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

Please can I be Aeneas disappearing into the cave with the Dido of my choice during the 'Royal Hunt and Storm' at the beginning of Act Four of _Les Troyens_? I don't feel up to singing, but I could entertain a nice Dido for a while :lol:

Secondly, I want to fire the cannon in the 1812 overture .... at the work colleague who cheesed me off today :devil:


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

"Rite" and "Pictures" in my Nehru jacket and conducting slippers.


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

I would be this lady:









:kiss: 

Although thinking about some of the neighbours, Headphone Hermit's cannon idea has its merits!


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Headphone Hermit said:


> *Please can I be Aeneas disappearing into the cave with the Dido* of my choice during the 'Royal Hunt and Storm' at the beginning of Act Four of _Les Troyens_? I don't feel up to singing, but I could entertain a nice Dido for a while :lol:
> 
> Secondly, I want to fire the cannon in the 1812 overture .... at the work colleague who cheesed me off today :devil:


Only if you're a good lad.


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## tgtr0660 (Jan 29, 2010)

Conductor in a cycle of Brahms and Beethoven symphonies. 

I would like to be any instrument, itself (not the person playing it, but the actual device) in a performance of Bach's St Matthew Passion


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

My request would be
The piano in Brahms Piano Concerto 1
The violin in Elgars Violin Concerto 
Just wish I could play either instrument


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I would like to be Carmen; she is utterly unlike me physically or mentally, but hey, it would make a change. 

And I would like to be a solo violinist able to play The Devil's Trill and make audiences faint at my prodigious dexterity.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

If I wanted to show off my playing ability: effortlessly performing the definitive account of Liszt's 'Paganini' etudes and then being festooned with roses and society ladies begging me for my sweat to use as unction.

If I wanted to show off my acting and singing ability so that the whole audience would love me forever: the title role of Boris Godunov, despite learning Russian only a month before rehearsals.

If I wanted to be a deity of the podium: with the VPO conducting a Bruckner 8 so transcendent that Time magazine would withdraw their planned front cover at the last minute in order to have me on it instead.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Ingélou said:


> I would like to be Carmen; she is utterly unlike me physically or mentally, but hey, it would make a change.
> 
> And I would like to be a solo violinist able to play The Devil's Trill and make audiences faint at my prodigious dexterity.


If you were like Carmen mentally, you would be posting on the Considerable Castinets Forum instead.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

I'd love to conduct a double bill with two of my favorite pieces from Messiaen: "Des canyons aux étoiles" and the "Grand concert d'oiseaux" that's inside his opera about St. Francis. It's a dream, of course, imagine that Kent Nagano spent several months working on the "Grand concert..." before he was ready to give it a try!.

About an opera role... well, I'm a baritone, and I love Bellini, so why not tackle Filippo Maria Visconti, in his beautiful, and somewhat underrated, "Beatrice di Tenda"?. However, this lovely piece: 'Come t´adoro e quanto' is sung here by Renato Bruson, much better than I could possibly do:


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

Ingélou said:


> I would like to be Carmen; she is utterly unlike me physically or mentally, but hey, it would make a change.


I'd like that as well, for the same reasons you mention. Trouble is I'd probably fall into José's arms as soon as he sings the flower song- which would make for a very short and saccharine opera!


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I'd go for:

Bach - _Harpsichord Concerto_ BWV 1056 (on harpsichord)
Baritone in Bartok - _Bluebeard's Castle_


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## Badinerie (May 3, 2008)

Tonight anyway...Viola in Capriccio for viola Henry Vieuxtemps

Or Cavaradossi to Angela Gheorghiu's Tosca. In that dress!

Re Figleaf

_Trouble is I'd probably fall into José's arms as soon as he sings the flower song- _

Listening to Nicolai Gedda sing it last week, so would I, and im a straight guy!


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

Some toothsome proposals here! Loving it. Two more from me

Cello in the Brahms Double Concerto
Sarastro in Magic Flute (with bottom Cs and Es)


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

dgee said:


> Sarastro in Magic Flute (with bottom Cs and Es)


Me too! I've always wanted to just open my mouth and have Pol Plançon's voice come out. Sadly there's not enough testosterone in the world to make me a bass, even if I could sing at all! I'm more like a tone deaf Gracie Fields or maybe Cilla Black 

But when I'm Pol Plançon I will sing 'In diesen heiligen Hallen' exactly as he does, with that beautiful smooth voice, in charmingly French accented Italian. 'Authentic' Mozart be damned!


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

Hmm... Conductor in Schubert's 9th...and being the pianist in Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 2 sounds like fun.


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

Concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic 
Perform the Sibelius Violin Concerto in Helsinki
Write a symphony premiered by the BBC Phil at a summer proms


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Sining the mad scene from Lucia di Lammermoor, with my tenor voice and conducting Verdi's Don Carlos .


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Figleaf said:


> Me too! I've always wanted to just open my mouth and have Pol Plançon's voice come out. Sadly there's not enough testosterone in the world to make me a bass, even if I could sing at all! I'm more like a tone deaf Gracie Fields or maybe Cilla Black
> 
> But when I'm Pol Plançon I will sing 'In diesen heiligen Hallen' exactly as he does, with that beautiful smooth voice, in charmingly French accented Italian. 'Authentic' Mozart be damned!


Ummmm....Do you really want that? On the positive side, every circus in the world would hire you.


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## omega (Mar 13, 2014)

Bassoon in the _Rite of Spring_
Solo cello in Bloch's _Shelomo_


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

If only I could be the clarinet blown by Sharon Kam and the violin caressed by Anne-Sophie Mutter.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

I'd love to be the baton in Gustav Mahler's Hand at the première of his own Fourth Symphony.
As second choice I like to be the ivory on the piano when John Ogdon played Ferruccio Busoni's Fantasia Contrapuntistica for the first tme!

/ptr


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

hpowders said:


> Ummmm....Do you really want that? On the positive side, every circus in the world would hire you.


Well I wasn't planning to grow his pointy beard- but anything which makes me more employable is a plus


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Vaneyes said:


> "Rite" and "Pictures" in my Nehru jacket and conducting slippers.


_Natty!_ ...........................


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Hmmm.

Pianist in the full-length Petrushka (revised version)

principal conductor (of four conductors) for Robert Moran ~ Requiem; Chant du Cygne, which I would promote and conduct as many places as possible to promote the work so it is much better known than at present.





Add: ^^^ similarly, conducting / promoting Lucia Dlugoszewski's ~ _Fire Fragile Flight_


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## clara s (Jan 6, 2014)

a. his violin, playing Johannes Brahms' DARK sonata no3









b. one of the Capulets dancing the brass section from the dance of the Knights

mystical music, that's what I like


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

If only I could be a fly on the wall back in the day when Haydn came back home after declaring "before God, I tell you ..."
that Mozart was the greatest composer known to him after Mozart dedicated 6 string quartets to him.

I wonder if he would have said with windows closed and door locked: "Mozart?? Yeah right!!! Maybe after I'm dead and buried!!"


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

Interesting idea. I would like to be:

The piano of Beethoven's 5th concerto
The solo violin from Strauss' Ein Heldenleben
One of the pianos of Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals
The flute from Prokofiev's 1st symphony


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