# Opera singers and mass media - video clips



## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

What do you all think of this new trend: the use of video clips by opera singers.
Bad taste? Valid tool to diffuse opera and reach new audiences? Money-grabbing low dirty shame? Cool?
















Feel free to comment and/or post more examples


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Hasn't opera always been about sex?


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Hasn't opera always been about sex?


Yes. And murder. And betrayal. You know, normal human behavior.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

And so why should we be worried that a video is using the sex-appeal of the singers to sell opera... an art form that revels in sex, and betrayal and murder and lush sensuality and spectacle?


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

Warning: Unspeakably hilariously tacky and cringe-worthy. I can't bear to watch it again but I'm happy to inflict it on you guys:devil:.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> And so why should we be worried that a video is using the sex-appeal of the singers to sell opera... an art form that revels in sex, and betrayal and murder and lush sensuality and spectacle?


I'm not worried.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

mamascarlatti said:


> Warning: Unspeakably hilariously tacky and cringe-worthy. I can't bear to watch it again but I'm happy to inflict it on you guys:devil:.


 Erm... I kind of... like it.
I mean, the music is very tacky but the images are sort of interesting.
There are even boobs!


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

Almaviva said:


> Erm... I kind of... like it.
> I mean, the music is very tacky but the images are sort of interesting.
> There are even boobs!


It's the model's feeble moaning that cracks me up. And Dima's spray-on abs.


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## karenpat (Jan 16, 2009)

I don't mind classical music videos in general but I think it's unfortunate when the sex references drown out the music. The Casta Diva video you posted wasn't that bad, but I thought Anna Netrebko seemed a bit desperate. I get that being in the water fits the story but did they have to oil her in like that? I saw the Elina Garanca video when it was first released on youtube and it just seems a little overdone to me. Not in terms of sex, but maybe styling and general acting...just too much.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Almaviva said:


> What do you all think of this new trend: the use of video clips by opera singers.
> Bad taste? Valid tool to diffuse opera and reach new audiences? Money-grabbing low dirty shame? Cool?


Nice videos - as videos. At the end of the day, posted on the internet to promote the artists etc. for the sake of sales. Nothing wrong with that, as it gives us awareness of the artists and the music, and then we decide whether or not it's worth spending the time and money.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

karenpat said:


> I don't mind classical music videos in general but I think it's unfortunate when the sex references drown out the music. The Casta Diva video you posted wasn't that bad, but I thought Anna Netrebko seemed a bit desperate. I get that being in the water fits the story but did they have to oil her in like that? I saw the Elina Garanca video when it was first released on youtube and it just seems a little overdone to me. Not in terms of sex, but maybe styling and general acting...just too much.


Yep, Elina went over the top. She was much prettier and sexier as a brunette in the recent Met Carmen. In this video, one wants to tell her, "hey, Elina, have you heard of a kind of useful device called a hair comb?"


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

This is my reaction after watching a bit of videos Almaviva has posted (couldn't stand to watch them entirely):


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## Herkku (Apr 18, 2010)

For me the commercial use of classical music has destroyed my ability to listen to many compositions without thinking of the product advertised. I didn't watch any of the clips, in fear that something new would be tarnished. I don't even know if they are advertisements or whatever.


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

Almaviva said:


>


I bet they never considered making one of those with Montserrat Caballe.


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

Almaviva said:


> What do you all think of this new trend: the use of video clips by opera singers.
> Bad taste? Valid tool to diffuse opera and reach new audiences? Money-grabbing low dirty shame? Cool?


I don't particularly enjoy video clips myself, but they serve a purpose. We live in the 21st century, you can't promote opera by putting your head in the sand and pretending that we're still living in the 19th.


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

I'm with Aramis on this: I found them dull and curiously vacuous - so much so that the music was effectively ruined by what I was seeing. And like Aramis, I couldn't be bothered to stay with any of them all the way through, particularly since there's competition from some paint drying on the wall here that I might watch instead.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

> We live in the 21st century, you can't promote opera by putting your head in the sand and pretending that we're still living in the 19th.


That's not what it's all about, come on. It's false pseudo-modernity, there is nothing modern in looking like bitch. The opera should enter modern media in the form that it exists in all previous ones and it already has been done - there are advertisements in internet, in TV - everything in measure of reason did already happen.

And those clips don't serve any other purpose than personal desire of every vanity woman which is to show all the world how attractive (at least in their own imagination - that Garanca is awful) they are. They probably have some kind of complex, like OCH LORD, I SING OPERA, IT'S NOT FASHIONABLE, I NEED TO MAKE SOME VIDEO IN WHICH I WILL LOOK LIKE THOSE LADIES FROM MTV

I consider it duty of every aware artist to realise how terrible and loathsome things are happening in so called show business and to strongly and pointedly cut out from everything that has anything to do with these things.

If some sopranos can't, well, they're rags who somehow learned how to sing.


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

Aramis said:


> And those clips don't serve any other purpose than personal desire of every vanity woman which is to show all the world how attractive (at least in their own imagination - that Garanca is awful) they are. They probably have some kind of complex, like OCH LORD, I SING OPERA, IT'S NOT FASHIONABLE, I NEED TO MAKE SOME VIDEO IN WHICH I WILL LOOK LIKE THOSE LADIES FROM MTV


Nah, these things are the idea of record companies that use them as a tool to sell records. Personally I'm indifferent about them - I don't love or hate them. I see them as commercials just like the 20 second commercials you see for toothpaste or soap. The only difference is that these commercials last two or three minutes. I don't have any moral objections, just like I don't have any moral objections to advertising cd's in magazines. To me it's the same thing.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

jhar26 said:


> Nah, these things are the idea of record companies that use them as a tool to sell records.


Of course these things wouldn't take place if gray eminences wouldn't want to do it. But it's the singers who really make it happen, without people directly from opera world itself it wouldn't be possible. And I belive that motivation of these ladies is just like I said.


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

Aramis said:


> Of course these things wouldn't take place if gray eminences wouldn't want to do it. But it's the singers who really make it happen, without people directly from opera world itself it wouldn't be possible. And I belive that motivation of these ladies is just like I said.


Well, personally I don't care one way or the other really.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

jhar26 said:


> I bet they never considered making one of those with Montserrat Caballe.


Yep, she would sink the raft :lol:


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

Aramis said:


> that Garanca is awful


Actually Elina Garanca is not awful. She is a strikingly beautiful woman in my opinion. Definitely not so when she sports the ridiculous way she looks on this video clip, but she is beautiful when she's just being herself. On this clip she obviously got some pretty bad advice on how to dress and arrange her hair, but when she's just displaying her regular looks, she is *very* beautiful, with gorgeous eyes.

Look at this video of a recording session, she is just in her street clothes and regular hair. I find her very beautiful in this video, starting at 1'02":


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

jhar26 said:


> Well, personally I don't care one way or the other really.


I'd like to add that I fervently believe, and would like to express with deep and abiding passion using soul-searing words of towering emotion, wrenched out of me with heart-searching courage, exactly what Gaston just said. But I'm too busy reading the comics I didn't tear up.


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## graaf (Dec 12, 2009)

First two videos were boring (saw only first minute or so), third was not bad. 

I'm quite indiferrent about this, since I don't even care about videos of non-classical music, with few rare, but notable exceptions. Those few exceptions would be very artistic videos - for example High Hopes by Pink Floyd (very surreal - check it out if you like René Magritte or Salvador Dali), or even Age of Loneliness by Enigma (very original for the year it was made - 1994). If you happen to dislike their music, try watching those videos with sound turned off.

It won't hurt quality of opera, just like crossover didn't, and it is not bad taste imho, at least the third one isn't - that's the only one I was interested in watching till the end.

I just don't understand people who attack these women for being beautiful, despise sexuality (?) and even chatacterizing them as "bitches" and "vain" for (supposedly) enjoying looking good. When was opera about impotence and/or ugliness? It sure wasn't about that back when it was written...


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

> I just don't understand people who attack these women for being beautiful


It's commercialised celebration of pseudo-beauty that only people with ill taste can like (or even stand it's sight) and it's as far as it's possible from noble beauty of opera, just like "you want me to **** **** ****, don't you?" look in woman's eyes is far from Brunhilde's arias.


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## graaf (Dec 12, 2009)

Aramis said:


> It's commercialised celebration of pseudo-beauty that only people with ill taste can like (or even stand it's sight) and it's as far as it's possible from noble beauty of opera, just like "you want me to suck you dick, don't you?" look in woman's eyes is far from Brunhilde's arias.


And we're supposed to believe you know what woman's look you're talking about? mkay...

Many operas became noble only after they grew old a century or two and people became blind to innuendos and nuances. Also, not everything is as noble as Wagner's musical dramas - and even in those Stephen Fry found orgasms in his latest BBC show (which I recommend). And I still don't know what is ignoble about sex.

It's one thing to have distinct sense of humour, and completely another to get lost in it and make complete fool of yourself (under the disguise of the aforementioned humour).


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

> And we're supposed to believe you know what woman's look you're talking about?


Is it weakness of your English or some kind of riddle?



> and even in those Stephen Fry found orgasms in his latest BBC show


Great, keep supporting your opinions about music with British comedian's show.


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## graaf (Dec 12, 2009)

Aramis said:


> Is it weakness of you English or some kind of riddle?


oh, how you wish you didn't understand that...


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

> oh, how you wish you didn't understand that...


What I wish the most is that you wouldn't write it at all - such remark has so little to do with my actual points that our little conversation has turned into total ********, to tell the truth - you are countering statements that I did not make at all, just some misunderstood pieces of my statements took totally out of any context


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

Gosh, guys, let's not fight.
Aramis has a low opinion of these clips.
Graaf, not as much.
Why don't we leave it at this?
Disagreements *can* be respectful.
I think that the comment on Aramis' understanding of women's looks was uncalled for.
That made him fight back with the comment about British comedians.
We're getting into a deteriorating situation.
This is a friendly place.
Let's keep civility, shall we?


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## graaf (Dec 12, 2009)

OK, we won't fight  This will actually be my last post here, whatever Aramis intends on writing afterwards (if anything). My point, which I didn't make very clear I'm afraid, was that Aramis can get too lost in his attempts to be funny in original way, and slips into writing about "vain bitches" and their supposed "complexes" (post #17), but if you pay his attention to that, in what would I call normal manner (post #24), he will proceed with "sucking dick" (post #25) . Now, that is what I call uncalled for.

His remarks about my bad English and Stephen Fry hardly add anything since English is not my native language anyway and referring to Stephen Fry as a comedian is futile attempt to present an accomplished actor (Wilde 1997: also Jude Law, Vanessa Redgrave) with Cambridge degree in English Literature as a mere clown with no understanding of music. I don't know about others on this board, but in matters of music, when presented with choice to subscribe to opinion of Cambridge educated actor, on one side, and a highschool educated teenager who has issues of trying to impress people he doesn't even know, on the other side - I have no dilemma about choosing.

TLDR version: It is one thing to try to be funny in original way, and completely another to get lost in it and spam about "******* ****" (link), "homosexual jewish people" (link) and just mindless spam (link, and there are way too many examples, as any regular reader knows). But I do understand that there are people on this board who got him under their skin, and maybe even like his oral skills...


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

....And here is where we draw the line under this particular round of "exchanges of opinions" between Aramis and graaf. You guys need to understand that you're putting me into an impossible position here. I don't enjoy editing posts and warning people - let alone penalizing them. But I can't keep on ignoring obscene language and borderline personal attacks forever because they are against the rules of the forum, and if I don't uphold those rules it's me that has a lot of explaining to do to the other mods.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

> to be funny in original way


All my posts in this thread were 100% serious.


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## Herkku (Apr 18, 2010)

Aramis said:


> All my posts in this thread were 100% serious.


OK, although some of them have been quite unintelligible. At least to a mere mortal like me. I understand from some of your earlier messages that you are an angry young man, but I have liked your added spice and even appreciated your opinions. I feel very sad, though, if you make people feel so uncomfortable that they want to leave our forum.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

Herkku said:


> OK, although some of them have been quite unintelligible. At least to a mere mortal like me. I understand from some of your earlier messages that you are an angry young man, but I have liked your added spice and even appreciated your opinions. I feel very sad, though, if you make people feel so uncomfortable that they want to leave our forum.


I like the poster Aramis. I also think he adds spice to the forum, and has interesting opinions.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

Not to mention a terrifyingly swashbuckling turn of phrase.


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