Opera fantasies

[Ciel_Rouge]

I really liked:

Gil Shaham - Sarasate Carmen Fantasy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiNyhXOKsLA

I would love to get to know more opera fantasies.

[Gurn Blanston]

You should try his CD:



"Fiddler of the Opera". It consists entirely in opera themes played on violin and piano. It also includes the other Carmen Fantasy, not the one by Sarasate, the one by Jeno Hubay. Rarely recorded. In any case, I recommend it, nice disk.



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Listening to:
Quatuor Festetics - Hob 03 20 Quartet in Eb for Strings Op. 9 #2 4th mvmt - Finale: Allegro di molto

[Maciek]

Wieniawski's Faust Fantasy is one of my favorites. Though, truth be told, I don't know that many opera fantasies anyway. There's lots of very interesting stuff for the piano.

[Wanderer]

Liszt's numerous paraphrases/réminiscences are well worth exploring. Réminiscences de Norma (after Bellini) and Réminiscences de Don Juan (after Mozart's Don Giovanni) are particular favourites of mine. Leslie Howard has recorded them all for Hyperion (there are several "Liszt at the Opera" issues) on his traversal of Liszt's complete solo piano music and Bolet has also recorded some of them.

[Mandryka]

The king of all opera fantasist's was Ervin Nyiregyhazi. This set of his own compositions was made when he was quite old.

Be warned: you will either love it or hate it. Extreme reactions are the only possible type of reaction.

Another outstanding couple of fantasies is Glenn Gould's own paraphrase of Meistersinger and Gotterdammerung (including a paraphrase of the Siegfried Idyll) . Gould in Wagner is, I think, very interestung -- you sometimes get the feeling he's improvising at the piano, and you can hear his interest in counterpoint.

With Nyiregyhazi you get the feeling he's using the music to summon the spirits of Hell.

A third one to know is Bolet's version of Liszt's paraphrase of Tanhauser -- a live performance at Carnegie Hall. You can get it easily in one of his GPOCs. Well worth hunting down not just for the fantasy. Bolet was clearly in a good mood that night, and the concert features, inter alia, one of my favourite sets of Chopin Preludes.

And finally there's a nice fantasy based on Rosenkavalier by Percy Grainger called Ramble on Love.

[MichaelRabin]

Also try Naxos Livia Sohn (violin) Opera Fantasies. Classics Today gave it a 10/10 too.

[Gabriel]

Hummel's Fantasies opp. 63 and 66 for piano, violin, guitar, clarinet and bassoon are really delighful works, containing excerpts of famous classical works. Don't expect anything deep, but they are as entertaining as they can be.