Elegy for Young Lovers - Henze - a good first opera?

[Guido]

Several of my friends at university have said they want to see their first opera and I've said I'll take them - does anyone think Henze's Elegy for Young Lovers might be apt? I've not seen it before and I can't find a recording to hear the music. Henze is hard to pin down musically - its impossible to predict before hearing whether a piece will be quite tonal and digestible or atonal and serial. Is this a dramatic opera? Atmospheric? Good characters/story? Good Arias? Is it beautiful? Is it a spectacle? It would be a new ENO production.

[greg]

Here's a clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj48VYovicY

[val]

I saw this opera years ago, very well performed on stage. I don't know why but it reminded me some of Richard Strauss operas. I liked it then, but I never heard it on CD.

My favorite Henze's opera among those I have heard, it's the Bassarids.

[Superhorn]

  I  don't know this opera, but would like to hear it  . But I doubt that this would be good first opera for a newbie. It's better to start with the staples of the operatic repertoire by Verdi,Puccini,Rossini, and Mozart etc and then proceed to the more difficult ones.
  As far as I know this opera has not been recorded complete, but there was a DG recording of excerpts conducted by the composer with Fischer-Dieskau and other distinguished singers . I don't know why the complete opera wasn't recorded.
  The complete DG recording of Der Junge Lord, probably Henze's moist popular opera conducted by the young Christoph von Dohnanyi is also well worth hearing.