Unpopular Opinions

[Karl Henning]

Thank you, friend!

[Karl Henning]

I would like to think that you, Fabulous alien and Karl H. have a lot more than two decades to look forward to.

(I shall trust this is not an unpopular opinion)

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

I would like to think that you, Fabulous alien and Karl H. have a lot more than two decades to look forward to.

I certainly hope it is a popular opinion to look forward to hearing new works from TFA and Dr. H in the years to come.

[TheGSMoeller]

I like Ravel's Bolero.

[Ken B]

I like Ravel's Bolero.

It IS his best piece.

[Mirror Image]

It IS his best piece.

[Mirror Image]

I like Ravel's Bolero.

I like Schnittke's spoof on Ravel's Bolero from his film work, The Master and Margarita.

[Karl Henning]

I like Ravel's Bolero.

So do I!

It IS his best piece.

As thread duty, very well played, sir!

[North Star]

I like Ravel's Bolero.

So do I!

+1, although I do like most of Ravel's mature works more.

I like Schnittke's spoof on Ravel's Bolero from his film work, The Master and Margarita.

There's also the Fumio Hayasaka imitation in Kurosawa's Rashomon.
https://www.youtube.com/v/GA7c8uqfTns

[TheGSMoeller]

I like Ravel's Bolero.

So perhaps not as unpopular as I initially thought. 

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Eh, my favourite Ravel piece is Frontispice.

[Monsieur Croche]

Eh, my favourite Ravel piece is Frontispice.

Is Frontispice next to the Allspice and the Poivre Aromatique in the condiments department? ;-)

[Florestan]

For me as a composer, with opera there are only two things I am drawn to: intense emotional and psychological darkness...and absurdity

Is there anything more absurd than this Tristan guy, who has just been stabbed to death, singing for almost an entire act (an act of Wagnerian length, mind you)? 

Also, take a look here, you might find something suitable to your taste. 

The 10 Silliest Operas...that you really need to hear

I, for one, love opera no matter how silly the libretto, which I rarely follow anyway while listening. My top five: Carmen, Der Freischuetz, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Le nozze di Figaro., La sonnambula.

[Karl Henning]

Is there anything more absurd than this Tristan guy, who has just been stabbed to death, singing for almost an entire act (an act of Wagnerian length, mind you)? 

Also, take a look here, you might find something suitable to your taste. 

The 10 Silliest Operas...that you really need to hear

Live into the silly! 

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

[Spineur]

The 10 Silliest Operas...that you really need to hear

The most successful operas have good librettos.  Da Ponte was a key asset in Mozart operatic successes as was Boito to Verdi's.  I think the limited successes of Dvorak lyric works come from inferior librettos.
In the 10 silliest list, I have bought the recording of two: Dinorah and La Wally.  Dinorah libretto is nonexistent.  I would not say the same of La Wally, which has a typical romantic plot and the necessary tragic ending.  Their music is good, and both works have some very famous arias:
Ombre legere qui suit mes pas in Dinorah and Ne mai dunque avro pace and Ebben...Ne andro lontana in La Wally.  These last two arias are some of the finest examples of the Verrismo style.

Added: Jean-Jacques Beinnex movie Diva plot and soundtrack revolve around a pirat recording of La Wally Ne mai dunque avro pace aria.  This is why it is one of my very favorite french movies.

[Jo498]

Tristan's wound was originally not so bad; he is feverish at the beginning of Act III but as he was fit enough to survive the sea passage from King Marke's castle in Cornwall back to his own castle in Brittany.
He is a really tough guy because last time he also survived the poisoned? wound from Morold long enough to get incognito to Isolde and be cured...

Just think of what Bruce Willis could do with a lot of wounds in Die hard! Tristan dies much harder... until he wants to.

I have not heard any of the operas listed as "10 silliest"...

[Florestan]

The most successful operas have good librettos.

Honestly I have never understood this whole good librettos / bad librettos thing. A libretto is not meant for being read independently, but for listening to the music it inspired. If the music is good, then I don't care a fig for the libretto. For instance, Il viaggio a Reims has basically no plot at all, yet it contains some of the most gloriously beautiful music ever penned; Il trovatore has a notoriously bad libretto yet it is one of the most performed and acclaimed operas ever.

Bottom line, it's either music first, or words first. I am firmly in the former camp.

[Spineur]

Honestly I have never understood this whole good librettos / bad librettos thing.

In movies the script is of the highest importance.  People say "the story, the story, the story".  Why would it be any different for operas ?  They are not meant to be listened to on CDs but seen as a total art form, involving text, music, acting and dancing.  This is why some of the stagging managers can and have ruinned a number of performances of masterpieces of the repertoire.

[Jo498]

I don't think it is so simple. That is both Spineur and Florestan are proved wrong by the actual history of opera.
It is not at all easy to tell how bad a libretto can be for the opera to fail.
But there are clearly cases of operas that never really got a foot into the repertoire, like Schubert's and probably also Schumann's Genoveva or vanished very quickly (like Weber's Euryanthe and Oberon), despite some good to glorious music.

On the other hand, there are clearly operas where people keep telling everyone that the libretti are crap and that they are highly problematic in this and such respects but they have been in the repertoire since the 19th century or earlier, e.g. Zauberflöte (but here I think it is mostly the narrowmindedness of some critics, the greatest German poet of all times, Goethe, found it worthwhile to sketch a sequel for Zauberflöte, although it remained a fragment) or Fidelio or Trovatore or Geierwally or whatever.

[Florestan]

In movies the script is of the highest importance.  People say "the story, the story, the story".  Why would it be any different for operas ?

Because operas are not movies. 

They are not meant to be listened to on CDs but seen as a total art form, involving text, music, acting and dancing.

That's the Wagnerian point of view. I doubt Handel, Rossini or Meyerbeer would have subscribed to it, and they were hugely succesful and popular in their time. I always beware of judging the past with the criteria of the present time.