Your Favored Opera Composer

Started by Sammy, October 09, 2012, 09:18:32 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Of these five composers, who do you favor for Opera?

Handel
3 (10%)
Mozart
10 (33.3%)
Puccini
2 (6.7%)
Verdi
5 (16.7%)
Wagner
10 (33.3%)

Total Members Voted: 28

Voting closed: October 14, 2012, 09:18:32 AM

Print
Go Down Pages 1 2 3 4
User actions

Dancing Divertimentian

#40
October 10, 2012, 08:08:24 PM
Quote from: Mirror Image on October 10, 2012, 12:37:37 PM
I'll have to check them out at some point, but opera is hardly a favorite genre of mine and too much singing, for me, can become quite tedious on my ears.

Happily opera and I get along quite nicely. And since Prokofiev - one of my favorite composers - wrote several of them, I'm a lucky man. ;D


Veit Bach-a baker who found his greatest pleasure in a little cittern which he took with him even into the mill and played while the grinding was going on. In this way he had a chance to have the rhythm drilled into him. And this was the beginning of a musical inclination in his descendants. JS Bach

Mirror Image

#41
October 10, 2012, 08:12:10 PM
Quote from: Dancing Divertimentian on October 10, 2012, 08:08:24 PM
Happily opera and I get along quite nicely. And since Prokofiev - one of my favorite composers - wrote several of them, I'm a lucky man. ;D

This is how I feel about symphonies and luckily, for me, Shostakovich composed 15 of them. ;) :D

Dancing Divertimentian

#42
October 10, 2012, 08:22:49 PM
Quote from: mc ukrneal on October 10, 2012, 12:38:36 PM
I listen to them periodically. I've enjoyed them for years. Sometimes, I am not always in the right mood for them, but there is a certain quality to them that I find in the ballets (but less so in some of his more formal music - meaning symphonies, concertos, etc). Is that a strange connection to make?

Not a strange connection in my book. The ballets are great and the operas are great. We both hear it the same way, I'd say.


Veit Bach-a baker who found his greatest pleasure in a little cittern which he took with him even into the mill and played while the grinding was going on. In this way he had a chance to have the rhythm drilled into him. And this was the beginning of a musical inclination in his descendants. JS Bach

Dancing Divertimentian

#43
October 10, 2012, 08:24:42 PM
Quote from: Mirror Image on October 10, 2012, 08:12:10 PM
This is how I feel about symphonies and luckily, for me, Shostakovich composed 15 of them. ;) :D

0:)


Veit Bach-a baker who found his greatest pleasure in a little cittern which he took with him even into the mill and played while the grinding was going on. In this way he had a chance to have the rhythm drilled into him. And this was the beginning of a musical inclination in his descendants. JS Bach

Dancing Divertimentian

#44
October 10, 2012, 09:04:53 PM Last Edit: October 10, 2012, 09:08:06 PM by Dancing Divertimentian
Quote from: Brewski on October 10, 2012, 12:53:24 PM
A huge fan of Prokofiev's operas here, and I agree with you: any assessment of the composer is incomplete without them. Anyone wanting to delve in has Gergiev's excellent recordings; this reissue box below has six operas on 14 discs. PS, IMHO Gergiev could be in classical music's hall of fame on the basis of these recordings alone - only because there aren't many other versions - or none - and he and the Kirov give them fantastic performances.

My favorite - haven't heard some of them - is Semyon Kotko, with lots of marvelous music, spectacularly played and recorded. But The Gambler is great, too (and slightly shorter, if that's an issue). Then there's War and Peace, which some might consider his greatest.

[asin]B0033KR5YS[/asin]

Can only agree with everything you say, Bruce.

One amazing thing about the operas seldom mentioned - mainly because hardly anyone has heard them ;D - is they encompass such a wide variety of styles. From the jutting, to the lyric, to the eery, to a hodge-podge mix of "all the above".

Pretty much the heart and soul of Prokofiev!


Veit Bach-a baker who found his greatest pleasure in a little cittern which he took with him even into the mill and played while the grinding was going on. In this way he had a chance to have the rhythm drilled into him. And this was the beginning of a musical inclination in his descendants. JS Bach

Dancing Divertimentian

#45
October 10, 2012, 09:10:05 PM
Quote from: Cato on October 10, 2012, 01:04:28 PM
Prokofiev: The Fiery Angel is my choice for greatest Prokofiev opera.

Without doubt one of the more exploratory scores of the 20th century.


Veit Bach-a baker who found his greatest pleasure in a little cittern which he took with him even into the mill and played while the grinding was going on. In this way he had a chance to have the rhythm drilled into him. And this was the beginning of a musical inclination in his descendants. JS Bach

Dancing Divertimentian

#46
October 10, 2012, 09:23:31 PM Last Edit: October 18, 2012, 08:58:50 PM by Dancing Divertimentian
Quote from: mszczuj on October 10, 2012, 01:17:49 PM
For me Symphony No.2 is one of his best works and best symphony after Beethoven but I find Symphony No.3 much less interesting than The Fiery Angel.

Yeah, I've said it before, the music of the third symphony sounds sadly "disembodied" without its tag-along vocal accompaniment. Not that "disembodied" is a foreign concept to this score! ;D

But there's no denying the music still works in this stand-alone format. I just miss those vocals...


Veit Bach-a baker who found his greatest pleasure in a little cittern which he took with him even into the mill and played while the grinding was going on. In this way he had a chance to have the rhythm drilled into him. And this was the beginning of a musical inclination in his descendants. JS Bach

springrite

#47
October 10, 2012, 11:58:52 PM
Quote from: Dancing Divertimentian on October 10, 2012, 09:10:05 PM
Without doubt one of the more exploratory scores of the 20th century.

Not only that, is must be seen LIVE, especially the powerful final act!
Do what I must do, and let what must happen happen.

Tsaraslondon

#48
October 11, 2012, 01:28:07 AM Last Edit: October 11, 2012, 01:30:25 AM by Tsaraslondon
Quote from: sanantonio on October 10, 2012, 08:51:14 AM
I have thought of Aida as one of his in the "grand opera" style.

People often mistakenly associate Aida with Grand Opera, probably because of the huge Triumphal Scene (and the huge scale on which they stage it at Verona), but actually most of it is on quite an intimate scale.

True Grand Opera was a term coined to describe the large scale operas the Paris Opera used to commission, exemplified by the operas of Meyerbeer. Generally in four or five acts, it was characterised by large-scale casts and orchestras, and (in their original productions) lavish and spectacular design and stage effects, normally with plots based on or around dramatic historic events. The term is particularly applied to certain productions of the Paris Opéra from the late 1820s to around 1850. Verdi never had a particularly happy relationship with the Paris Opera, though he did write two operas specifically for the Paris Opera, Les Vepres Siciliennes and Don Carlos, both of which subsequently became better known in their Italian versions.




\"A beautiful voice is not enough.\" Maria Callas

Sammy

#49
October 11, 2012, 01:57:42 PM
Quote from: Mirror Image on October 10, 2012, 11:07:43 AM
Why would Prokofiev even be on the list to begin with, DD?

I can't imagine that I'd ever put Prokofiev on an Opera list such as the present thread.  This has nothing to do with the quality of his operas and everything to do with the man's popularity having little or nothing to do with his operas.

Dancing Divertimentian

#50
October 11, 2012, 04:59:45 PM
Quote from: springrite on October 10, 2012, 11:58:52 PM
Not only that, is must be seen LIVE, especially the powerful final act!

Must be quite an experience!


Veit Bach-a baker who found his greatest pleasure in a little cittern which he took with him even into the mill and played while the grinding was going on. In this way he had a chance to have the rhythm drilled into him. And this was the beginning of a musical inclination in his descendants. JS Bach

CriticalI

#51
October 11, 2012, 06:22:55 PM
Quote from: Dancing Divertimentian on October 10, 2012, 12:31:23 PMIt's no accident that two of Prokofiev's symphonies derive from music lifted from two other works - a ballet and an opera. It's telling that it's NOT the other way around when it comes to his operas an ballets.

He did recycle the classical symphony into one of the ballets, Cinderella, I think. I believe Prok's symphonies are terribly underestimated.

Dancing Divertimentian

#52
October 11, 2012, 09:19:50 PM Last Edit: October 11, 2012, 09:39:51 PM by Dancing Divertimentian
Quote from: CriticalI on October 11, 2012, 06:22:55 PM
He did recycle the classical symphony into one of the ballets, Cinderella, I think.

I think that's the march from The Love For Three Oranges. (In Cinderella).




Veit Bach-a baker who found his greatest pleasure in a little cittern which he took with him even into the mill and played while the grinding was going on. In this way he had a chance to have the rhythm drilled into him. And this was the beginning of a musical inclination in his descendants. JS Bach

North Star

#53
October 11, 2012, 09:29:04 PM
Quote from: CriticalI on October 11, 2012, 06:22:55 PM
He did recycle the classical symphony into one of the ballets, Cinderella, I think. I believe Prok's symphonies are terribly underestimated.
The Gavotte is reused in Romeo & Juliet.
"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it." - Confucius

My photographs on Flickr

CriticalI

#54
October 12, 2012, 02:34:37 AM
Quote from: North Star on October 11, 2012, 09:29:04 PMThe Gavotte is reused in Romeo & Juliet.

That sounds right. :)

Sammy

#55
October 15, 2012, 10:33:26 AM
The voting is over; Mozart and Wagner tie for first place.  That's not surprising, but I was surprised with the low vote numbers for the two Italian big boys.  So long until the next poll.

Mirror Image

#56
October 15, 2012, 10:38:07 AM
I'm not surprised Verdi and Puccini lost this poll. I'm GLAD they lost.

Sammy

#57
October 15, 2012, 10:40:48 AM
Quote from: Mirror Image on October 15, 2012, 10:38:07 AM
I'm not surprised Verdi and Puccini lost this poll. I'm GLAD they lost.

Are you one of those guys who discriminates against famous Italian composers?

DavidRoss

#58
October 15, 2012, 10:52:14 AM
How many of the people who voted in this poll have actually seen operas by these composers? I know at least one poster here, for instance, who not long ago was boasting that he's never seen one and wouldn't waste his time with anything not 20th Century avant-gardish.
"Maybe the problem most of you have ... is that you're not listening to Barbirolli." ~Sarge

"The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money." ~Margaret Thatcher

Opus106

#59
October 15, 2012, 10:53:22 AM
Quote from: Sammy on October 15, 2012, 10:40:48 AM
Are you one of those guys who discriminates against famous Italian composers?

No. I think they must have cancelled his $1 commissions. :(
Regards,
Navneeth
Print
Go Up Pages 1 2 3 4
User actions