Top 10 Favorite Operas

Started by kyjo, September 17, 2013, 01:19:20 PM

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kyjo

Quote from: North Star on September 17, 2013, 02:09:20 PM
Unfortunately I left it without underlining only because I've never heard of the work or composer, but will look into it.
The Langgaard in particular is pretty high on my list. And Juha too, I've heard bits of it, and it, along with the Melartin (dealing probably with much the same matter, based on the title?) are of course especially interesting to me because I'm Finnish. I suppose you haven't heard Madetoja's Juha, since it's more romantic in style?

You should definitely check out the Cras! It's quite similar in style to Pelleas, and nearly equally as beautiful. I've heard Madetoja's Juha, but it's been a long while since I have. I'll have to dig it out sometime. If I recall, it's more folksy and romantic than Merikanto's opera of the same name.

kyjo

I enjoy Mussorgsky's two operas quite a bit, as well as Borodin's Prince Igor.

Mirror Image

Two operas on my current to-listen-to list: Hartmann's Simplicius Simplicissimus and Martin's Der Sturm, which I just bought a recording of Simplicius Simplicissimus but Der Sturm is in my possession but hasn't been listened to yet.

The new erato

Quote from: kyjo on September 17, 2013, 02:33:09 PM
You should definitely check out the Cras! It's quite similar in style to Pelleas, and nearly equally as beautiful.
I know it, and have mentioned its awesomeness here a couple of times this year.

North Star

Quote from: The new erato on September 17, 2013, 02:46:02 PM
I know it, and have mentioned its awesomeness here a couple of times this year.
Quote from: kyjo on September 17, 2013, 02:33:09 PM
You should definitely check out the Cras! It's quite similar in style to Pelleas, and nearly equally as beautiful. I've heard Madetoja's Juha, but it's been a long while since I have. I'll have to dig it out sometime. If I recall, it's more folksy and romantic than Merikanto's opera of the same name.
Yes, that sounds about right.
OK, I'll check the Cras!
"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it." - Confucius

My photographs on Flickr

kyjo

Quote from: sanantonio on September 17, 2013, 03:06:22 PM
The one comment about someone being relieved that no one has listed Rossini was unfortunate.

I was merely joking. :) But really, I can't stand Rossini's operas, and Verdi's do little more for me. Puccini I can take, and there are some nice parts in his operas (especially Turandot), but I still haven't come to fully appreciate them either. I'm just not a big fan of all the vocal pyrotechnics and the mere "accompaniment" role that the orchestra plays in a lot of Italian operas.

Cato

Using the first things to pop into the head approach:

Schoenberg: Erwartung and Moses und Aron

Rachmaninov: The Covetous Knight

Busoni: Doctor Faust

Hindemith: Cardillac

Strauss: Elektra

Wagner: Tristan und Isolde and Götterdämmerung

Prokofiev: The Fiery Angel

Poulenc: Dialogues of the Carmelites

"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

kyjo

Quote from: Cato on September 17, 2013, 03:14:24 PM
Using the first things to pop into the head approach:

Schoenberg: Erwartung and Moses und Aron

Rachmaninov: The Covetous Knight

Busoni: Doctor Faust

Hindemith: Cardillac

Strauss: Elektra

Wagner: Tristan und Isolde and Götterdämmerung

Prokofiev: The Fiery Angel

Poulenc: Dialogues of the Carmelites

Haven't heard the Rachmaninov, Busoni or the Hindemith; I hope to rectify that! Are you sure Schoenberg's Erwartung is an opera? I've always seen it described as a "monodrama".

kyjo

Quote from: sanantonio on September 17, 2013, 03:21:27 PM
Opera is about the voices, not the orchestra.  Sure, the best operas use the orchestra in imagintive and effective ways, but really, the orchestra is the accompaniment.  I could tell by the lists that the works chosen were by people who like lush orchestral writing, but not so much opera, for itself.  If you don't like Italian opera, face it, you're not an opera fan.

I don't consider myself an opera fan per se, but, as I have made clear, there are a number of operas which I do enjoy. It's just that I approach opera differently than you do. For me, the orchestral writing and amount of involvement it has either makes or breaks an opera. Be thankful I'm in a good mood tonight or I would be a bit more vicious with you! >:D

dyn

I don't think i've even been to 10 operas i like, heh. Pretty much all the ones i did like were by Mozart (Nozze di Figaro, Cosi fan tutte, Zauberflöte... never seen Don Giovanni, wasn't as impressed with La Clemenza di Tito). Plus Schoenberg's Erwartung, which isn't a proper opera. There's also Feldman's Neither, which i didn't like at all when i first heard it, but which haunted me from that day forward (and still is with me today), which i suppose is an endorsement of a sort.

As for Wagner, Puccini, Rossini, Zandonai, Saint-Saëns and Gounod (all the others i've seen live that i can recall), i'd happily go the rest of my life without ever hearing a note of them again ;)

For operas i haven't seen but like the music of, there's some lovely music in Stockhausen's Licht (though i'm still not convinced about the whole of any of those operas—not that one gets the chance to evaluate them properly more than once a decade), and i also enjoyed my cd recordings of Mitterer's Massacre, Enno Poppe's Interzone, Lachenmann's Das Mädchen, Ton-That Tiêt's L'arbalète magique, Shostakovich's The Nose and Langgaard's Antikrist. Of course, how much one can judge from a CD recording is limited. Operas are supposed to be performed.

As you may have already gathered i'm about as far from an opera fan as possible, but i can think of at least one person whom if they wrote an opera i would go see it with no questions asked, that being Georges Aperghis. Also possibly Charles-Valentin Alkan.

Daverz

I'm hard pressed to come up with 10.  I blame my monolingualism and short attention span.

The Cunning Little Vixen
Marriage of Figaro
Nixon in China
Fidelio
Bluebeard's Castle



Cato

Quote from: kyjo on September 17, 2013, 03:18:25 PM
Haven't heard the Rachmaninov, Busoni or the Hindemith; I hope to rectify that! Are you sure Schoenberg's Erwartung is an opera? I've always seen it described as a "monodrama".

If it is performed by an opera company like the Metropolitan, then it must be at least something of an opera!   ;)

Only one singer, hence "Monodrama."  Still, there are settings and actions described, so a c. 40-minute mini-opera.

"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Dancing Divertimentian

Mozart is a given, so:

Britten: Billy Budd
Berlioz: Benvenuto Cellini
Haas: Sarlatan
Janacek: Cunning Little Vixen
Handel: Agrippina
Prokofiev: Semyon Kotko
Wagner: Parsifal
Berg: Wozzeck
Smetana: The Bartered Bride
Shostakovich: The Nose


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

Parsifal

Quote from: Sergeant Rock on September 17, 2013, 01:54:45 PM
If the poll were "Top 10 Operas To See Live" then, yeah, Salome would be top of the list  8)

That still applies even though Nilsson is gone?



springrite

Salome
Wozzeck
Don Giovanni
Turandot
Tosca
La Traviata
Tristan und Isolde
Kullervo (Saulinen)
Berlioz: Trojan
Prokofiev: Fiery Angel


Do what I must do, and let what must happen happen.

kishnevi

Handel: Ariodante
Mozart: Nozze di Figaro
Rossini: La Cenerentola
Bellini: Norma
Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg
Mussourgsky: Boris Godunov
Verdi: Falstaff
Leoncavallo: I Pagliacci
Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier or Die Frau ohne Schatten  (kind of a coin-toss)
Britten: Peter Grimes

operas that got winnowed off the list:
Monteverdi--Orfeo
Gluck--Orfeo ed Euridice
Donizetti--L'Elisir d'Amore
Verdi--Otello
Puccini--Turandot
Gilbert and Sullivan--The Mikado

Todd

Berg – Wozzeck
Berg – Lulu
Wagner – Tristan und Isolde
Wagner – Parsifal
Mussorgsky – Boris Godunov
Verdi – Falstaff
Berlioz – Les Troyens
Janacek – Kat'a Kabanova
Mozart – Le Nozze di Figaro
Strauss – Der Rosenkavalier
The universe is change; life is opinion. - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

People would rather believe than know - E.O. Wilson

Propaganda death ensemble - Tom Araya

Mirror Image

Quote from: sanantonio on September 17, 2013, 03:21:27 PMIf you don't like Italian opera, face it, you're not an opera fan.

By the same token, if a person doesn't like German symphonic music, then they must not be fans of symphonies. Utter hogwash, sanantonio. There's a lot of different kinds of opera composers just like there's a lot of different kinds symphonic composers. To each his own.

Personally, I can't stand the Italians either when it comes to opera. I don't like their over-reliance on the vocals and they just get way out-of-hand for my tastes. I like the way, for example, Wagner integrated a strong musical presence with equally strong vocal performance. The two were a true marriage and on many occasions the music completely takes over and gives us orchestral fans something to chew on. The same held true with composers after Wagner. The vocals are important in an opera but they're not more important than the music itself, otherwise, you would just have a bunch of vocalists standing on stage with nothing to fall back on.

Dancing Divertimentian

Quote from: Jeffrey Smith on September 17, 2013, 07:10:57 PM
Strauss: Die Frau ohne Schatten

Blast. I'd thought of Schatten but promptly forgot it.

 
QuoteGluck--Orfeo ed Euridice

Oh, yes, another good one is Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride.

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

mc ukrneal

#39
Humperdinck: Hansel and Gretel (Tate or Pritchard)
Mozart: Marriage of Figaro (Solti)
Puccini: Turandot (Pavarotti/Karajan)
Verdi: Otello (Domingo/Mehta)
Offenbach: Tales of Hoffman (Doming/Sutherland)
Rimsky-Korsakov: Sadko (Philips/Gergiev, despite the stage noise)
Britten: Turn of the Screw (Pears/Britten)
Dvorak: Rusalka (Mackerras or Neumann)
Donizetti: Lucia di Lamermoor (Pav/Sutherland/Bonynge)
Bizet: Carmen (Domingo/Solti)

Off the Bench: Monteverdi: Orfeo (I only know Gardiner, and enjoy it)
Twelfth Man Standing: Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier (Karajan or Haitink)
Lucky Thirteen Bellini: Norma (Sutherland/Horne/Bonynge)
Then I would have to repeat composers: Don Giovanni (Davis), Il Travatore (Domingo/Mehta), La Boheme (Pav/Freni/Karajan), etc...

I did not include any operetta. If I did that, the list would change dramatically.
Be kind to your fellow posters!!