What Opera Are You Listening to Now?

[Karl Henning]

Hindemith
Sancta Susanna, Op. 21

[André]

Hindemith
Sancta Susanna, Op. 21

That's a good one !!

[Karl Henning]

That's a good one !!

Aye!

[JBS]

Crosspost again

Continuing on with Toscanini's Verdi


From two1949 broadcast performances--on TV, apparently.  That may be why the sound is somewhat better than usual for recordings of that vintage

[André]

I cannot compare as I only have the Minkowski, but I find it a pure delight. Let us know what you think.

Belatedly...



This version is excellently produced. Everything in it is first rate. The female voices, esp. Mireille Delunsch as Jenny are particularly beautiful. Rockwell Blake is very good, with impeccable diction. In the patter dialogues he is replaced by another tenor, but I didn't notice anything unnatural.

La Dame blanche is a fount of good tunes, with a couple of earworms that remain obstinately in the mind. Even Tintin knew it !

[Spineur]

Yes, the singers are superb.  Boieldieu rushed the orchestration to be ready in time.  This is the opera weakness.
Just before all theaters got silenced, the Opera Comique did a new production of La dame blanche which I unfortunately did not see (Instead, I went to see Manon with Pretty Yende and Benjamin Bernheim)
This is the short teaser,

https://www.youtube.com/v/ooyFmMyZb7M

[André]

Bloch composed his opera a mere 8 years after Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande. As french operas go, it is aesthetically and musically its polar opposite. Bloch's music is colourful in the extreme, and he is not afraid to take the singers into overt displays of histrionics. Dramatically it is compactly built, with scenes and tableaux neatly linked for a continuous narrative.

The performance is excellent, despite some pronounced accents (Lady Macbeth's French is sometimes incomprehensible). The vocal acting though is absolutely thrilling. The last scene in particular (the walking forest) is hair-raising in its intensity. Live performance, no audience noise, excellent sound. Notes but no libretto, just a synopsis. It's quite easy to follow as the action follows the well-known play closely. This Capriccio release sells for a very reasonable price. Strongly recommended.

[JBS]

Cross post from the  main listening thread

Listening to an opera by Wagner I never heard before
[asin]B0094BDOCM[/asin]

Honestly, this sounds nothing like the Wagner we know. Much more like an early Verdi opera sung for no obvious reason in German. A rather mediocre  Verdi opera, I might add.

[ritter]

Just finished watching this (hat tip to Spineur):

[asin]B000PAA87U[/asin]
I had been after this DVD for quite a while, but it was OOP. A used copy surfaced recently at an affordable price at anAmaxon MP seller and I grabbed it right away. The production stages the Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune and Jeux as telling the pre-story of The Fall of the House of Usher as ballets. The intended storyline is not easy to grasp (for me at least), but there is a unity to the whole thing that works quite well. The important thing IMO, though, is that this makes a very compelling case for the reconstructed and orchestrated (by Richard Orledge) La chute de la maison d'Usher. An opera which, even if devoid of any action as such, and at times almost a monologue for the character Roderick, works very well dramatically in its conciseness, and has some rather effective music. How much if it is echt-Debussy is hard to tell—perhaps I should listen to the piano excerpts included in the Warner box for comparison—but that doesn't really matter, because the end result is an arresting piece of music theatre that well could have been penned in its entirety by Debussy.

[Spineur]

Hi Rafael !

I am happy that you liked this staged performance.  The staging suits "Jeux" best I found, with the mirrors and light effects with the drapes, it is indeed a visual games that fits Debussy well.  In the Edgar Poe book,  Roderick recalls his childhood friend, as a dream, but in this staged reconstruction, he is a real actor&singer.  With the dancers, it adds a bit of life which is good !

[Spineur]

Just started Richard Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten, Hugo v. Hoffmannsthal librettist in Solti's version with Hildegard Berhens, Julia Varady, Placido Domingo, Reinhild Runkel, José van Dam.

[Karl Henning]

 Cross-post

Hindemith
Cardillac, Op. 39 (1926 version)

Gerd Albrecht, cond.

Excellent!

[pjme]

Yesterday, on TV (Classica/Stingray):

Jenufa in the beautifully crazy version of director Alvis Hermanis. Alphonse Mucha -art- Nouveau -designs, Japanese kabuki movements, stylised choreography à la Nijinski and varied Moravian folk art are cleverly interwoven . I liked it.
Sally Mathews is a great Jenufa!

https://www.youtube.com/v/35p-u-9UASQ

[Karl Henning]

Again: Mathis der Maler

[Spineur]

I watched Rossini Il Barbiere di Siviglia Opera de Paris 2018 production with  René Barbera, Karine Deshayes,..staging Damiano Michieletto.  I liked this production which has a strong Almodovar flavor  and a touch of Georges Perec La vie mode d'emploi.

It is in open access this week (only)


https://www.france.tv/france-3/tous-a-l-opera-2018/965065-le-barbier-de-seville-de-rossini-a-l-opera-bastille.html

[JBS]

Sir Colin Davis conducting, Francesco Araiza and Barbara Hendricks among the soloists.

[Tsaraslondon]

The greatest performance of Norma I have ever heard, which I have just reviewed on
my blog

[André]

I concur. It is unique. Bellinissima!

[Tsaraslondon]

I concur. It is unique. Bellinissima!

Bellinissima! I like it!

[vers la flamme]

I listened to disc 1 of Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk this morning/afternoon. Wow, that was excellent music. The plot seems kind of goofy, but it's opera, Soviet opera no less, and I was expecting nothing less. Seems to contain some of Shostakovich's darkest music. I see why Stalin may not have been fond of it. But moreover I see why people loved it so much, it's quite accessible.