What Opera Are You Listening to Now?

[ritter]

Seriously? 

Fixed, thanks!

[brewski]

Oh happy day: OperaVision has uploaded the new production of Salome by the Irish National Opera, with costumes and an intriguing nautical set design by the great Leslie Travers. The title role is sung by Sinéad Campbell Wallace, and the conductor is Fergus Sheil.

-Bruce

[ritter]

A real rarity, Maurice Emmanuel's 3-act tragédie lyrique Promethée enchainé. The composer himself translated and condensed Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound.



Apparently Emmanuel had composed a 5-act opera on Prometheus many years earlier, but destroyed it as he thought it was too operatically conventional. Be that as it may, this later effort is quite attractive and concise (as is the composer's later tragédie Salamine).

Apparently, this 1959 live performance in Paris was the posthumous première of the work (the composer only got to hear a partial performance many years earlier). The conductor is Eugène Bigot.

[steve ridgway]

Berlioz: Les Troyens Act I.



I'm enjoying it so far, it's a dramatic and vivid story .

[Lisztianwagner]

Richard Wagner
Tristan und Isolde, act 1^ & 2^

Birgit Nilsson, Wolfgang Windgassen, Christa Ludwig, Martti Talvela, Eberhard Waechter
Karl Böhm & Bayreuth Festival Orchestra

[steve ridgway]

Berlioz: Les Troyens Acts II & III. Half way through the opera now.

[steve ridgway]

Finished Les Troyens. There was a lot of colourful action packed into the epic history. I just thought some of the music was a bit too jolly; it would be interesting to hear what a 20th century composer would have done with it.

[Tsaraslondon]

Finished Les Troyens. There was a lot of colourful action packed into the epic history. I just thought some of the music was a bit too jolly; it would be interesting to hear what a 20th century composer would have done with it.

I dread to think. Personally, I reckon it's Berlioz's greatest work and a startlingly original work. The music is jolly when it needs to be.

The Live Davis recording you were listening to is good, but I don't think it's as good as his earlier effort with Vickers and Veasey. It isn't perfect by any means (no recording of the opera is) but on the whole the cast is better.

I would also never want to be without the recording of Janet Baker in the final scenes under Sir Alexander Gibson.