What Opera Are You Listening to Now?

[JBS]

The original issue must be nominated for Bad Back Cover Design.
(I have the budget re-issue, where everything is legible and normally laid out.)


The booklet says this is the "original version from 1835".
According to Wikipedia that means this:

Charles Mackerras returned to Donizetti's autograph score and prepared a new edition of the score. He returned to the original key structure and the Mad Scene is quite different.[citation needed] He recorded this version for Sony in 1997.

[JBS]

In the form of the first two CDs of this set

[nico1616]

I absolutely adore this Walküre. We have Jon Vickers and Gré Brouwenstijn as the siblings, the great Rita Gorr as Fricka, and ofc Birgit Nilsson as Brünnhilde. George London is so much better as Hotter's Wotan for Solti's Decca Ring.
What a pity this wasn't made into a complete Ring.

[San Antone]

The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess
CONDUCTOR: David Robertson
Bess: Angel Blue
Porgy: Eric Owens
Serena: Latonia Moore
Clara: Golda Schultz
Sportin' Life: Frederick Ballentine
Crown: Alfred Walker
Jake: Donovan Singletary



During the 2019–20 season, one of America's greatest operas returned to the Met stage for the first time in 30 years, with the premiere of James Robinson's vibrant new production of Porgy and Bess. In this Live in HD transmission, bass-baritone Eric Owens and soprano Angel Blue star in the title roles, headlining a phenomenal ensemble cast. The performance also features soprano Golda Schultz and bass-baritone Donovan Singletary as Clara and Jake, soprano Latonia Moore as Serena, and tenor Frederick Ballentine and bass-baritone Alfred Walker as Sportin' Life and Crown. And as the community matriarch Maria, veteran mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves delivers a scene-stealing performance. David Robertson conducts this beloved score, which includes a number of melodies that have become classic American standards.

[Lisztianwagner]

First listen to:

Richard Strauss
Daphne

Hans Braun, Kurt Equiluz, Ludwig Welter, Harald Pröglhöf, Hilde Gueden, Fritz Wunderlich, Vera Little, Rita Streich, Erika Mechera, Paul Schöffler, James King, Hans Braun
Karl Böhm & Wiener Staatsopernorchester

[San Antone]

Puccini : Tosca
CONDUCTOR: Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Tosca: Lise Davidsen
Cavaradossi: Freddie De Tommaso
Scarpia: Quinn Kelsey



Since making her 2019 debut in Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades, Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen has exhilarated Met audiences in some of the repertoire's touchstone dramatic roles. Her streak continued during the 2024–25 season when she starred as Tosca, the passionate diva driven to murder in Puccini's grand thriller. Alongside her in this Live in HD transmission, the all-star cast features tenor Freddie De Tommaso as Tosca's revolutionary lover, the painter Mario Cavaradossi, and baritone Quinn Kelsey as the malevolent police chief Baron Scarpia. Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin is on the podium to lead an extravagant, fast-paced staging by director David McVicar.

The cast and the production values are very good.  For me, The Met has been reliably good since Nézet-Séguin has taken over.

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

First listen to:

Richard Strauss
Daphne

Hans Braun, Kurt Equiluz, Ludwig Welter, Harald Pröglhöf, Hilde Gueden, Fritz Wunderlich, Vera Little, Rita Streich, Erika Mechera, Paul Schöffler, James King, Hans Braun
Karl Böhm & Wiener Staatsopernorchester

Great stuff, @Lisztianwagner. How did you enjoy it?

[Wendell_E]

[San Antone]

Puccini : Tosca
CONDUCTOR: Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Tosca: Lise Davidsen
Cavaradossi: Freddie De Tommaso
Scarpia: Quinn Kelsey



Since making her 2019 debut in Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades, Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen has exhilarated Met audiences in some of the repertoire's touchstone dramatic roles. Her streak continued during the 2024–25 season when she starred as Tosca, the passionate diva driven to murder in Puccini's grand thriller. Alongside her in this Live in HD transmission, the all-star cast features tenor Freddie De Tommaso as Tosca's revolutionary lover, the painter Mario Cavaradossi, and baritone Quinn Kelsey as the malevolent police chief Baron Scarpia. Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin is on the podium to lead an extravagant, fast-paced staging by director David McVicar.

The cast and the production values are very good.  For me, The Met has been reliably good since Nézet-Séguin has taken over.

I spread out watching this over two days and just finished.  I enjoyed it immensely, and very happy I renewed my Met subscription again this year.

I read this in Wikipedia:

In the final bars, as Tosca evades Spoletta and leaps to her death, the theme of "E lucevan le stelle" is played tutta forze (as loudly as possible). This choice of ending has been strongly criticised by analysts, mainly because of its specific association with Cavaradossi rather than Tosca.[2] Kerman mocked the final music, "Tosca leaps, and the orchestra screams the first thing that comes into its head."[1] Budden, however, argues that it is entirely logical to end this dark opera on its blackest theme.[2] According to historian and former opera singer Susan Vandiver Nicassio: "The conflict between the verbal and the musical clues gives the end of the opera a twist of controversy that, barring some unexpected discovery among Puccini's papers, can never truly be resolved."[1]

Sources for the above:
1. Nicassio, Susan Vandiver (2002). Tosca's Rome: The Play and the Opera in Historical Context (paperback ed.). Oxford: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-19-517974-3.
2. Budden, Julian (2002). Puccini: His Life and Works (paperback ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-816468-8.

I have to say, I find the ending very effective, and do not agree with any of the criticism quoted above, and have no trouble resolving how Puccini and his librettist chose to end the work.

[ritter]

Some Milanese scapigliatura: Alfredo Catalani's La Falce, to a libretto by Arrigo Boito.

A work for only two singers, and with an overture that takes 12 minutes (of the 42 minutes the whole opera lasts).

[steve ridgway]

Listened to a good chunk of Schoenberg - Moses und Aaron, just focusing on the music, and found it absorbing.

[JBS]

As found in


Highlights from an opera never produced in Bizet's lifetime.
But he was luckier than Gounod. The score survived. Gounod set the same libretto, which the Paris Opera never produced, but the only known copy of his score ended up as the victim of a fire.

It must be noted that in this opera, Ivan is not only not Terrible, but a quasi-hero and a main love interest.

[Lisztianwagner]

Great stuff, @Lisztianwagner. How did you enjoy it?

Absolutely, Daphne is really a wonderful opera, I should have discovered it before! It has rich and varied timbric colours, metamorphic textures as well as a splendid orchestration, so lyrical and sinuous, but also so passionate, fiery and beautifully evocative, similarly to Eine Alpensinfonie, with which it shares the bucolic atmospheres too; I don't know if Strauss was influenced by The Birth of Tragedy (but it is known that he read it) when he composed this opera, but it really seems he was able to describe through music Nietzsche's fundamental complementary principles. The scene of Daphne's transformation is stunning and impressive for the ability to depict a sense of static, yet at the same time moving nature, with the growing climax abruptly interrupted to continue with a steady motive, like Bernini's sculpture of Apollon and Daphne. I liked the psychological development of the female protagonist and Strauss' use of the myth and its simbology to recall introspectively contemporary themes (the sense of alienation, the relation with nature-civilization, etc).

Not to forget, Böhm's recording is amazing!

[Lisztianwagner]

Listened to a good chunk of Schoenberg - Moses und Aaron, just focusing on the music, and found it absorbing.

Beautiful work and recording!

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Absolutely, Daphne is really a wonderful opera, I should have discovered it before! It has rich and varied timbric colours, metamorphic textures as well as a splendid orchestration, so lyrical and sinuous, but also so passionate, fiery and beautifully evocative, similarly to Eine Alpensinfonie, with which it shares the bucolic atmospheres too; I don't know if Strauss was influenced by The Birth of Tragedy (but it is known that he read it) when he composed this opera, but it really seems he was able to describe through music Nietzsche's fundamental complementary principles. The scene of Daphne's transformation is stunning and impressive for the ability to depict a sense of static, yet at the same time moving nature, with the growing climax abruptly interrupted to continue with a steady motive, like Bernini's sculpture of Apollon and Daphne. I liked the psychological development of the female protagonist and Strauss' use of the myth and its simbology to recall introspectively contemporary themes (the sense of alienation, the relation with nature-civilization, etc).

Not to forget, Böhm's recording is amazing!

Great to read. I had a hunch you would like this opera. It is one of my favorites from Strauss. Gorgeous work.