What Opera Are You Listening to Now?

[Cato]

So there is his opinion!

Maralin Niska! Wow! That's a name I hadn't read in decades. She sang the title role in Turandot in the second complete opera performance I ever attended, as a teenager, in the Teatro Municipal in Caracas around 1977.

Mr. Osborne's knowledge of opera is immense!  He must be c. 90 years old by now.  He also trained as a Baritone (taught by "old school" professionals), as his complaints about the lack of proper breathing/singing technique among contemporary performers will attest.

(He often complains about "throat singing" as opposed to the more resonant styles from deeper in the body.)

From a review of his book:

During the 1960s, '70s and '80s, when classical music was a lot more robust than nowadays, High Fidelity was the American magazine of choice for lay connoisseurs and not a few professionals. Its opera expert, Conrad L. Osborne, stood apart. "C.L.O." was self-evidently a polymath. His knowledge of singing was encyclopedic. He wrote about operas and their socio-cultural underpinnings with a comprehensive authority. As a prose stylist, he challenged comparisons to such quotable American music journalists as James Huneker and Virgil Thomson—yet was a more responsible, more sagacious adjudicator...

By Joseph Horowitz for The Wall Street Journal


See (for the entire review):

https://www.kathrynkingmedia.com/artist.php?id=closborne&aview=acclaim&nid=13612

[Wendell_E]

Maralin Niska! Wow! That's a name I hadn't read in decades. She sang the title role in Turandot in the second complete opera performance I ever attended, as a teenager, in the Teatro Municipal in Caracas around 1977.

Niska was Carlisle Floyd's Susannah in the second opera I attended, a 1976 Mobile Opera production.

[San Antone]

Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor
Lisette Oropesa (Lucia)
Ștefan Pop (Edgardo)
Mattia Olivieri (Enrico)
Riccardo Zanellato (Raimondo)
Orchestra del Teatro Massimo Bellini di Catania, Fabrizio Maria Carminati



Lucia has become something of a calling-card for Oropesa over the past decade: she made her Covent Garden debut in the role in 2017 (when The Guardian described her as "sensationally good"), and has since sung it at La Scala, the Wiener Staatsoper, the Salzburg Festival and the Teatro Real de Madrid.

This studio recording was made at the Teatro Sangiorgi in Sicily last summer; Oropesa enthuses that the project was "a full sensory experience that took me away and brought me right to the heart of this magnificent opera".

[JBS]

A Chekhov one act vaudeville (and according to the liner notes, the one that earned the most money of his theatrical works) is the basis for what Walton called "an extravaganza".

[Kalevala]

A Chekhov one act vaudeville (and according to the liner notes, the one that earned the most money of his theatrical works) is the basis for what Walton called "an extravaganza".

Well, you're a braver man than I! 

Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor
Lisette Oropesa (Lucia)
Ștefan Pop (Edgardo)
Mattia Olivieri (Enrico)
Riccardo Zanellato (Raimondo)
Orchestra del Teatro Massimo Bellini di Catania, Fabrizio Maria Carminati



Lucia has become something of a calling-card for Oropesa over the past decade: she made her Covent Garden debut in the role in 2017 (when The Guardian described her as "sensationally good"), and has since sung it at La Scala, the Wiener Staatsoper, the Salzburg Festival and the Teatro Real de Madrid.

This studio recording was made at the Teatro Sangiorgi in Sicily last summer; Oropesa enthuses that the project was "a full sensory experience that took me away and brought me right to the heart of this magnificent opera".

I'm looking forward to your thoughts on this one!

K

[JBS]

Well, you're a braver man than I! 

K

There's nothing particularly formidable about it, beyond the very slight plot, which was intentional on Chekhov's part. There are no bears involved, despite the title.

Meanwhile I'm listening to this right now


A mono radio broadcast from 7 May 1967.

Also one act, about an hour in length

[KevinP]

A fairly odd coincidence here. I became aware of this fairly obscure Donizetti ('Rita') while researching one-act comedic opera. So naturally I went to YouTube to see if there was a version.

At first, I got the usual issues: a version with no subtitles, a CD rip without even video, etc.


Eventually, I came across this one, which checked all the boxes. It's not professionally recorded, but the sound is very listenable. I watched it. I enjoyed it. (Although the spoken bits were a bit too sitcom-y for me.)

The coincidence is that after watching it, I realised it had been uploaded to YouTube just five hours earlier.

Then I bought this version:


It's not essential, but it's a fun romp, better than its lack of reputation would lead you to believe.

[Kalevala]

There's nothing particularly formidable about it, beyond the very slight plot, which was intentional on Chekhov's part. There are no bears involved, despite the title.

Meanwhile I'm listening to this right now


A mono radio broadcast from 7 May 1967.

Also one act, about an hour in length

I guess what I was trying to say is that it didn't sound like my cup of tea (that and limited time for things that I want to fit in).

K

[JBS]

I guess what I was trying to say is that it didn't sound like my cup of tea (that and limited time for things that I want to fit in).

K

It's a light comedy, and under an hour in length.  Here's Wikipedia's article on the original play.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bear_(play)

As for Perfect Fool, it's a lot more interesting if you want to listen to Holst than if you want to listen to an opera.

[JBS]

A fairly odd coincidence here. I became aware of this fairly obscure Donizetti ('Rita') while researching one-act comedic opera. So naturally I went to YouTube to see if there was a version.

At first, I got the usual issues: a version with no subtitles, a CD rip without even video, etc.


Eventually, I came across this one, which checked all the boxes. It's not professionally recorded, but the sound is very listenable. I watched it. I enjoyed it. (Although the spoken bits were a bit too sitcom-y for me.)

The coincidence is that after watching it, I realised it had been uploaded to YouTube just five hours earlier.

Then I bought this version:


It's not essential, but it's a fun romp, better than its lack of reputation would lead you to believe.

There seems to be a lot of Donizetti waiting to be unearthed.

[KevinP]

There seems to be a lot of Donizetti waiting to be unearthed.

He wrote a whopping 16 symphonies. Have they ever all been recorded?

And according to Wikipedia, 75(!) opera, 19 string quartets, and 28 cantatas, among other works.

[JBS]

He wrote a whopping 16 symphonies. Have they ever all been recorded?

And according to Wikipedia, 75(!) opera, 19 string quartets, and 28 cantatas, among other works.

I have the CPO set of string quartets and this CD with three of them. I think both are good.
There's also an ongoing or just concluded by the Mitja Quartet. One GMGer was very positive about it ( @Spotted Horses iirc)


As for the symphonies--it seems they are one movement sinfonias. I found two volumes from Sony that seem to be OOP. Here's the back cover of Volume I to give you some details

Also this CD that splits between Bellini and Donizetti.

To add confusion, there's a CD of three sinfonias that were transcribed from some of the string quartets on Marco Polo.
Finally I saw this CD of concertos

[Kalevala]

It's a light comedy, and under an hour in length.  Here's Wikipedia's article on the original play.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bear_(play)

As for Perfect Fool, it's a lot more interesting if you want to listen to Holst than if you want to listen to an opera.

I have excerpts from Perfect Fool on Chandos with Hickox which I like.  I don't know the full work.

K

[Spotted Horses]

There's also an ongoing or just concluded by the Mitja Quartet. One GMGer was very positive about it ( @Spotted Horses iirc)

I am afraid I have never heard those recordings.

[Florestan]

A fairly odd coincidence here. I became aware of this fairly obscure Donizetti ('Rita') while researching one-act comedic opera. So naturally I went to YouTube to see if there was a version.

At first, I got the usual issues: a version with no subtitles, a CD rip without even video, etc.


Eventually, I came across this one, which checked all the boxes. It's not professionally recorded, but the sound is very listenable. I watched it. I enjoyed it. (Although the spoken bits were a bit too sitcom-y for me.)

The coincidence is that after watching it, I realised it had been uploaded to YouTube just five hours earlier.

Then I bought this version:


It's not essential, but it's a fun romp, better than its lack of reputation would lead you to believe.

There's also this:

[Florestan]

There's also an ongoing or just concluded by the Mitja Quartet. One GMGer was very positive about it

Two, actually: @kyjo and yours truly.

[KevinP]

There's also this:

Good?

Presto has four recordings and one DVD. I picked one blindly.

[nico1616]

Keilberth's 1955 Ring is one of the best. Great sound, orchestral playing and a cast that can hardly be bettered.
It is fascinating to listen to the orchestra which plays a succession of leitmotivs you recognize more and more with repeated listening. But sometimes I think Rossini was right in saying that Wagner had great moments but boring quarter-hours. However beautiful the highlights of act 1 in die Walküre, the initial tension disappears because of extremely slow pacing. In act 2 you have Wotan's narration which seems endless and even act 3 is too long for what is happening.
But then I could not live without Wotan's Abschied, Fricka's quarreling, the ride of the Valkyries, the moving scene with Brünnhilde and Siegmund, etc...  Despite all the Ring's longuers, I still love it.

[JBS]

Installment 3 of Barenboim's Wagner


I saw Lohengrin once in a touring Metropolitan Opera production in the late 70s. My main memory of it was of it being severely underlit and dark.

[JBS]

Found the performance in the Met Archives
May 6, 1977