Your Top 10 Favorite Opera Composers

Started by Jaakko Keskinen, April 14, 2017, 05:50:47 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

some guy

Mahlerian knows this story already, I think.

I got "into" opera with Janacek. I really liked Janacek's music. A lot. But there's really not all that much that's not an opera. So if you like Janacek as much as I did, you have one option: listen to opera.

Magic!

And after that, I could listen to any old opera by anyone and enjoy it as much or as little as I would enjoy a piano concerto or a symphony or a string quartet by anyone. So much so, that I could hardly imagine how anyone, myself included, could ever have thought of "opera" as a special category and one fairly challenging to get into.

Well, whatever. That was then, and now is now.

I'm much happier with now.

North Star

Janáček
Mozart
Berlioz
Monteverdi
Britten
Prokofiev
Berg
Ravel
Mussorgsky
Strauss
"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it." - Confucius

My photographs on Flickr

bhodges

Quote from: nathanb on April 14, 2017, 11:16:14 AM
I essentially quit watching television and film for a few years once I entered full fanaticism for this whole music thing (more time for music = less time for everything else). Neuwirth's Lost Highway was something of a watershed work for me. A piece of music that made me return to film. Neat.

Admirable! And that's a great story about the Neuwirth. (I have only seen it once, but thought it deserves an extravagant production sometime, somewhere.) Also, have only seen the film once -- when it first came out -- and as a Lynch fan, need to do at least one repeat! I'm a little surprised someone hasn't done an opera based on Blue Velvet;D

--Bruce

ComposerOfAvantGarde

I wonder if Alien knows the opera Lost Highway, him being a Lynch fan....

TheGSMoeller

Quote from: jessop on April 19, 2017, 03:15:58 PM
I wonder if Alien knows the opera Lost Highway, him being a Lynch fan....

I wasn't aware of this. Is it based on Lynch's film? Who did the libretto?

Dee Sharp

Puccini
Verdi
Mozart
R. Strauss
Janecek
Bellini
Floyd
Britten
Rossini
Bizet

bhodges

Quote from: TheGSMoeller on April 19, 2017, 03:43:46 PM
I wasn't aware of this. Is it based on Lynch's film? Who did the libretto?

Yes, it's based on the Lynch. Libretto is by Neuwirth and Elfriede Jelinek. Have not yet heard the recording!

[asin]B000N2H8IW[/asin]

--Bruce

TheGSMoeller

Quote from: Brewski on April 19, 2017, 04:03:33 PM
Yes, it's based on the Lynch. Libretto is by Neuwirth and Elfriede Jelinek. Have not yet heard the recording!

[asin]B000N2H8IW[/asin]

--Bruce

Interesting. I would love to hear it.
Thanks, Bruce!

bhodges

Quote from: TheGSMoeller on April 19, 2017, 04:17:23 PM
Interesting. I would love to hear it.
Thanks, Bruce!

It was done here in 2007, in a modest production. Apparently there were problems balancing the electronics, but even so, I thought it was definitely worth a second hearing.

--Bruce

ComposerOfAvantGarde

Sciarrino is an UNDERRATED composer of operas! Not just Luci mie Traditrici, but his operas based on Macbeth and Lohengrin are pretty good too!

Mirror Image

Quote from: jessop on April 19, 2017, 07:25:38 PM
Sciarrino is an UNDERRATED composer of operas! Not just Luci mie Traditrici, but his operas based on Macbeth and Lohengrin are pretty good too!

Underrated to describe a 21st Century composer? Ummm...they're all underrated aren't they, Jessop? :-\

ComposerOfAvantGarde

Quote from: Mirror Image on April 19, 2017, 07:29:14 PM
Underrated to describe a 21st Century composer? Ummm...they're all underrated aren't they, Jessop? :-\
Underrated on this thread, considering his operatic output

Mirror Image

#32
Quote from: jessop on April 19, 2017, 07:33:49 PM
Underrated on this thread, considering his operatic output

Oh, I'm not surprised by this at all. A lot of people just don't have much interest in contemporary classical music. Sciarrino could compose forty operas, but this doesn't mean I'm going to have an interest in what he does or anyone else for that matter. The bottomline is if the interest in the composer is there, then there will be mentions of him and since there's not, you'll have to formulate your own conclusions. To be even more honest, I really find your's and Alien's attitude about contemporary classical interesting because it seems to me you guys somehow expect others to know who you listen to and, most of all, actually listen to these composers. Not everyone is as bold and adventuresome as you guys.

ComposerOfAvantGarde

#33
Quote from: Mirror Image on April 19, 2017, 07:42:03 PM
Oh, I’m not surprised by this at all. A lot of people just don’t have much interest in contemporary classical music. Sciarrino could compose forty operas, but this doesn’t mean I’m going to have an interest in what he does or anyone else for that matter. The bottomline is if the interest in the composer is there, then there will be mentions of him and since there’s not, you’ll have to formulate your own conclusions. To be even more honest, I really find your's and Alien’s attitude about contemporary classical interesting because it seems to me you guys somehow expect others to know who you listen to and, most of all, actually listen to these composers. Not everyone is as bold and adventuresome as you guys.

Well, I think everyone is adventurous in their own way. I probably wouldn't have listened to much 19th century music if it were not for other people's enthusiasms and explorations of that repertoire, just to give one example. I find it interesting to see the names of composers that pop up on GMG are often different to names that pop up on other forums and different again to names that pop up in the media. For example, I have read lots of news recently about Du Yun (opera related news, too!), but I haven't yet noticed conversations about Yun on this forum.

My 'underrated' exclamation was really more of a sardonic joke, though, but with an element of honesty as well. Sciarrino is a composer whose opera Luci mie Traditrici has had an unusually large number of performances and recordings for an opera from the late 90s. When repertoire is being performed lots then I suppose people are just more exposed to it and it there are more reviews to read and articles that appear in the news.......

My own assumptions get the better of me; not everyone necessarily follows what's happening in music around the world!

In the end, I can only be thankful for the plethora of recommendations I have received from you, Alien and others; it really is because of each individual's unique enthusiasms does this forum have such a wealth of information anyway. It is really because of everyone else that I listen to what I listen to and advocate the music I wouldn't have come across otherwise. :)

Chronochromie

#34
Quote from: jessop on April 19, 2017, 07:25:38 PM
Sciarrino is an UNDERRATED composer of operas! Not just Luci mie Traditrici, but his operas based on Macbeth and Lohengrin are pretty good too!

If I had seen this thread and felt like making a list I'd mentioned him and Luci and Macbeth, certainly.

Edit: Alright, here goes:

Monteverdi
Rameau
Mozart
Berlioz
Wagner
Verdi
Debussy
Schoenberg (Erwartung counts, right?)
Berg
Sciarrino

Honorary mentions to composers who only wrote one complete opera (yes, I know Berg technically didn't finish Lulu...) that I love: Mussorgsky, Debussy and Messiaen.

ComposerOfAvantGarde

#35
I might update my list:

Wagner
Britten
Reimann
Henze
Sciarrino
Schreker
Berg
Puccini
Strauss
Mozart

....Dean, Monteverdi, Schoenberg, Furrer, Neuwirth, Adams, Glass, Handel, Vivaldi.....

Contemporaryclassical

#36
Monteverdi
Purcell
Rameau
Salieri
Mozart
Beethoven
Berlioz
Schoenberg
Shostakovich
Feldman

Wanderer

Top 10 (not in order of preference)

Mozart
Beethoven
R. Strauss
Wagner
Puccini
Zemlinsky
Janáček
Schreker
Korngold
Tchaikovsky


Runners-up:

Berlioz
Debussy
Saint-Saëns
Szymanowski
Berg
Bartók
Salieri
Haydn
Shostakovich
Vivaldi
Mussorgsky
Prokofiev
Rimsky-Korsakov
Hindemith
Offenbach
Rossini
Busoni
Donizetti
Monteverdi

zamyrabyrd

Mozart
Verdi
Puccini
R. Strauss
J. Strauss
Offenbach
Massenet
Tchaikovsky
Debussy
Bellini

ZB
"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one."

― Charles MacKay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

ComposerOfAvantGarde

Quote from: Conor71 on June 25, 2017, 03:40:11 AM
I'm electing not to list Composers for whom I only know 1 or 2 works so that only leaves:

Mozart
Puccini
Verdi
Wagner


If you like Puccini and Wagner....maybe Schreker can be next to add to your list? ;D