Your Top 10 Favorite Opera Composers

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

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Symphonic Addict

Part of the tragedy of the Palestinians is that they have essentially no international support for a good reason: they've no wealth, they've no power, so they've no rights.

Noam Chomsky

vandermolen

I hardly ever listen to opera but have enjoyed those by.

Vaughan Williams ('Pilgrim's Progress' arguably his greatest work and 'Riders to the Sea).'
Mussorgsky
Martinu
Prokofiev ('War and Peace')
Britten 'Peter Grimes' - up to a point.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

San Antone

Quote from: San Antone on January 19, 2020, 02:10:21 AM
I don't have 10 favorite composers of opera, but this list is of the relatively few composers whose operatic output I listen to fairly regularly.

Verdi
Mozart
Debussy
Gershwin
Puccini
Britten
Berg

I'd like to include Stephen Sondheim because, IMO, Sweeney Todd is at least operatic, and Passion could be considered an opera.

I will add Bernstein to this list since I listened to Trouble in Tahiti and A Quiet Place today and foudn them very charming and wonderful operas.

Verdi
Mozart
Debussy
Gershwin
Puccini
Britten
Berg
Bernstein
Sondheim
(so sue me)

I still have one more slot to fill, and will post again once I've figured who is #10.

8)

JBS

#63
Quote from: San Antone on January 21, 2020, 04:48:32 PM
I will add Bernstein to this list since I listened to Trouble in Tahiti and A Quiet Place today and foudn them very charming and wonderful operas.

Verdi
Mozart
Debussy
Gershwin
Puccini
Britten
Berg
Bernstein
Sondheim
(so sue me)

I still have one more slot to fill, and will post again once I've figured who is #10.

8)

Sondheim is indeed quasi-operatic, and some of his stuff is closer to grand opera than some operettas that regularly pass as opera house fodder (Merry Widow, I`m looking at you. But you're not the only one.)  Andrew Lloyd Webber and Claude Michel Schonberg [Les Miserables] might also qualify.

Did I ever make a list?

Current version at least
Mozart
Wagner
Verdi
Puccini
Rossini
Britten
Berlioz
Bellini
Gershwin
Donizetti

Hollywood Beach Broadwalk

San Antone

Quote from: JBS on January 21, 2020, 05:01:08 PM
Sondheim is indeed quasi-operatic, and some of his stuff is closer to grand opera than some operettas that regularly pass as opera house fodder (Merry Widow, I`m looking at you. But you're not the only one.)  Andrew Lloyd Webber and Claude Michel Schonberg [Les Miserables] might also qualify.

Did I ever make a list?

Current version at least
Mozart
Wagner
Verdi
Puccini
Rossini
Britten
Berlioz
Bellini
Gershwin
Donizetti

Thanks for the seconded motion on Sondheim  :D  I actually saw a production of Sweeney Todd at the New York City Opera, so 'nuff said.   ;)  But I can't go there with the other names you mentioned. ALW is one of a handful of composers whose music I actively despise.  ???

But, I figured out who my #10 is: Rossini, after reading your list.  Don't know why I left him out to begin with ?  Although I like Damnation of Faust, Berlioz didn't make the cut since I really like Rossini a lot more.

So here's my complete list (I am a little surprised that I came up with ten since at the outset I didn't think I listened to opera that much).  These ten are all composers who wrote at least one opera which I really like and listen to often (some only wrote one opera).   ;D

Verdi
Mozart
Debussy
Gershwin
Puccini
Britten
Berg
Bernstein
Sondheim
Rossini


Listening to Otello by the Big R right now:


JBS

Quote from: San Antone on January 21, 2020, 05:18:39 PM
Thanks for the seconded motion on Sondheim  :D  I actually saw a production of Sweeney Todd at the New York City Opera, so 'nuff said.   ;)  But I can't go there with the other names you mentioned. ALW is one of a handful of composers whose music I actively despise.  ???

But, I figured out who my #10 is: Rossini, after reading your list.  Don't know why I left him out to begin with ?  Although I like Damnation of Faust, Berlioz didn't make the cut since I really like Rossini a lot more.

So here's my complete list (I am a little surprised that I came up with ten since at the outset I didn't think I listened to opera that much).  These ten are all composers who wrote at least one opera which I really like and listen to often (some only wrote one opera).   ;D

Verdi
Mozart
Debussy
Gershwin
Puccini
Britten
Berg
Bernstein
Sondheim
Rossini





I said Webber's music was quasi-operatic.  I didn't say it was good music.  :P

In regards to Berlioz, have you ever heard Benvenuto Cellini or Beatrice et Benedict? They are worth more than one spin, I think. And Les Troyens, too.

Hollywood Beach Broadwalk

San Antone

Quote from: JBS on January 21, 2020, 05:31:19 PM
In regards to Berlioz, have you ever heard Benvenuto Cellini or Beatrice et Benedict? They are worth more than one spin, I think. And Les Troyens, too.

No, the only opera by Berlioz I've heard (watched, actually) is DoF. The recent Met production with the visual effects was really quite good, as were the singers.  Something about Berlioz's style is not for me, the big orchestral sections, e.g. - but I will take a gander at the three you mentioned, just for the heck of it.

But I am pretty happy with my list as it is.

8)

JBS

Quote from: San Antone on January 21, 2020, 05:59:17 PM
No, the only opera by Berlioz I've heard (watched, actually) is DoF. The recent Met production with the visual effects was really quite good, as were the singers.  Something about Berlioz's style is not for me, the big orchestral sections, e.g. - but I will take a gander at the three you mentioned, just for the heck of it.

But I am pretty happy with my list as it is.

8)

Well, remember Berlioz didn't think of DoF as a staged work, but as an orchestral work. The Warner Complete Berlioz set, for instance, puts it with the orchestral works, not the stage works.  Whereas Benevenuto, Troyens, and B&B were meant to be fully staged works performed in theater.

Hollywood Beach Broadwalk

bhodges

I have no problem considering Sondheim as operatic, especially given Sweeney Todd and A Little Night Music, though the latter might be a better fit with operetta.

My ten, after giving serious consideration to Mozart, Wagner, and Puccini:

Bartók
Berg
Britten
Janáček
Prokofiev
Rimsky-Korsakov
Franz Schreker
R. Strauss
Tchaikovsky
Verdi

--Bruce

FelixSkodi

1. Antonio Salieri
2. Liza Lim
3. Hugo Wolf
4. Jules Massenet
5. Sergei Prokofiev
6. Karlheinz Stockhausen

Biffo

In loose chronological order -

Monteverdi
Handel
Mozart
Berlioz
Verdi
Wagner
R Strauss
Janacek
Vaughan Williams

Several composers have written single works that I have enjoyed over the years, most notably Beethoven but also Bizet, Tchaikovsky, Berg, Puccini & Mussorgsky

Vaughan Williams is a special case; he wrote one work I love, The Pilgrim's Progress but it probably works better as a recording, staging it seems to be problematical.