Opera Composers Directly Influenced By Wagner

Started by Chaszz, September 13, 2021, 09:04:33 AM

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Chaszz

As a Wagner fan who explores the decades after his death for other music, influenced by him, which also fires the soul, I have learned that Schoenberg's and other atonal music is not the logical and inevitable result of Wagner's expansion of tonality that official music history would have it be. Apart from Richard Strauss, the most brilliant of Wagner's creatures who, after a step into atonality, returned to expanded, not broken-down harmony, there are others worth listening to. Italian composer Italo Montemezzi's L'Amore Dei Tre Re (The Love of Three Kings) became very popular around 1900 and held a place in the repertory for half a century, when it faded. Perhaps it deserves some new attention. Maybe I will write to Leon Botstein, a conductor who specializes in rescuing the stranded deserving. The writing in this opera is both dramatic and lyrical in turn, with plenty of Wagnerian-type imagination and orchestration.

Chaszz

I'm currently listening to Le Roi Arthus, an opera by the late 19th c. French composer Ernest Chaussons. Chaussons was heavily influenced by Wagner, even to the point that the Act I love duet between Guinevere and Lancelot is really a variation on Tristan's and Isolde's love duet rather than an original piece of music. Of course the plot situation is the same, except that later on both Lancelot and Guinevere experience regret, guilt and further heartbreak. The music throughout the opera is beautiful and effective. I'm listening to the version on Youtube by Armin Jordan conducting the Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique and Radio France Chorus, with Goesta Winbergh as a fine, impassioned Lancelot, Gino Quilico in the title role and an effective Teresa Zylis-GaraMore as Guinevere.

Bard College president and conductor Leon Botstein has attempted to rescue this opera from obscurity with a 2005 CD version as well as the first American staged production at the 2021 Bard Festival. I will be listening to his recorded version soon in an attempt to get a handle on the conducting ability of this would-be polymath, whose reviews over many years of part-time conducting have ranged from excellent to amateurish. Whether he will be successful in restoring this opera to the repertory is up in the air, but to my mind and taste, it belongs there.     


Roasted Swan

Quote from: Chaszz on September 30, 2021, 09:08:44 AM
I'm currently listening to Le Roi Arthus, an opera by the late 19th c. French composer Ernest Chaussons. Chaussons was heavily influenced by Wagner, even to the point that the Act I love duet between Guinevere and Lancelot is really a variation on Tristan's and Isolde's love duet rather than an original piece of music. Of course the plot situation is the same, except that later on both Lancelot and Guinevere experience regret, guilt and further heartbreak. The music throughout the opera is beautiful and effective. I'm listening to the version on Youtube by Armin Jordan conducting the Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique and Radio France Chorus, with Goesta Winbergh as a fine, impassioned Lancelot, Gino Quilico in the title role and an effective Teresa Zylis-GaraMore as Guinevere.

Bard College president and conductor Leon Botstein has attempted to rescue this opera from obscurity with a 2005 CD version as well as the first American staged production at the 2021 Bard Festival. I will be listening to his recorded version soon in an attempt to get a handle on the conducting ability of this would-be polymath, whose reviews over many years of part-time conducting have ranged from excellent to amateurish. Whether he will be successful in restoring this opera to the repertory is up in the air, but to my mind and taste, it belongs there.   

Botstein's effort to rehabilitate lesser known works is without doubt admirable.  Sadly he seems to be a conductor who fails to inspire the performers he stands in front of.  His Telarc recordings are a case in point as indeed is this Roi Arthus.  great work, beautifully played and recorded but lacking (in performance) that frisson of excitement and insight the great conductors bring.  Not Botstein's fault - musical charisma is a genuinely rare thing.  Trouble is - he ain't got it.............

relm1

Quote from: Roasted Swan on September 30, 2021, 09:15:20 AM
Botstein's effort to rehabilitate lesser known works is without doubt admirable.  Sadly he seems to be a conductor who fails to inspire the performers he stands in front of.  His Telarc recordings are a case in point as indeed is this Roi Arthus.  great work, beautifully played and recorded but lacking (in performance) that frisson of excitement and insight the great conductors bring.  Not Botstein's fault - musical charisma is a genuinely rare thing.  Trouble is - he ain't got it.............

Hehehe, I so agree with you.  I love his repertoire and avoid his performances.  It's a snooze fest. 

Chaszz

Of his work I've heard only a recording of a favorite Wagner bleeding chunk, Siegfried's Rhine Journey, which I liked. But I may be listening to his Chausson King Arthur soon, if I can get it somewhere for less than $49 or from a library. Otherwise I'll have to see what else is available by him.