Topic: mothers in opera

[PerfectWagnerite]

PW, Does she have a major part to play?

Mike

Yes, she sings quite a bit. I would say her part is as big as Fricka in Das Rheingold.

[knight66]

Yes, she sings quite a bit. I would say her part is as big as Fricka in Das Rheingold.

OK, she gets a free pass.

Translondon, I just am not convinced. Norma ought just to have kept stumm....difficult in opera, but Mum ought to have been the word.

Mike

[Tsaraslondon]

OK, she gets a free pass.

Translondon, I just am not convinced. Norma ought just to have kept stumm....difficult in opera, but Mum ought to have been the word.

Mike

oh, you're a hard task master. Maybe motherliness and "doing the right thing" are incompatible.

[uffeviking]

And Erda, my proposed Mother does not get a free pass, huh? 

Three daughters busily doing their womanly tasks and also doing a lot of singing, come on, Mike, give it to them! 

[knight66]

But apart from her acknowledged role as the erth mother, Erde does not interact, sponsor, nourish, feed, chat to, save, educate or nurse any of her children, they are independent of her. Does she write to them, phone them, visit them, send gifts? NO, too busy with her own stuff...so no free pass.

Mike

[Hector]

Larry, Yet another new one on me, care to advocate it.

Azucena's music is esp. dramatic in that Act 4 scene 2, Ai nostri monti that you mention Hector. When I run it through my head I can only hear Brigitte Fassbaender, who made the words so vivid. I felt that she bested even the best native Italian singers.

Mike

Barbieri?

So vivid is her singing I can still visualise wandering lost around the enemy camp looking for her lost Italian ten...sorry, 'son.'

[knight66]

Hector, I have that Karajan Barbieri set, she is another really good singer. Italy used to have an endless supply of them. Possibly it still does, but they are not given the profile by the recording companies.

Mike

[Hector]

Hector, I have that Karajan Barbieri set, she is another really good singer. Italy used to have an endless supply of them. Possibly it still does, but they are not given the profile by the recording companies.

Mike

Barbieri certainly wasn't. Taken for granted. Shows how v good she was, bless her.

I've heard Azucena's who barely projected past the first row of seats in the opera house. I cannot ever imagine that would have been the case with Fedora.