What Opera Are You Listening to Now?

[Tsaraslondon]

I prefer not to get into a debate about the relative greatness of Verdi, IMO the greatest composer of operas there ever was (and I'm not forgetting Mozart and Wagner), as there is a whole thread dedicated to him

VERDI: King of Italian Opera

I would just like to point out to @ritter that, dramatically, the ultra-popular La donna é mobile does exactly what it's supposed to do. Verdi wouldn't even allow the tenor playing the first Duke to see it before the final rehearsal, for fear that people would hear it before the opening night. This insouciant air is supposed to sound like a popular song and be so catchy that Rigoletto will recognise immediately that he has been duped and that the Duke is still alive. It makes perfect sense.

My favourite opera composers are actually Verdi and Berlioz, but then Berlioz is one of my favourite composers in every genre.

[Florestan]

That's a name that was misting in your lost above...
     

Yes and intentionally, because I thought that not including him --- nor Mompou, for that matter --- is a friendly concession you might appreciate.   

[Florestan]

dramatically, the ultra-popular La donna é mobile does exactly what it's supposed to do. Verdi wouldn't even allow the tenor playing the first Duke to see it before the final rehearsal, for fear that people would hear it before the opening night. This insouciant air is supposed to sound like a popular song and be so catchy that Rigoletto will recognise immediately that he has been duped and that the Duke is still alive. It makes perfect sense.

Hear, hear!

[Pohjolas Daughter]

I don't know what my top three are but my tops include those but also Handel, Lully, Strauss and Puccini.

Puccini is also a favorite of mine.  La Bohème and Tosca in particular.  And Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier...the Presentation of the Rose...sublime.

PD

[Roasted Swan]

Puccini is also a favorite of mine.  La Bohème and Tosca in particular.  And Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier...the Presentation of the Rose...sublime.

PD

I won't disagree with you!!

[Pohjolas Daughter]

I won't disagree with you!!

PD

[ritter]

Picked this up at the post office on the way to work this morning, and now listening to the prelude and beginning of Act I:



This is a major historical document, as it is the only complete recording of a Wagner opera conducted by Toscanini, and Die Meistersinger played a significant role throughout his career (e.g., it was the first opera he conducted at La Scala in 1898, and the prelude to Act I was the last piece he conducted in public --in 1954--). Also, this was recorded in the last Salzburg Festival prior to the Anschluss.

The sound is remarkably good for a live recording from 1937!

[atardecer]

I've been revisiting Wagner's Ring Cycle with Michael Schønwandt and the Royal Danish Opera. I enjoyed Das Rheingold. I got about an hour into Die Walküre and then needed a break, and will return later. The music is impressive, but the mood of everything seems perhaps a little unrelentingly heavy. To my tastes maybe not balanced with enough lightness. Here we have Siegmund and Sieglinde wailing for so long at each other, I'm thinking ok, just pull the sword out already! Don't get so worked up, take it easy you two. Have you not contemplated the myth of Icarus?

[DaveF]

Writing a programme-note for a performance of the Sinfonia, but wanted to know where the tunes came from.  What fun it all is!

[ritter]

Revisiting Boito's Nerone, in the superb RAI recording conducted by Gianandrea Gavazzeni.



This is a fascinating work, and it's a shame that despite Arturo Toscanini's advocacy for the opera and all the hype surrounding its  posthumous premiere, it never got a foothold in the repertoire. The music is hardly to blame, because —even if it lacks "big tunes"— it is a succesful amalgam of the Wagnerian and Italian, and there are great orchestral effects underpinning a "Mediterranean" vocal line. In his biography of Toscanini, Harvey Sachs suggests the subject matter may be at fault. He aptly describes it as "decadent, sentimentalized pseudo-Christianity typical of late nineteenth-century nonbelievers".

Be that as it may, this is an ambitious and, I insist, fascinating work. A "sublime failure". 

[ritter]

Continuing with "Toscanini inspired" listening...



Il Re is Umberto Giordano's last opera, and the last operatic world première Arturo Toscanini conducted (in 1929 at La Scala). It's a short 1 act comedy written for star coloratura soprano Toti dal Monte.

I've always had issues with Giordano's larger operas (Andrea Chénier, Madame Sans-Gêne or, most particularly, Fedora — which I find downright repellent), but this lighter piece has a certain quaint charm.

The performance (live from the 1998 Valle d'Itria Fesival in Martina Franca in the Apulia region) is excellent.

[ando]

Random pick from my Decca Verdi set this morning.

Verdi Giovanna D'Arco Montserrat Caballé, Plácido Domingo, Sherrill Milnes, Ambrosian Opera Chorus, James Levine, London Symphony Orchestra (1972)

[Tsaraslondon]

Random pick from my Decca Verdi set this morning.

Verdi Giovanna D'Arco Montserrat Caballé, Plácido Domingo, Sherrill Milnes, Ambrosian Opera Chorus, James Levine, London Symphony Orchestra (1972)

Decca set? But this is on EMI/Warner. Has it been licenced to Decca?

[JBS]

Decca set? But this is on EMI/Warner. Has it been licenced to Decca?

If Discogs.com is correct, the only other studio recording is the Netrebko-Domingo on DG which was released in 2014. Thus set was issued in 2013, so the EMI was the only game in town at that point.

There's a DVD with Netrebko conducted by Chailly, but that was released in 2018.

[Wendell_E]

Decca set? But this is on EMI/Warner. Has it been licenced to Decca?

Yep, the set also includes Muti's EMI I Vespri Siciliani.

[ritter]

An interesting mixed program conducted by Toscanini:



Boito's Mefistofele was clearly close to Toscanini's heart, and I add that it is a favourite opera of mine (not so much the prologue given here —which has some great moments, in any case— but the superb Act III). Wonderful performance with Nicola Moscona (and in much better sound than the same scene recorded at the reopening of the rebuilt La Scala in 1946, with Cesare Siepi).

Why Toscanini decided to broadcast the trio from Act III of I Lombardi is a mystery (he did conduct the full opera early on on his career, and interpolated a cadenza for the violin in this trio), but it's nice to have. And one gets to hear the wonderfully named soprano Vivian Della Chiesa. 

And closing the program, Act IV of Rigoletto, with the unlikely Gilda of Zinka Milanov (plus stalwarts in their respective roles, Leonard Warren and Jan Peerce). Vediam! Hat trip to @Tsaraslondon , @Florestan and @JBS

EDIT(correction): At the reopening of La Scala after the war, Mefistofele in the prologue was sung by Tancredi Pasero. Siepi sang in the Boito memorial concert in 1948. Both performances were recorded and released on CD in poor sound.

[JBS]

An interesting mixed program conducted by Toscanini:



Boito's Mefistofele was clearly close to Toscanini's heart, and I add that it is a favourite opera of mine (not so much the prologue given here —which has some great moments, in any case— but the superb Act III). Wonderful performance with Nicola Moscona (and in much better sound than the same scene recorded at the reopening of the rebuilt La Scala in 1946, with Cesare Siepi).

Why Toscanini decided to broadcast the trio from Act III of I Lombardi is a mystery (he did conduct the full opera early on on his career, and interpolated a cadenza for the violin in this trio), but it's nice to have. And one gets to hear the wonderfully named soprano Vivian Della Chiesa. 

And closing the program, Act IV of Rigoletto, with the unlikely Gilda of Zinka Milanov (plus stalwarts in their respective roles, Leonard Warren and Jan Peerce). Vediam! Hat trip to @Tsaraslondon , @Florestan and @JBS

👍
I have the Verdi parts of that via one of Sony/RCA's little white budget sets (Toscanini Conducts Verdi).

[brewski]

Just got a virtual ticket for Innocence by Kaija Saariaho, which the San Francisco Opera will livestream on Wednesday, June 12, at 7:30 p.m. (PDT). Tickets are $27.50 (cheaper than a trip to SF), and you can watch the stream for 48 hours afterward. More info here.

-Bruce

[ritter]

A quintessentially American opera tonight at ritter's. The Mother of Us All, with music by Virgil Thomson, words by Gertrude Stein.



Mignon Dunn sings the role of Susan B. Anthony. I saw this esteemed mezzo-soprano sing Venus in Tannhäuser at the Met some years after this recording was made.

[Ganondorf]

I recently listened to, quite possibly for the very first time, Puccini's Le Villi. To be honest, for his very first opera, this is very impressive. The recording was conducted by Lorin Maazel.