Top 10 Favorite Operas

[Brahmsian]

+1

  I knew you would concur, Ilaria. 

[Brahmsian]

If you don't like Italian opera, face it, you're not an opera fan.

I don't agree with this at all.  I'm sorry, but this does not even make sense, to be honest?! 

[kyjo]

I don't agree with this at all.  I'm sorry, but this does not even make sense, to be honest?! 

I agree, Ray. A most absurd statement.

[Elgarian]

1. Wagner: Der Ring
2. Puccini: La Boheme
2. Puccini: La Rondine
2. Mozart: Cosi Fan Tutte
2. Mozart: Don Giovanni
2. Handel: Giulio Cesare
2. Rameau: Les Indes Galantes
2. Lully: Cadmus & Hermione
2. Massenet: Manon
2. Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier

(There are nine all jostling for the no. 2 slot.)

[Brahmsian]

Since reading Octave's post, I've modified my listing to include some recommended recordings.

[Octave]

Thanks as always....my 'purchases' posts gonna be blowin up.

[Brahmsian]

Thanks as always....my 'purchases' posts gonna be blowin up.

  Are you sampling DVDs, or CDs for opera?  Most of my experience listening to opera has been solely on CD, so far anyway. 

[PaulR]

I agree, Ray. A most absurd statement.

I wouldn't say it's a totally absurd statement........I wouldn't necessarily say that one must like Italian Opera to like it, but one would have to appreciate it in order to appreciate it as a genre since most pre-Romantic operas were Italian operas. 

[Octave]

  Are you sampling DVDs, or CDs for opera?  Most of my experience listening to opera has been solely on CD, so far anyway. 

I have never seen even one video production of an opera!   
It actually seems ideal, video.  Especially with an "uncompressed" audio in Blu-Ray option.  If the staging is distasteful to me, I can turn off the TV and enjoy uncompressed (or less compressed, PCM) sound....easy.  But somehow I have not gotten to this point yet.  I like my opera acousmatic.  In fact, I haven't even followed libretti for most of the operas I've heard yet; I know, it sounds crazy.  This stems from 1.) a conviction that eyes are aristocrats of the bloodflow, and 2.) a desire to hear the music at least a couple times before I know what what's going on.

But definitely I am eager to check out video productions.  Some items languishing in the cart are a Schreker recommended somewhat recently, Langgaard's ANTIKRIST, a well-spoken-of (Christie?) Handel's GIULIO CAESAR, Weinberg's PASSENGER, and Gardiner's Debussy's PELLEAS (though I have heard bad things about the U.S. dvd's sound that apparently do not apply to the Euro edition).  Still hoping the Boulez/Chereau RING appears on Blu_Ray before physical media vanish from earth.

Do we have a thread for favorite opera video productions (music, staging, or both)?

[(poco) Sforzando]

Opera is about the voices, not the orchestra.  Sure, the best operas use the orchestra in imagintive and effective ways, but really, the orchestra is the accompaniment.  I could tell by the lists that the works chosen were by people who like lush orchestral writing, but not so much opera, for itself.  If you don't like Italian opera, face it, you're not an opera fan.

I don't agree with this at all.  I'm sorry, but this does not even make sense, to be honest?! 

I agree, Ray. A most absurd statement.

Not entirely absurd. What San Antonio is objecting to is a sentiment similar to, "I like Italian food, but not pasta with tomato sauce." In other words, says SA, since Italian opera is so dominant and central to the tradition and history of opera, to reject it is in effect to reject the genre altogether.

Not that I entirely agree with SA either. Opera is about a lot of things: the voices, the orchestra, the (sometimes preposterous) dramatic action, the often spectacular stagings complete with elaborate costumes worn by casts of thousands including any animals (human and non) the director cares to bring on stage, the gay subculture of the opera queens obsessed with their favorite sopranos (think Terrence McNally's "The Lisbon Traviata"), the sense of ridiculous expense and prestige that goes along with the entire enterprise. Even in the 18th century, Samuel Johnson referred to opera as "an exotic and irrational entertainment, which has always been combated, and always has prevailed." Greatly oversimplifying, the history of opera has always been a push and pull between the forces that celebrate the power and agility of the human voice for its own sake (Handel, Bellini, Rossini) and those who attempt to purge the excesses from the genre and focus on the dramatic (Gluck, Debussy, Mussorgsky). It is not so much that Kylo is not an opera fan, but that he is on the one side of the axis.

But as for this exchange —

I sometimes think people take this kind of list as an opportunity for them to brag about their knowledge of the most obscure pieces they can find.

What a presumptuous and untrue thing to say.

—  methinks Mr. Kylo is being disingenuous, having already staked out his position here as Keeper of the Obscure Flame. But even granting his own premises, his rejection of Verdi because of the alleged emphasis on "vocal pyrotechnics" is an inaccurate description of the composer's achievement. Verdi even in his early days, when his use of the orchestra was relatively undeveloped, was far more interested in dramatic truth than vocalism for its own sake. Verdi's ruvidezza, already present in Nabucco, was an emphatic rejection of the smooth bel canto tradition of Bellini and Donizetti, and even Gilda's Caro nome from Rigoletto is not just some coloratura twittering in the stratosphere but a characterization of a naïve young girl experiencing first love.

As for Verdi's later career, it's quite obvious that as he matured he developed in all kinds of ways – harmonically, dramatically, orchestrally – that left his early style way behind. His orchestral mastery in the final operas – Don Carlo, the revised Simon Boccanegra, Aida, Otello, Falstaff — matches any composer's, and to dismiss Verdi without acknowledging as much is to misrepresent his progress.

[vandermolen]

I dug out the EMI RVW 30CD box yesterday, of which I never completed the first run through last year, and, G-d willing,  will be giving those two, along with Sir John in Love and Love in the Stocks, maiden listens sometime in the next week or so.

Seeing 'Pilgrim's Progress' live in London (twice) was an overwhelming experience. Hope you enjoy it.

[Wanderer]

Seeing 'Pilgrim's Progress' live in London (twice) was an overwhelming experience.

I can imagine. It's on my (quite short) "would travel abroad to see live" list.

[vandermolen]

 

I can imagine. It's on my (quite short) "would travel abroad to see live" list.

Pity you missed it in London recently (first full staging since the 1950s!) The other performance I saw was even more moving: a semi-staged version with Richard Hickox conducting. His son played the Woodcutter's Boy. All very poignant in view of Hickox's death not long after.

[Elgarian]

I didn't have time earlier to put together particular favourite versions, so here they all are again, with the problem remedied.

1. Wagner: Der Ring
On CD: Solti
On DVD: Chereau/Boulez
2. Puccini: La Boheme
On CD: Pavarotti/Freni/Karajan
On DVD: Raimondi/Freni/Karajan 1965 movie
2. Puccini: La Rondine
On CD: Gheorghiu/Alagna/Pappano
On DVD: Gheorghiu/Alagna/MET 2009 and also Arteta/Haddock/Washington 1999 (both are exquisite)
2. Mozart: Cosi Fan Tutte
On DVD: Persson/Vondung/Hytner Glyndebourne. Possibly the most perfect Opera DVD I own
2. Mozart: Don Giovanni
On DVD: Raimondi/Kanawa/Losey movie
2. Handel: Giulio Cesare
On DVD: Connolly/de Niese/Christie Glyndebourne
2. Rameau: Les Indes Galantes
On DVD: de Niese/Rivenq/Petibon/Christie Paris Opera
2. Lully: Cadmus & Hermione
On DVD: Dumestre/Lazar's astounding historical C17th re-creation
2. Massenet: Manon
On CD: Gheorghiu/Alagna/Pappano
On DVD: Dessay/Villazon/McVicar
2. Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier
On DVD: Jones/Fassbaender/Popp/Kleiber

(There are nine all jostling for the no. 2 slot.)

[Jaakko Keskinen]

1. Wagner: Ring
2. Wagner: Parsifal
3. Wagner: Tristan
4. Wagner: Lohengrin
5. Puccini: Fanciulla del West
6. Puccini: Tosca
7. Verdi: Aida
8. Verdi: Simon Boccanegra
9. Verdi: Don Carlos
10. Richard Strauss: Salome

Not necessarily in order.

[Ken B]

In no particular order, and contents shift, but the first six are constants.

Magic Flute
Cosi
Four Saints in Three Acts, Virgil Thomson
Facing Goya, Michael Nyman
Sweeney Todd, Sondheim ( technically not an opera but then neither is Flute)
Threepenny Opera, Weill

Valkyrie
Julius Caesar, Handel
Orpheus ed Eurydice, Gluck
Der Mond, Orff

[Jaakko Keskinen]

My choices also change a lot although ring and parsifal are always unsurpassed. I didn't add Wagner's meistersinger and fliegenden holländer because I thought I had more than enough Wagner operas already. Verdi's Un ballo in maschera, Falstaff and Rigoletto I had to cut also. Unfortunately I couldn't make room for Mozart's Don Giovanni and Zauberflöte. I love many lesser-performed operas too though, including Die Liebe der Danae (even though the libretto is so bad that I think even I would write better stuff) and Rachmaninov's Miserly knight. Some other operas that I couldn't fit were for ex. Elektra, Faust (by Gounod), Thaïs, Golden cockerel, Turandot, Queen of Spades, Freischütz and Fidelio.

[Jay F]

I have but four:

1. La Traviata
2. Die Zauberflote
3. Le Nozze di Figaro
4. La Boheme

[TheGSMoeller]

In no particular order, and contents shift, but the first six are constants.

Magic Flute
Cosi
Four Saints in Three Acts, Virgil Thomson
Facing Goya, Michael Nyman
Sweeney Todd, Sondheim ( technically not an opera but then neither is Flute)
Threepenny Opera, Weill

Valkyrie
Julius Caesar, Handel
Orpheus ed Eurydice, Gluck
Der Mond, Orff

Your list is better than mine, especially because you have the Weill and Orff included.

I have a few Nyman operas and really like them, but was unaware that Facing Goya was an opera. Will locate it for a listen.

[Brian]

Only counting operas I've actually seen, because CDs don't count:

6. Carmen
5. Beatrice et Benedict
4. La boheme
3. Die Zauberflote
2. Don Giovanni
1. Falstaff

Here, four operas I haven't seen:

Kat'a Kabanova
L'enfant et les sortileges
Les Troyens
Hansel und Gretel

And an opera I saw part of in the Houston Opera's "too broke to hire soloists" choral compilation concert, but haven't seen or heard in full, but the excerpt was flat-out amazing: Khovanshchina.