Opera

[Swithin]

I couldn't find an opera thread so decided to start one, with this odd new entry from the English National Opera's new season, just announced. I love the ENO, it's London's second opera company, after the ROH/Covent Garden, and they do interesting stuff, as well as the classics. A fairly recent example was the premiere of the opera Marnie.

But what do you make of this: The Seven Deaths of Maria Callas, a project by Marina Abramovic, which includes onscreen deaths featuring Willem Dafoe! (Evidently this project has already been making the rounds. Perhaps the ENO production is a re-working of it.)





https://www.eno.org/whats-on/7-deaths-of-maria-callas/

https://www.sybariscollection.com/marin ... f%20Callas.

[jimimac71]

I somehow knew this was not about the web browser.
The best thing about SSO is anything goes.
I’m at a loss with Opera, but this should be fun.
I apologize in advance for the terrible video quality but this clip is from my favorite movie Victor/Victoria:

[laffite]

from ANDRE CHENIER by Giordano

[laffite]

[Detective Jim McLeod]

Ray Milland at the opera in The Lost Weekend (1945) La Traviata- Drinking Song

[Thenryb]

Terrific version of Kathryn Lewek's performance of the vengence aria in the current Met production of Die Zauberflote:

[Swithin]

One great Queen of the Night deserves another:

[laffite]

[laffite]

Pavarotti here, but not La Donna Mobile, we don't need to hear that again, I hope I never hear it again, sick of it. This is something entirely different. This a lament and seems to be one long gradual reach to a fine crescendo. You will also be treated to a glimpse of Dame Joan Sutherland sitting in a chair and wearing a lovely gown. Warning : You may be bestirred to admiration and even transcendence and thereby start liking opera. So, careful.

[Swithin]

One of my favorite laments: "Lamento di Penelope," from Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, sung by Evelyn Tubb.

[laffite]

Penelope was a fine girl. Constant in marriage and a great independent thinker. I cannot know her lamentation but I can understand that she suffers. Thanks, Swithin. I admit I know but little about or heard that much of Monteverdi, the forerunner of those great ones who followed and great himself as well.

[Swithin]

Penelope was a fine girl. Constant in marriage and a great independent thinker. I cannot know her lamentation but I can understand that she suffers. Thanks, Swithin. I admit I know but little about or heard that much of Monteverdi, the forerunner of those great ones who followed and great himself as well.

And thank you for your stunning post, Laffite. I did not know that work by Cilea.

Btw, I was introduced to the operas of Monteverdi (which I love), as a kid, watching old movies on television. In the movie Anthony Adverse, Olivia De Havilland plays a young girl who becomes a great opera singer. The first musical scene she's part of a chorus. Monteverdi is credited with the music, which I sought out on a recording. Here's the chorus she's part of, from the opera Orfeo, which is one of my favorite operas. (This clip is not from the movie but from an unidentified recording. I have the John Eliot Gardiner recording.)

[laffite]

Penelope was a fine girl. Constant in marriage and a great independent thinker. I cannot know her lamentation but I can understand that she suffers. Thanks, Swithin. I admit I know but little about or heard that much of Monteverdi, the forerunner of those great ones who followed and great himself as well.

And thank you for your stunning post, Laffite. I did not know that work by Cilea.

Btw, I was introduced to the operas of Monteverdi (which I love), as a kid, watching old movies on television. In the movie Anthony Adverse, Olivia De Havilland plays a young girl who becomes a great opera singer. The first musical scene she's part of a chorus. Monteverdi is credited with the music, which I sought out on a recording. Here's the chorus she's part of, from the opera Orfeo, which is one of my favorite operas. (This clip is not from the movie but from an unidentified recording. I have the John Eliot Gardiner recording.)

Nice. Kind of catchy, eh?

Fyi, if you don't already know, 'Frederico's Lament' is from his opera, L'Arlesiana. I love verismo opera, some of the arias are meltingly sensuous in a way that is slightly removed from those similar arias of the early Italians.

[Swithin]

I'm not that familiar with Cilea, apart from having seen Adriana L. at the Met many years ago, with Monserrat Caballe.

And here, in Gluck's Orpheus, is one of the most beautiful arias ever written. A distraught Orpheus has just lost his Eurydice. I have this recording and also saw them perform it at the Proms.



One of my favorite parts of Gluck's opera is when Orpheus goes to the underworld and the guardians won't let him in, until he charms them with his music. They say NO, NO, NO to his entreaties, until he drugs them with his music. I can't find a clip of that.

[laffite]

I'm not that familiar with Cilea, apart from having seen Adriana L. at the Met many years ago, with Monserrat Caballe.

And here, in Gluck's Orpheus, is one of the most beautiful arias ever written. A distraught Orpheus has just lost his Eurydice. I have this recording and also saw them perform it at the Proms.



One of my favorite parts of Gluck's opera is when Orpheus goes to the underworld and the guardians won't let him in, until he charms them with his music. They say NO, NO, NO to his entreaties, until he drugs them with his music. I can't find a clip of that.

Judging from the tone of the this "lamentation", it seems more in the French style than Italian being staid in comparison with the usual Italian flair (although this was farther back in time and I may be wrong) but it does say on the Net that although this opera has an Italian libretto, there are French elements and this aria may be part of that. Gluck's operas have elements of both. I liked it, and I generally like this old stuff, being a fan of Medieval and Renaissance.

I hope you find that clip sometime, but don't look back ; at least in the present context, ha!