Don't be afraid, it's only opera

I love opera. There, I said it. I do not come from a musical family, nor were we wealthy – either or both of which would seem to be the qualifications for enjoying this unique art form.

I got hooked on it one Saturday morning when I happened to catch one of the Metropolitan Opera’s Saturday matinee broadcasts (which they’ve been doing since 1931). I was unexpectedly blown away by the vocal and orchestral beauty coming out of the speaker. As I seem to do with anything that interests me, I immediately went to work finding out absolutely everything I could about it. I started at its beginnings, and worked my way down to the present day.

(Correction! I am reminded that there were two collections on multiple records in our house: a collection of Gilbert and Sullivan, and the Reader’s Digest Treasury of Great Operettas! So, from an early age, we kids would dance around singing Victor Herbert, Rudolf Friml, and “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General.” Weird? You bet. There was also Mario Lanza Sings Songs from The Student Prince. So I guess those were the gateway drugs.)

You may think of it as a dying discipline, but in fact more new operas are being written now than there have been in decades. Living composers include such names as Anthony Davis, Lori Laitman, William Bolcom, Jake Heggie, John Adams, Kaija Saariaho, Thomas Ades, Missy Mazzoli, Philip Glass, Mason Bates, Gabriela Lena Frank, Osvaldo Golijov. and Terence Blanchard.

For me, it’s the ultimate art form. It combines music, drama (and comedy), the artistry of the staging, even dance. Somehow all these elements are combined to create something that sweeps you off your feet, if you would just give yourself a chance to get into it.

Is it stuffy? Boring? Pretentious? No more so than any other art form. It has a bad rep, primarily because people are generally singing it in languages you don’t know. (Most opera houses now have electronic “intertitles” that allow you to follow along in English.) It can be tough to follow. It helps if you bone up on it a little bit before you go.

The absolute best introductory text to school you on opera is Denis Forman’s 1994 book A Night at the Opera. It is detailed, comprehensive, extremely subjective, and hilarious. He doesn’t take the art form too seriously, and it’s full of delicious details about his favorite operas that you really can’t find anywhere else. Other good books to check out are John W. Freeman’s The Metropolitan Opera’s Stories of the Great Operas, Milton Cross’ classic Complete Stories of the Great Operas, and David Pogue’s Opera for Dummies.

Once you’ve plowed through some introductory material, you can sit down and listen, really listen, to the works. Opera started out by thinking of itself as a re-creation of ancient Greek drama, complete with soliloquies (soon to be known as arias) and choruses. It was originally something you could only experience as a member of a royal court – but soon it caught on with regular folks. In fact, it was arguably the most popular art form of the 19^th century.

We usually only hear of the “big” operas, yet thousands of them have been written by hundreds of composers – many of them forgotten. I have my own extremely subjective list of faves, which I will detail for you here by composer, in rough chronological order.

Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) – The original operatic genius. His L’Orfeo is his most popular work, about the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. My favorite, though, is his Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria (The Return of Ulysses to his Homeland). L’incoronazione di Poppea (The Coronation of Poppea) is good too.

Opera developed, slowly. Soon there were opera houses, and paying crowds flocked to them. Of the Baroque-era composers, the most prolific was good old George Frideric Handel (1685-1759), who cranked out more than 40 of them. It was Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787) who started moving opera forward stylistically, and you can still catch his Orfeo ed Eurydice.

It was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) who changed everything. He’s still #1 today! Try:

Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio)

Don Giovanni

Cosi fan tutte (Thus Do They All)

La Clemenza di Tito (The Clemency of Titus)

Idomeneo, re di Creta (Idomeneo, King of Crete)

Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro)(

Die Zauberflote (The Magic Flute)

Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842) – his Medee (Medea) is worth a listen!

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) wrote only one opera, Fidelio, but it’s incredible.

Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826) – Der Freischutz (The Freeshooter), about a deal with the Devil.

Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864) is an acquired taste. I like him. He put the “grand” in “grand opera,” penning immensely long operas that used all the stage resources available at the time, including roller skating and a bunch of dancing dead nuns. Though they go on and on, they are studded with good arias and interesting musical ideas.

Robert le diable (Robert the Devil)

Les Hugenots (The Hugenots)

Le Prophete (The Prophet)

L’Africane (The African)

Now we get into the heavy hitters. Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868) was the king of bel canto (“beautiful singing"), an operatic style that flourished at the turn of the 19^th century. Between 1806 and 1829, only 23 years, he delivered an astonishing 39 operas, many of which hold up today. He then enjoyed a 40-year retirement. Among them are:

L’Italiana in Algeri (The Italian Girl in Algiers)

Il turco in Italia (The Turk in Italy)

Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) –his biggest hit

Otello (Othello) – most people prefer Verdi’s version, but this is pretty good

La Cenerentola (Cinderella)

Mose in Egitto (Moses in Egypt)

La donna del lago (The Lady of the Lake)

Semiramide

Guillaume Tell (William Tell) – a real push forward into new territory!

Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) – another bel canto genius

Anna Bolena (Anne Boleyn)

La Favorita (The Favorite)

L’elisir d’amore (The Elixir of Love)

Lucia di Lammermoor

Maria Stuarda (Mary Stuart)

Roberto Devereux

Fromental Halevy (1799-1862) – another master of grand opera, his La Juive (The Jewish Girl) is excellent.

Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835) – the third of the three bel canto giants.

Il pirata (The Pirate)

Norma

I puritani (The Puritans)

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) – A genius who had a hard time getting his work produced. For me, the ultimate grand opera composer.

Les Troyens (The Trojans)

La damnation de Faust (The Damnation of Faust)

Richard Wagner (1813-1883) – Not a fan. Still, to be a completist, you should at least listen to:

Tannhauser

Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelungs) – four operas about Nordic myth. LONG.

Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) – THE MASTER. I love practically everything he ever wrote. He really mastered the art of the narrative musical drama. I could listen to him all day.

Nabucco (Nebuchadnezzar)

I Lombardi alla prima crociata (The Lombards in the First Crusade)

Ernani

Luisa Miller

Rigoletto

Il Trovatore (The Troubador)

La traviata (The Fallen Woman)

Les vespres siciliennes (The Sicilian Vespers)

Simon Boccanegra

Un ballo en maschera (A Masked Ball)

Macbeth

Don Carlos

La forza del destino (The Force of Destiiny)

Aida

Otello

Falstaff

Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880) -- Known initially for his comic, satirical operettas, he crafted the great Les contes d’Hoffman (The Tales of Hoffman), his final work.

Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1891) – Samson et Delilah

Georges Bizet (1838-1875) – Carmen, of course – probably the most famous opera, and deservedly so.

Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881)

Boris Goudonov

Khovanshchina

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) – The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya

Leos Janacek (1854-1928) – a big fave, much underestimated in my opinion.

Jenufa

The Excursions of Mr. Broucek

Kata Kabanova

The Cunning Little Vixen

The Makropoulos Case

From the House of the Dead

Ruggero Leoncavallo (1857-1919) – I Pagliacci (Clowns)

Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) – Vastly overrated, in my mind, but you have to love Tosca and La Boheme.

Pietro Mascagni (1863-1945) – Cavalleria rusticana (Rustic Chivalry)

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

Der Rosenkavalier

Ariadne auf Naxos

Die Frau ohne Schatten (The Woman Without a Shadow)

Now, please note that I have a special place in my heart for obscure 20^th century operas. Atonal? Bizarre? Experimental? Yes! Bring it on.

Alexander von Zemlinsky (1871-1942) – Der Zwerg (The Dwarf)

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

The Rake’s Progress

Les Noces

Histoire du soldat

Those last two are technically not operas, but I find them indispensable.

Alban Berg (1885-1935)

Lulu

Wozzeck

Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)

The Gambler

The Fiery Angel

War and Peace

Douglas Moore (1893-1969) – The Ballad of Baby Doe

Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) – Mathis der Mahler (Mathis the Painter)

Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957) – Die Tote Stadt (The City of the Dead)

Hans Krasa (1899-1944) -- Brundibar

Kurt Weill (1900-1950)

The Threepenny Opera

The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny

Der Silbersee (The Silverlake)

Street Scene

The Eternal Road

Ernst Krenek (1900-1991) – Jonny spielt auf (Jonny Strikes Up)

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1981)

Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District

The Nose

The Gamblers

Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) – Saint Francois d’Assise

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)

Billy Budd

Death in Venice

Peter Grimes

Gloriana

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Bernd Alois Zimmerman (1918-1970) – Die Soldaten (The Soldiers)

Carlisle Floyd (1926-2021) – Susannah

John Adams (1947-present)

Nixon in China

The Death of Klinghoffer

Doctor Atomic

El Nino

A Flowering Tree

NRR Project: 'Oklahoma!' original cast album (1943)

 

NRR Project: “Oklahoma!”

Words by Oscar Hammerstein II, music by Richard Rodgers

Performed by Alfred Drake, Joan Roberts, Celeste Holm et al

Released Dec. 1, 1943

1 hr., 18 min.

This is popularly thought of as the first “original cast album.” That’s not quite true, but this 1943 recording of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! was the first musical to sell massive amounts of records, paving the way for the regular creation and marketing of original cast albums.

Oklahoma! was a phenomenon. For (almost) the first time (see the earlier “Princess” musicals [1915-1918], Show Boat [1927], Pal Joey [1940], and Lady in the Dark [1941]), an American musical was created the songs of which advanced the plot or illuminated the character singing it. Before this musicals were largely catch-alls, repositories of songs that could have easily fit in anywhere in a given production.

Composer Richard Rodgers was just coming to the end of his long and highly successful collaboration with lyricist Lorenz Hart, who was becoming more and more unreliable. Rodgers turned to Oscar Hammerstein II, who famously collaborated with Jerome Kern on Show Boat and many other works. Together, R & H crafted an immensely memorable score, a romantic triangle that played out in the Oklahoma Territory of 1906.

Cowboy Curly (Alfred Drake) loves farm girl Laurey (Joan Roberts), but has a rival in the morose and violent Jud (Howard da Silva). The play follows the ins and outs of the two getting together and overcoming the hateful Jud.

This simple plot is studded with memorable songs – “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’,” “Surrey with a Fringe on Top,” “People Will Say We’re in Love,” “Kansas City,” “I Cain’t Say No,” “Many a New Day,” and of course the title tune. The recording sold over a million copies.

Audiences were wildly enthusiastic. Even in the middle of World War II, the show sold out for months in advance. It ran for 2,212 performances, well into 1948. R & H were a winning team, and they went on to craft a long and fruitful sequence of musicals that captivated America for decades.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Paul Robeson’s Othello.

NRR Project: 'Artistry in Rhythm' (1943)

 

NRR Project: “Artistry in Rhythm”

Composed and arranged by Stan Kenton

Performed by Stan Kenton and his Orchestra

‘Recorded Nov. 19, 1943

3:18

I must refer you to Michael Sparke’s excellent essay on the topic here. I have never liked Stan Kenton; I thought his attempts to “legitimize” jazz by combining it with the structures of classical music (known as “third stream” music) was a dead end. But that’s just me.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Oklahoma! Original cast recording (1943).

NRR Project: "The Goldbergs" -- 'Sammy Goes into the Army' (July 23, 1942)

 

NRR Project: “The Goldbergs”

‘Sammy Goes into the Army’

Broadcast July 23, 1942

13:11

The Goldbergs was one of the most popular radio shows in history. Lasting from 1929 to 1945, with a brief reprise in 1949-1950, the show chronicled the lives of a typical Jewish family in Brooklyn (they lived on East Tremont. . . later in the show, they moved to Connecticut). Surprisingly, during a time when a notable portion of American citizens were antisemitic, this warm and funny show captured the imaginations of listeners and became a favorite everywhere.

The show was the brainchild of Gertrude Edelstein Berg, a housewife and mother who had ambition. She started writing audio sketches and short, humorous pieces in the early days of network radio. Finally, on Nov. 20, 1929, her The Goldbergs hit the airwaves and continued strong, in formats varying from 15 minutes a day, five days a week, to a half-hour. Berg was the writer, producer, and director of the series – a first for women on air.

Was the show a soap opera, or a comedy? It was both. Its gentle humor and sharply observed, eccentric characters were endearing, and Molly Goldberg (played by Berg herself) was the matriarch. She lived in a tenement with sometimes-grouchy husband Jake, who worked as a tailor. Their children, Sammy and Rosalie, grew up on the show. Relatives and friends crowded around the microphone as the Bergs went through the same everyday routines that all Americans did – save that they were religiously observant (but not obnoxiously so).

The Goldbergs have been compared to the long-running radio comedy show Amos & Andy, as well as Carlton E. Morse’s great, long-running radio soap One Man’s Family. In all three cases, characters developed and grew down the years, becoming as familiar as old friends. Berg’s cry, “Yoo hoo! Is anybody?” became a national catchphrase.

In this episode, son Sammy has joined the Army and is off to boot camp via Grand Central Station. Molly secretly follows him down there, just to say goodbye one last time. It turns out that Jake and other relatives had the same idea – so they all congregate on the platform to bid the budding G.I. a fond farewell. The tender scene of parting is bolstered by Molly’s advice to another mother there, seeing her son off. She declares that the folks at home must be brave and without tears, lest the fascists get the upper hand.

Berg was in step with the popular imagination. Her show even successfully made the transition to early television. With sentiment and sarcasm blended effortlessly together, her slice-of-life program was a popular and critical hit.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Stan Kenton plays Artistry in Rhythm (1943).

NRR Project: 'Command Performance' (July 7, 1942)

 

NRR Project: “Command Performance”

Broadcast July 7, 1942

30 min.

Once again, I must point to the superlative explanatory essay on this show from Cary O’Dell, which you can read here. I have little to add!

It was a great idea. American soldiers stationed all over the planet during World War II were homesick. They longed to hear from the home front. Producer Louis G. Cowan came up with a swell concept. Let the military men send in requests for specific performers to entertain them over the radio; these “commands” were executed in broadcasts that ranged from 30 minutes to two hours in length. The broadcasts were then transmitted directly to servicemen via shortwave and transcription disk via the Armed Forces Radio Service; most civilians never heard them.

This program became a special treat for G.I. listeners. You never knew but that your request would be honored. Famous singers, comedians, actors, and musicians all donated their time to make the show happen. Networks lent their studios and time for free. Everybody pitched in to make the boys at war happy!

It wasn’t just entertainers the G.I.s asked for. One guy wanted to hear his dog bark. Another wanted to hear starlet Carole Landis sigh. Still another wanted to hear the sound of a slot machine paying off. All these requests and more were granted.

The broadcast chosen by the National Recording Registry is a typical one from early in the run of the show. Comedian Bob Hope was the emcee; performers included the great Black singer Lena Horne (radio was colorblind), bandleader Les Brown and his Orchestra played a swing version of Verdi’s Anvil Chorus, the vaudeville team of Shaw and Lee did a routine, a “hurdy-gurdy” (a crank-driven musical machine) from the streets of Manhattan was played, singer Ginny Simms performed, and finally actress Rosalind Russell and Hope did a comic skit together.

The show was an immense success, and continued even after the war, lasting until 1949. It was just one of the many projects undertaken to boost the morale of the troops. Radio reached out and gave servicemen the comforts of home.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: ‘The Goldbergs’ Sammy Goes into the Army (July 9, 1942).

 

Hail, Euterpe!, or; my favorite poets

 

Poetry is good for you. How come?

It’s wordplay. It’s rhyming and meter schemes that enter your head and don’t leave. Poetry catches thoughts and feelings that can’t be expressed in other terms. It’s heightened language; it has the virtues of compression and intensity. When a good poem hits you where you live, it moves you, it changes your outlook on things. It’s an art form that persevered for thousands of years, predating even written language. There is something in the human soul that keeps producing it.

It’s a skill that’s fiendishly difficult to sustain. That being said, there is a lot of bad poetry out there, just like any other discipline. I oughta know, I wrote enough of it in my twenties. (I lost the ability to think in that way quickly and switched to prose.) I just took a look at those early efforts of mine . . . they are . . . OK. Everybody should try it sometime. Poetry can be anything -- silly, tragic, sarcastic, angry, political, philosophical, romantic, confused, bitter, hope-inducing. It doesn’t even have to make sense – try Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, or Shel Silverstein and you'll see what I mean.

Sometimes it doesn’t stand the test of time. Did you ever try to read Alexander Pope, or Lord Byron? Undoubtedly talented, their efforts don’t resonate (for me) today. Still, we study these venerable wordsmiths and others, and once in a while we find something that clicks in our heads when it’s read – and it feeds our souls in a way that could not be comprehended before.

Given the rising tide of illiteracy in our country, reading poetry is an act of defiance. It’s the least utilitarian of literary skills – it solves nothing, it doesn’t increase your bank balance. But it seems to be something we need.

I have a list of favorite poets, but there are plenty to choose from, across the stretch of time and from around the world. (Great poets require great translators.) Whatever your outlook on life is, there is a poet for you. Just off the top of my head, here are other names to conjure with – Homer, Emily Dickinson, William Wordsworth, John Milton, John Donne, Rabindranath Tagore, Rumi, Robert Frost, Edgar Allan Poe, Alexander Pushkin, Langston Hughes, Rudyard Kipling, Maya Angelou, Tu Fu, William Blake, W.B. Yeats, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Charles Bukowski, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Thomas Hardy, Rainer Maria Rilke, Carl Sandberg, the Brownings (Robert and Elizabeth), Anne Sexton, Robert Lowell, John Keats.

I guarantee that if you dive into the discipline, you will find something you like. One of the best ways to find “your” poets is to pick up an anthology. I grew up with F.T. Palgrave’s Golden Treasury; other fine collections include such entries as the Norton Anthology of Poetry and the Outlaw Bible of American Poetry.

Here are my faves, pals I go to again and again through more than 60 years of reading. As you will see, I kind of got stuck on the Imagists, a group of poets in the early 20^th century who pioneered modernism. I just love that generation.

Virgil (70 B.C.E. – 19 B.C.E.) – The Aeneid. A story of the downfall of Troy and the founding of Rome.

Ovid (43 B.C.E. – 17 A.D.) –  The Metamorphoses. Myths and legends made real.

Li Po (701-762)

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) – The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. A trip through Hell, the redemption of Purgatory, and the splendors of Heaven.

Geoffrey Chaucer (1343 – 1400) – The Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Cressida. You can try reading these in their original Middle English, but read a modern translation first. Once you get used to his mode of expression, you will find him hilarious.

William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) – Sonnets.

Andrew Marvell (1621 – 1678)

Walt Whitman (1819 – 1892) – Leaves of Grass.

Charles Beaudelaire (1821 – 1867) – The Flowers of Evil. A pioneer in tackling poetic subjects that aren’t “pretty.”

Wallace Stevens (1879 – 1955)

Guillaume Apollinaire (1880—1918)

William Carlos Williams (1883 – 1963)

H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) (1886 – 1961)

e.e. cummings (1894 – 1962)

Bertolt Brecht (1898 – 1956)

Hart Crane (1899 – 1932)

W.H. Auden (1903 – 1973)

Pablo Neruda (1904 – 1973)

Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)

John Berryman (1914-1972) – The Dream Songs.

Octavio Paz (1914 – 1998)

NRR Project: 'Wings Over Jordan' (May 10, 1942)

 

NRR Project: “Wings Over Jordan”

Broadcast May 10, 1942

30 min.

Another entry for which I have no data. I cannot even find a representative broadcast online, much less the one for the date mentioned. Read Bryan Pierce’s explanatory essay for details on this selection.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Command Performance (July 7, 1942).