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 19th 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 19th 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 20th 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
No comments:
Post a Comment