What opera are you listening to?

[Ein Heldenleben]

Ha, ha! good point. I have it admit I haven't listened to it yet. It'll be hard to erase memories of that recording, having lived with it for over fifty years. .

Just looked at credits - good cast . Directed by Deborah Warner so I suspect it will be excellent all round .

[Pulcinella]

I'm being lazy, as I'm sure that I could easily find out myself.

Is there any MUSICAL difference between the Britten 2-act version and the Nagano 4-act version, which are the two recordings I have?

[Ein Heldenleben]

I'm being lazy, as I'm sure that I could easily find out myself.

Is there any MUSICAL difference between the Britten 2-act version and the Nagano 4-act version, which are the two recordings I have?

I don’t think so but I think the four act gives you more time in the bar.

[smittims]

All,I know is the four act version included a scene at the end of the old act one known as the Captain's Muster. Peter Pears was said to be relieved when it was cut.

[makropulos]

All,I know is the four act version included a scene at the end of the old act one known as the Captain's Muster. Peter Pears was said to be relieved when it was cut.

Yes - it’s rather a stirring chunk of music that was cut, so Nagano is definitely worth having for that alone.

[Master Jacques]

All,I know is the four act version included a scene at the end of the old act one known as the Captain's Muster. Peter Pears was said to be relieved when it was cut.

It didn't help that Ernest Newman's 1951 review compared the Captain's Muster, to the entry scene of Captain Corcoran in H.M.S.Pinafore: one can hear what he means! Aside from that, there are many small changes, and of course new interludes connecting the scenes newly bound-together by the 2-act version. The original four-act version is now once again officially available for performance, should any management prefer it.

[richardfinegold]

Yesterday was the Jenufa Matinee at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. I really enjoyed it. It gave me a new window of appreciation into Janacek as a composer (I believe he wrote the libretto?). The way the music supported and amplified the action was thrilling. The religiosity on display normally would have been off putting for me (it’s hard to contemplate forgiveness that extends to marrying someone who intentionally disfigured you, and quickly forgiving someone who willfully drowns your baby) but perhaps it was the only means of accommodating the mores of the time. At any rate, I would love to sample Janacek’s other operas

[kernelbogey]

Listening to the live relay from the Met on R3 of La Boheme - Stephen Costello a very fine Rodolfo: I'm wondering if he's the best I've heard. Too soon to decide how fine a Mimi Elena Stikhina is.

[Master Jacques]

Yesterday was the Jenufa Matinee at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. I really enjoyed it. It gave me a new window of appreciation into Janacek as a composer (I believe he wrote the libretto?). The way the music supported and amplified the action was thrilling. The religiosity on display normally would have been off putting for me (it’s hard to contemplate forgiveness that extends to marrying someone who intentionally disfigured you, and quickly forgiving someone who willfully drowns your baby) but perhaps it was the only means of accommodating the mores of the time. At any rate, I would love to sample Janacek’s other operas

"Religiosity"? I can't image a less religiose opera, or a more spiritually uplifting one. Janacek was not a believer, for what that's worth. And Jenufa forgives these actions, not out of any pious Christian charity, but because her empathic sense is so extraordinary that she can see - despite her own pain - why Laca (guilty now) lashed out at her, and why her stepmother (even more guilty now) exposed her baby on the ice.

If we're in tune with Jenufa - as Janacek makes sure we are - we can feel how she can forgive these terrible things. That is what makes the opera moving and beautiful, especially in our soulless era of "blame culture" (a contradiction in terms, if ever I heard one). It's not faded at all, and seems just as much about the mores of our time as the composer's own.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Listening to the live relay from the Met on R3 of La Boheme - Stephen Costello a very fine Rodolfo: I'm wondering if he's the best I've heard. Too soon to decide how fine a Mimi Elena Stikhina is.

I have a big problem with Musetta …..
Yes Stephen is very secure and has a beautiful voice.

[Master Jacques]

I have a big problem with Musetta …..

So does Marcello!

[Ein Heldenleben]

So does Marcello!

I think she’s going to wobble him to death.
Actually she’s better in Act IV - not forcing the voice .For a debutante in the role her voice sounds older and darker - might make a good Lady Macbeth though.

Mimi in contrast is terrific as is Rodolfo…
and the Met audience have as usual clapped over the last bars of every act . Why did Puccini bother ?


A propos of nothing in particular the forthcoming Boheme at ROH doesn’t seem to be selling.

[smittims]

Purely by coincidence, given its recent discussion, I listened this morning to the Solti Salome. It was the first performance of the opera I heard, in 1971, and I was thrilled by the music, the performance and the recording,though the following year I preferred the Leinsdorf recording with Monserrat Caballe, and a splendid Richard Lewis as Herod.

There's no doubt Solti and Culshaw went all out for thrills in their recording, for all that it was ostensibly a stereo re-make of the previous Decca outing with the same orchestra. At the time it seemed part of a projected series of all the Strauss operas, following Arabella, and they went on to make a celebrated Elektra and Rosenkavalier, but never completed the while series, if indeed they had intended to do so. Maybe the financial decline of Decca was to blame.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Purely by coincidence, given its recent discussion, I listened this morning to the Solti Salome. It was the first performance of the opera I heard, in 1971, and I was thrilled by the music, the performance and the recording,though the following year I preferred the Leinsdorf recording with Monserrat Caballe, and a splendid Richard Lewis as Herod.

There's no doubt Solti and Culshaw went all out for thrills in their recording, for all that it was ostensibly a stereo re-make of the previous Decca outing with the same orchestra. At the time it seemed part of a projected series of all the Strauss operas, following Arabella, and they went on to make a celebrated Elektra and Rosenkavalier, but never completed the while series, if indeed they had intended to do so. Maybe the financial decline of Decca was to blame.

I think Solti’s Die Frau Ohne Schatten with Behrens and Domingo is one of the very greatest Strauss opera recordings….. if not the greatest. Partly because the quality of the recording allows you to hear so many things you can’t in the opera house.

[smittims]

That, of course , had been John Culshaw's aim, though he left Decca in 1968 while still at the height of his powers as a record producer. I don't think hehad the same success in his next job at the bBc, though it brought us the films of 'Owen Wingrave and 'Peter Grimes' among other thngs.

I like the Keilberth 'Frau' (DG) though I grew up on the old Bohm in its stereo release. It must have been one of the first operas recorded in stereo, quite an achievement considering the scoring . I can still hear Emanuel Brabec in the big cello solo in my mind. An underrated opera, certainly.