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oliver sudden
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« Reply #165 on: 15:52:37, 29-08-2007 » |
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was this going to be a random Fool who hadn't previously been one of the other characters?
Since Edgar seems to have had the boot I suppose it's looking that way... |
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #166 on: 15:58:21, 29-08-2007 » |
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Y'know me, IGI - always happy to hear more Rimsky operas  Do you know the Gliere Symphony No 3, titled "Ilya Muromets"? I'm sure you do! It's been ages since I've heard that, I think I'll put it on right now!I don't even know the bits of Albeniz's trilogy which do survive... I hope this isn't going to be a credit-card-groaning scenario?  Perhaps I am unduly influenced by Coleridge-Taylor, but I can't get the slightest interested in Hiawatha, though Amongst the great unfinished operas, I would have liked to have heard Brahms's operetta LES NUITS DE MONTMARTRE. (I am only making that up, of course - but Brahms did enjoy going to the operetta, and befriended Johann Strauss II) |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #167 on: 16:05:31, 29-08-2007 » |
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Amongst the great unfinished operas, I would have liked to have heard Brahms's operetta LES NUITS DE MONTMARTRE.
(I am only making that up, of course - but Brahms did enjoy going to the operetta, and befriended Johann Strauss II) Brahms certainly thought about writing an opera for some years, and even when he said he had basically foresworn the idea, he told J.V. Widmann that he would be tempted back if presented with a libretto to his taste. Amongst the things he did consider were Gozzi's dramatic fables and farces, in particular König Hirsch, Der Rabe and Das laute Geheimniss. In the end, Rinaldo is the closest he ever came to anything vaguely operatic (but it is rather closer to a work like Schumann's Manfred). |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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Il Grande Inquisitor
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« Reply #168 on: 16:13:07, 29-08-2007 » |
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Do you know the Gliere Symphony No 3, titled "Ilya Muromets"? I'm sure you do! It's been ages since I've heard that, I think I'll put it on right now!
Yes, indeed! Good old Ted Downes and the BBC Phil:  Did you hear it at the Proms this season? (BBCPO again, with Sinaisky) I often think that the BBC Phil are our best 'Russian' orchestra in the UK!  I have heard the Albeniz Merlin - very imposing, very Wagnerian, but somewhat hampered by a clunking English libretto written by the banker, Francis Burdett Money-Coutts. I'm not sure anyone listening to it would be able to successfully identify the composer. Domingo starred in a recording on Decca, and there's a DVD from Madrid, with David Wilson-Johnson and Stuart Skelton. |
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Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #169 on: 16:22:18, 29-08-2007 » |
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Thanks for the downbeat review of the Albeniz, my credit-card company will be in touch to thank you formally |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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Il Grande Inquisitor
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« Reply #170 on: 16:32:24, 29-08-2007 » |
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Thanks for the downbeat review of the Albeniz, my credit-card company will be in touch to thank you formally Happy to oblige!! I confess that I don't know Coleridge-Taylor's Hiawatha  , but the idea of a version by Dvorak I do find intriguing, not least because of the so-called spiritual melody in the 9th Symphony, although it always sounds Czech to me...the subject of another thread, I'm sure. |
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Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #171 on: 16:33:08, 29-08-2007 » |
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Do look up the story of Money-Counts and Albéniz. Worth a read!
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #173 on: 16:46:43, 29-08-2007 » |
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I confess that I don't know Coleridge-Taylor's Hiawatha Ego te absolvo I only know it because I had an aged music-teacher at school (he was long past the official retiring age even when I joined the school) who made us sing chunks of it - he'd made his own special arrangements so that only the top two lines were left. I suppose I find it hard to separate the music (which I still loathe) away from the circumstances under which I came to know it? He used to smash the piano-lid on your hands if you made mistakes... claimed it was "aversion therapy"... |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #174 on: 17:14:18, 29-08-2007 » |
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He used to smash the piano-lid on your hands if you made mistakes... claimed it was "aversion therapy"...
Could have been even worse, though:  |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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Il Grande Inquisitor
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« Reply #175 on: 17:12:14, 16-03-2008 » |
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It's been a while, but this question occurred to me during Act II of Eugene Onegin on Friday evening: Which operas have a significant number of lines delivered in a different language to the rest of the opera? I am, of course, referring to M. Triquet's couplets in French in the middle of this Russian opera. Any others you can think of?
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Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency
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perfect wagnerite
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« Reply #176 on: 17:19:56, 16-03-2008 » |
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A very quick off the top of the head reply is Vec Makropoulos - not a significant number of lines, but a number of significant lines in Latin (Causa Gregor Prus), Spanish (Buenos Dias, Maxi) and Greek (Pater Hemon).
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At every one of these [classical] concerts in England you will find rows of weary people who are there, not because they really like classical music, but because they think they ought to like it. (Shaw, Don Juan in Hell)
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #177 on: 17:28:27, 16-03-2008 » |
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I did see the opening (and probably final) prod of Taverner's Terese at the ROH, which claimed to have texts in all sorts of languages. All I can remember is Alleluia in a funny accent, probably Old Church Slavonic.
I like the Protecting Veil, but I don't think opera is Taverner's strong point.
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #178 on: 17:42:38, 16-03-2008 » |
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Quite a few operas with Catholic religious settings have chunks of Latin, too, although seems to me a bit of a get-out CARMELITES has extensive latin quotations, and the Salve Regina with which it concludes. SUOR ANGELICA has continuous religious imprecations in latin. Do SATYGRAHA (entirely in Sanskrit) and AKHNATEN (in Ancient Egyptian, Hebrew, Akkadian etc) count? |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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perfect wagnerite
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« Reply #179 on: 17:45:01, 16-03-2008 » |
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... and I did wonder whether (1) La Damnation de Faust counts as an opera and (2) the words Berlioz invented for the demons at the end count as a language.
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« Last Edit: 17:46:42, 16-03-2008 by perfect wagnerite »
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At every one of these [classical] concerts in England you will find rows of weary people who are there, not because they really like classical music, but because they think they ought to like it. (Shaw, Don Juan in Hell)
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