Classical Ping.
I’m not a great fan of opera; But there was a great skit on SNL many years back where a terse voiced gal gave a 15 second each synopsis of about a dozen of the best known operas that was hilarious. I’ve tried searching for it but I only get Adam Sandler = Opera Man (whom I find less than funny most of the time) ...but if anyone has that link I referred to, I’d love to capture it.
I must confess I’ve never been able to goad myself into getting “into” opera. I appreciate the great voices as much as anyone could (Placido Domingo is a favorite), but it has taken the charms of Rene Fleming to get my anywhere near opera in recent years.
And I’m waiting for the avant-garde composer who did
NIXON IN CHINA to write one called OBAMA IN CAIRO.
Maybe I’ll give it a go, as a parody.
Love classical and would love to see an opera. Someday. Not too many where I go for peace...besides prayer, rural USA. :)
Sat through my first opera yesterday on the TV. Seigfried at the Met. Big guy carrying on, yelling at the top of his lungs for 10 minutes as to whether he should kiss the girl or not.
Good grief, Dude, she’s not THAT hot. But you look great in golden curls.
The Met is doing a new version of the Ring Cycle next spring.
http://ringcycle.metoperafamily.org/
Last time they did the Cycle, it was televised on PBS. Amazing stuff. Hopefully, it will be carried on PBS again this time.
I have seen all of the Mozart operas. I am listening to “The Abduction from the Seraglio” right now.
I was lucky enough to grow up when the late great soprano Beverly Sills was everywhere on television.
Just one appearance with Johnny Carson, and I was hooked.
She was so anti-diva in her personality and made the thought of high brow opera so normal.....and fun!
She should be everyone’s intoduction to opera.
YouTube has dozens of wonderful Sills performances:
Here she is with the Muppets!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBdCVJAPoSk
Here she is with Carol Burnett in a clip from the special Sills and Burnett at the MET from 1976:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Evnf7T-nIPI&feature=relmfu
While she could cut it up with Johnny Carol Burnett et al, she was a great dramatic singer as well.
Here she is in one of her greatest roles, Elizabeth I in Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux. (think Bette Davis and Errol Flynn)Hair raising! Now THAT’s opera!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th40SNp0Twk
I think just treating like it’s some big thing people must be “educated” on is what keeps people away. Really, it’s music, with lyrics in a language you don’t speak, constructed into a plot, which is usually actually pretty linear, and is explained in the playbill most of the time. If you get into it there’s a lot of interesting musical intricacies to study, but you don’t have to. Millions of people enjoy dance music every day without having any idea what a reel is even though that’s the core construct most dance music is built around, hell most of the people that make dance music don’t even know that.
Love the music (instrumentation).
Aside from a handful of pieces though, abhor the vocals.
When I lived in NYC, would go to the Philharmonic several times a season and would attend many concerts “in the parks”, but once to the Met was more than enough.
.....and what’s with all those extended, drawn out, seemingly contrived ovations? I just don’t get it.
Hating opera is such a natural thing.
I was always afraid to try hard drugs or opera.
I think watching old episodes of Tony Randal as Felix Unger in the Odd couple was mostly responsible for my aversion to opera.
That white jumpsuit and white sneakers...yipes.
Other than the sound of it opera isn’t too bad.
Sometime in the mid 1990s, I got Marriage of Figaro from the library and listened to it in my car to and from work. After about two weeks, I was hooked.
Why Marriage of Figaro? It was featured in the great movie Shawshank Redemption. In the movie, it is the record that Andy chooses to play when he takes over the prison PA system. After watching that movie, I just had to listen to the opera in its entirety and I'm glad I did.
Frasier: Well, it's about Rigoletto, the hunchbacked jester in the court of the Duke. He has a daughter, Guilder, who's secretly living with him. But everyone thinks that she's his mistress. In this opening scene, Rigoletto mocks the Duke's enemy, who puts a curse on him.
Martin: A cursed hunchback dating his daughter - well, nothing screwy so far!
Introductions: Mozart’s “Don Giovanni”, Bizet’s “Carmen” and Puccini’s “Tosca”.
The first two are a little long, but so sublime that it’s difficult not to be moved.
Maybe a little Gilbert and Sullivan to dip the toe? Accessible (english), technical, and amusing.
Might not be the best example of opera, maybe even closer to musical comedy.......
A little night music, the whole thing in either waltz (three beat measure) or a derivative (6 beats a measure)....