Wagner.
Posted on 01/08/2013 8:19:15 AM PST by Borges
It’s apt that Wagner and Verdi were born in the same year. They are romantic opera’s two great antipodes, united in stature, but divided in almost everything else. They embody two completely different outlooks on life and art, which are rooted in the cultures of their respective nations. That’s why every German city has a Wagnerstrasse, and every Italian one a Corso Giuseppe Verdi.
Though their supporters often did battle, the composers warily avoided each other. Verdi had a grudging respect for Wagner, but he warned younger Italian composers against following the Wagnerian path. Wagner wouldn't even grant Verdi that much distinction, though there were more Italianate traits in him than he liked to admit. Both cast a long shadow over opera during their lives and afterwards, and in Wagner’s case the shadow extended even further, to politics and the arts in general. Two hundred years later, it’s easy to think the nationalist passions have cooled. But the recent row over Daniel Barenboim’s decision to open La Scala’s season with Wagner instead of Verdi showed that they’re still there, just waiting to burst out.
And what about the wider world? Does one still have to be a Verdian or a Wagnerian, or have we learned how to love both? I asked some distinguished opera-lovers and practitioners to give their views.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
“Treemonisha”?
By the way, Black Dog Opera label has great operas with librettos for about $13.00.
You can get them through Amazon. Great stuff.
She has a really pretty face. And great emotion, too.
Was he really a better writer of operas than Verdi? It doesn't matter. Like Mark Twain is supposed to have said, “Wagner's music is better than it sounds."
There's a lot to be said for Verdi, but it's hard to go up against the myths that Wagner created -- about himself as much as about the Nibelungen or Tristan and Isolde.
The more I listen to Wagner, the more I appreciate John Cage’s 4’33”.
Puccini!
“But where does one find an alpenhorn?”
Excellent question.
Raid a ricola commercial shoot?
Had access to one about a thousand years ago in elementary school!
For PDQ Bach fans, a shower hose will suffice!
Cheers
Compare Verdi’s Slave Chorus with Wagners Pilgrim Chorus. You decide!
Any discussion of Wagner is going to get to french horns eventually.
I heard the following story many years ago. I have not been able to find it on the internet. It sounds like Wagner, though:
Horn players: Herr Wagner, we can't play the part you have written!
Wagner: I know you can't. What I want is the effect of your trying to play it.
Verdi is not the only one Wagner (and his disciples) tangled with. He had a big feud with Brahms, and even after Wagner’s death, Brahms still battled with Bruckner and his followers, as representatives of Wagner.
Wagner.
VIVA VERDI! I have come to Wagner slowly but surely. The music is really not as bad as it sounds.
I have seen the entire ring twice on TV over the past decades. This most recent time really won me over, although I did enjoy the Berhans Met videos from 1989ish. I have watched the ending of new Das Rhinegold about 10 times and it still gives me chills each time. And that is not even close to the best music in the Ring.
But I would still take any Verdi over any Wagner.
Strauss and Puccini never transcended their supreme level of competence, both leaving the genre where they found it and sinking into decline. (per Mr. Poutney, Director of Welsh Opera)
I know little about Strauss, but Puccini “sinking into decline” during his last years? RUBBISH.
. . . have yet to hear anything as hauntingly beautiful as Ave Maria in Otello.
“Senza Mamma” from Suor Angelica?
Wonder how many more replies it will take before somebody chirps in with "Wagner's music has wonderful moments but awful half-hours."
BTW, both these quotes were already tired cliches back in the 19th Century.
Edgar Wilson ‘Bill’ Nye:
The peculiar characteristic of
classical music is that it is really
better than it sounds.
A stand-up line quoted in
1888.
Variant: Wagner’s music is
better than it sounds.
(Attested in an obituary)
From Wiki Quote
Just can’t feel it.
Maria Callas...La Wally...another one...chills every time!
Too bad when I blast it, it makes the shepherds howl. LOL
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