[ClearCase_guy]

Verdi Cries

The man in 119 takes his tea alone.
Mornings we all rise to wireless Verdi cries.
I’m hearing opera through the door.
The souls of men and women, impassioned all.
Their voices climb and fall; battle trumpets call.
I fill the bath and climb inside, singing.

He will not touch their pastry
But every day they bring him more.
Gold from the breakfast tray, I steal them all away
And then go and eat them on the shore.

I draw a jackal-headed woman in the sand,
Sing of a lover’s fate sealed by jealous hate
Then wash my hand in the sea.
With just three days more I’d have just about learned the entire score to Aida.

Holidays must end as you know.
All is memory taken home with me:
The opera, the stolen tea, the sand drawing, the verging sea, all years ago.

— Natalie Merchant

[buffaloguy]

By the way, Black Dog Opera label has great operas with librettos for about $13.00.

You can get them through Amazon. Great stuff.

[x]

Like they say in the interviews, Wagner was a mythmaker, a thinker, a visionary, an Artist with a capital A (an ARTIST with all capitals, even), someone who transformed music. So the answer's going to be Wagner.

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.

[Tijeras_Slim]

The more I listen to Wagner, the more I appreciate John Cage’s 4’33”.

[atomic_dog]

Puccini!

[Mike Darancette]

Compare Verdi’s Slave Chorus with Wagners Pilgrim Chorus. You decide!

[Chode]

Wagner.

[Captain Jack Aubrey]

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.

[eddiespaghetti]

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.

[Tainan]

Verdi listened to about 75% to Wagner 25%.

Wagner excites the blood - Verdi calms.