Opera for beginners

[cahn]

My family's reunion, in a couple of weeks, involves powerpoint presentations, because we are total dweebs that way. I figured my PPT this time would be on opera, because, well. (My other thought was making it on teaching Sunday School, and I'm still thinking about it, but I think I'd have more trouble making it work and might need more time than I actually have to think about it properly. Doing opera requires much less hard thinking and a lot more pretty pictures.)

Questions for you:
-If you are NOT an opera fan: what would you like to know about opera? What would make you more likely to watch it?

-If you are not an opera fan, would you be willing to watch and/or listen to a couple of clips and tell me which one was most effective at holding your attention?

-Opera fans: I think I could show maybe one or two clips. What would be thirty-second-to-one-minute clips that would (a) be intriguing to a non-opera audience and (b) that I would have access to? (I have a somewhat embarrassingly large library of DVDs after this last year.) And (c) have English subtitles, which unfortunately takes out a large swath of Youtube videos. I'm thinking of the Met's English Magic Flute (but what part? "Hm!Hm!Hm!Hm!" maybe? Or the part where Papageno plays the bells?) and maybe the auto-da-fe scene from Don Carlo where Posa takes the sword (probably the version with Hampson and Kaufmann, they're such hams). I also wonder about a bit of Restate with Keenlyside and Furlanetto, but I think the auto-da-fe is more immediately accessible. Also I wonder about Onegin. Or maybe the scene where Figaro's parentage becomes known? I also might look for "trailer" clips.

-Same question for audio -- I'll be using my Opera in English CDs. I'm thinking maybe the Catalog aria from Don Giovanni (though it may be too salacious -- there are kids!) or something from Marriage of Figaro -- but what? I'd like an ensemble bit if possible. Maybe the quartet from Onegin?

-I thought I'd have a couple of one-sentence/one-phrase synopses that might convince people to go see opera:
Eugene Onegin: The jerk who totally blew you off when you were a geeky kid regrets it all when you grow up to be beautiful and glamorous
La Boheme: Broke artist friends hanging out together have a lot of fun (but also sometimes tragedy) - see also Rent
La Traviata: Your parent really doesn't like you dating the wonderful person you fell in love with! (yes, yes, I know, seekingferret)
Marriage of Figaro: Men are dumb and the aristocracy is dumb; male aristocrats who don't want to keep it in their pants are a lot of fun to outwit
Don Giovanni: The pitfalls of attempting to seduce every woman who comes your way as a life strategy
Don Carlo(s): ???? I do not know how to summarize this in one sentence, or even two. Being a prince whose dad hates him and also married his fiance can be tough! (That's not bad, except what about Posa????)

I feel like those six are probably the best for beginners. (And Magic Flute, of course.) Any other crowd-pleasers I should put in? (I still haven't seen Aida -- saving it as a treat after finishing Nirvana in Fire!)

(Hmm, maybe instead of a longer audio clip I'll just have very short audio clips for each of those.)

Comments

[jenett]

Coming at it from 'my father was a massive opera fan, and I was a music major, but I have fallen out of the habit" POV....

I think a "Here's some ways to find stuff to watch" would be really cool if you had suggestions on that.

I am also a huge fan of the Magic Flute. I adore the "Hmm, hmmm." bit, but I think doing a bit of the Queen of the Night aria (for sheer musical scope and vocal demands) or some other equivalent show piece is awesome.

(I have had fun showing people the performance clip from 5th Element, as a compare and contrast. The first part is from Lucia di Lammermoor, and the latter part was written to be digitially constructed, and designed to be technically impossible for someone to sing. Jane Zhang since has.)

[cahn]

Ah, yes, "ways to find stuff to watch" is a great idea, thanks! I have some thoughts on that. :)

Oh, Queen of the Night aria! That also has the virtue that people will have heard it before, probably :D

Holy cow, I... had forgotten all about that part of 5th Element, wow.

[seekingferret]

-Opera fans: I think I could show maybe one or two clips.

I don't have a specific suggestion, I can think about it, but a general observation is that one of the things I've repeatedly observed that gives non-opera fans joy is seeing a piece of music they've absorbed in the pop culture via commercials/movies/whatever, actually in context. That "I recognize that music!" moment is something I've seen really make people smile.

[cahn]

This is really interesting as everyone who's replied so far seems to have said some variant of it, and it didn't even occur to me! (I somehow got that burned out of me in high school/college, probably in orchestra.)

...this makes me realize that for my cousin who played "Meditation" from Thais with me approximately two hundred thousand times, she would get a total kick out of it if I could find a little clip from Thais...

[melita66]

My partner loves opera. I can appreciate it technically, but particularly don't want to watch the tragedies so maybe options for people who are open for anything and those who would prefer happier stories.

Movies that include opera bits like Amadeus or Topsy-Turvy.

I'd also thought of the queen of night aria which is currently being used in a a tv commercial (not sure for what!). Other arias that have been used in commercials or movies.

[cahn]

These are all really great, thank you!

I like some of the tragedies but the ones I watched before I actually got into opera were... not successful with me. I hadn't got used to how dumb everyone was and it was super frustrating!

Yes, Amadeus was baby!me's (well, I wasn't a baby, but I was probably too young to watch it, lol) first introduction to opera ever, although it didn't really take for, um, several more decades. That's a great idea.

I will have to do Queen of the Night! And look for other popular arias.

[primeideal]

Noob questions:

Do all operas have subtitles/ways to read along? Only the non-English ones?

Are there any operas that aren't about romance?

[thistleingrey]

Are there any operas that aren't about romance?

Wagner's Ring cycle comes to mind as including some romance but rather footnoting it--it's kind of awfully Campbellian Hero's Journey. That's not a rec, just a literal answer to your question as phrased. :)

[cahn]

These are great questions and I will be sure to put them in my presentation thanks! :D

Not sure if you yourself wanted answers, but if so:

Subtitles: Umm, most of my experience with operas has been DVD or electronically, when they do tend to have subtitles even in English (unless they are Vienna *shakes fist at Vienna's awful subtitles). I'm not sure if it's always done in performance -- I should check that.

Though most operas have romance as at least an important component, there are some operas, usually either older or more modern, with no romance whatsoever. Iphigenie en Tauride (Gluck) has no romance. Billy Budd (Britten), based on the Melville story, as well as Dialogues of the Carmelites (Poulenc).

(Actually, from what I know about you, if you like Poulenc this might be an interesting one for you, as it's basically about nuns and God and sacrifice. I love it a lot. Content note: everyone dies at the end (literally). It's available in English translation on Spotify.)

[iberiandoctor]

Why, hello there! I was gonna answer Billy Budd to your question about non-romantic opera, only to discover (1) cahn already gave this answer, below, and (2) actually, Britten’s Billy Budd is really about romance if you squint (bitter British Navy master-at-arms feels an instant attraction to an innocent young sailor, and determines to destroy him, as one does. EM Forster co-wrote the libretto, go figure) :)

[cahn]

Hee. I didn't know Forster co-wrote the libretto!

(primeideal is probably legit looking for non-romantic opera, though that would be an interesting staging!)

[thistleingrey]

+1 jenett's suggestion re: ways to find stuff to watch. Am not opera fan but know Some Things (another taint, hurray, but mostly I don't really enjoy that particular mode of vocal ... to me it scans as distortion).

I don't think that English subs are crucial, actually. There are translated libretti? In the moment, the viewer should focus on the performance as conveyed, IMO; if they want to look up what the lyrics mean, great, but there's power in a solid perf without it. Reading along can distract, I mean. Just my two cents.

[cahn]

Excellent, I will definitely put that in :)

Hmm. It depends on the performance, to me? There are some where even a great performance with an inspired singer/actor can leave me wondering what exactly is going on, if I don't have the words available (especially if it's plot-heavy). But there are some where the performance is all.

ETA: Re "scans as distortion": I had a hard time with the sort of "typical" operatic vibrato-heavy voice for many years as well (although now with a ton of exposure I am getting more used to it, ha) and I wonder if it's the shared instrumental background we share -- I slid into opera sideways, through choral music and oratorio and John Eliot Gardiner, who tends to use very pure-toned thin-vibrato voices. (I think a voice person would say "very lyric voices"?)

[thistleingrey]

Umm, I was never much for Italian operas (I realize they're not monolithic), but seconding Figaro and Zauberflöte. Are you thinking mostly in terms of whole operas or bits people might recognize? For example, the prelude + Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde is recognizable, though I wouldn't necessarily rec the whole thing.

[cahn]

I didn't necessarily want bits people would recognize as much as bits that would inspire them to want to watch more (which it seems is at least somewhat correlated with bits people recognize!)

Heh, Tristan und Isolde is the one opera I have not been able to get through at all. And I really like the Ring! (I suppose part of the issue is that the version RL Opera Friend lent me is rather regie -- she tends to just go straight for whatever production has the best singing in it.)

[seekingferret]

Ha, Tristan is pretty un-get-through-able IMO, says this Wagner-hater who had to sit through the whole thing for class. That said, the Liebestod is pretty recognizable and is used in a lot of places in pop culture/media.

[iberiandoctor]

On Don Giovanni, I’ve always thought Là Ci Darem la Mano was instantly catchy and accessible. I think I linked you to the Hampson version, but here’s Keenlyside and Schafer: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xfti-KQoxXM The concert staging makes it less creepy, imo, and Keenlyside is a gallant delight <3 No subtitles, alas!

On crowd-pleasers, you can’t get more crowd-pleasing than La Donna e Mobile. Now on ST:Voyager! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pN0HwG8LTp0

And on Carlo(s), I’m seconding the auto-da-fe, and would probably go with something like: It’s tough to be a prince who’s in love with his dad’s new wife, and also with his best friend (whom he thinks only loves Flanders)?

[cahn]

Ah, what a great idea! AHHHHHHH that Keenlyside video! Besides Keenlyside himself being extremely delightful to watch (which he so is), I can't get over what a consummate ensemble player he is -- they are just so exactly together, it's amazing to listen to.

Also, when I watched it the Hampson came up next on auto-play so I had to watch that one again too :P OMG this will always be my favorite, although yeah, there is a bit of a creep vibe so I'm not sure I can show it to my family -- but Hampson is just so brilliant, so funny, so charming, so EVERYTHING, and those fourth-wall-breaking smiles just destroy me! Okay, okay, I'll stop now

(Also, can I say that I am utterly charmed by the fact that you are now reccing me Simon Keenlyside videos. My work here is done! :D )

...I have never watched Voyager! CLEARLY I SHOULD START. That was AMAZING.

LOL, I'm not sure I want to tackle Carlos' and Rodrigo's relationship in the middle of this presentation! Hmm. I will think about it :)

[mildred_of_midgard]

OH GOD. I still have the entire Voyager ad libbed version of La Donna e Mobile memorized, twenty years later, and it still gets stuck in my head sometimes. To be clear, I'm quite happy when it does.

Please be aware that that was the best Voyager episode ever to air. At least according to me. YMMV.

(And possibly according to everyone in my high school senior AP physics class, in that it was the one and only episode that season where we all spontaneously started talking about it in class the next day, and apparently we'd all been watching it while doing homework, and the teacher had been watching it while grading papers!)

(Resident tone-deaf follower of your blog has nothing else to say on the subject of opera, except have fun!)

[cahn]

That was also PRETTY CLEARLY the five minutes of Voyager most guaranteed to make me want to watch the thing :D

[mildred_of_midgard]

Do watch the whole episode, at least! It's pretty fun, although I'm not sure in retrospect how much you need to know the characters to get the most out of it.

[iberiandoctor]

Cahn: If the La Donna e Mobile doesn’t get you interested in Voyager, watch the EMH do our fave duet! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lyfay_AOlqw The actor, Robert Picardo, was quite the singer and fan, and a fair bit of opera made it into the series via his abilities, as I recall.

Mildred: I will admit to having You have just gone without/for seven years, about stuck in my head for days after watching that ep...

[cahn]

...I... am feeling more and more interested in watching this :P :)

Mildred: I will admit to having You have just gone without/for seven years, about stuck in my head for days after watching that ep...

Now I've got it stuck in my head! It's just so catchily metered just like the original...

[cahn]

omg, check this la ci darem out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJnJjpMdT3Y

I had vaguely been aware of Rodney Gilfry (he's the baritone on my Brahms Requiem recording) but clearly I need to check out more of his stuff!

[iberiandoctor]

aaa, what a perfectly sung (and HOT) Don, and what a sizzling La Ci Darem! Plus, it is subtitled (and also not overly creepy, for a staged version!). I think you might have your clip for your PowerPoint (still snickering, btw, over your family PowerPoints, which is so dweebily adorable i might have to steal it!).

And, you got me SO badly with Keenlyside! What a talent, as well as an extremely hot man! I’ve been inhaling his work, and am sad there’s no vid of his Billy Budd, although there is THIS (uh, nsfw warning): http://barihunks.blogspot.com/2008/11/simon-keenlyside-nude.html

(Barihunks is a hilarious site, and it is very fond of Rodney Gilfrey!)

I’m glad to have gotten you with brilliant, charming, fourth-wall-breaking Hampson, too! He is the best <3

[cahn]

Heh, we were not necessarily excited about the PowerPoints at first, but now we all kinda look forward to them!

OMG I have TOTALLY SEEN That Don G! Unfortunately this was one I borrowed from RL Opera Friend and not one I own, so I can't share! But it was super hot. The hilarious thing is that RL Opera Friend is 82 and also a lovely super sweet woman in the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints, so I was kind of hilariously horrified that she'd lent me this! (To be fair, she has a LOT of opera and had probably forgotten exactly how nsfw this particular video was. But I think also watching a lot of opera has made her a little, er, more blase about such things than perhaps others might be...)

Barihunks, what a hilarious site, hee! Thank you for sharing!

Keenlyside is SO GREAT, I love him SO MUCH. Take a look at these two scenes from a totally regie Don G, holy cow, I wish there was a whole video of this, I would totally buy it. Did Leporello actually kiss him at the end of that first bit?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCqXtuBPZeY

[iberiandoctor]

OMG what a delight that regie Don G is! There are more clips on youtube -- showing Keenlyside as a cigarette-smoking, Real Madrid F.C.-stanning Don, who has sex with Donna Anna in an old black Mercedes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJxjGCYLl70, it's glorious (and also sung really well!) <3

Hee, your story about being mildly horrified that your older RL opera friend had lent you this flagrantly nsfw version of Don G is hilarious. I might actually make a purchase myself, if it's sung as well as it's, er, acted...

[cahn]

EEEEEE thank you for linking that, I just had the best time watching that! (I usually get turned off hard by productions that suggest Donna Anna was asking for it, but they really go all in that production's concept, don't they! SPECTACULAR!) I wish SO HARD they had a full video of that, holy cow, Keenlyside and Ketelsen are amazing.

To be totally fair, the only really nsfw moment of that DVD is at the very very end after he goes down to hell (where that photo was taken) and RL opera friend may have just forgotten about that moment, he's wearing clothes the rest of the time! Though occasionally somewhat artfully, er, ragged clothes. (This seems to be a theme with Keenlyside's opera performances I've seen, actually. He's, um, got a nice enough body that I think directors Just Can't Resist showing it off.)

Let's see, things I remember about this DG. Keenlyside is kind of a psychopathic Don. Really well done, of course, but also really chilling. Ketelsen is hilarious! (Actually I found that regie Don G because I was looking for a particular clip of this one -- the scene where Leporello acts out the love song to Donna Elvira while Giovanni sings, which Ketelsen just hams up.) Joyce DiDonato is Donna Elvira and is really really good, she was probably my favorite of the women. Marina Poplavskaya (Elisabeth in that Met Don Carlo!) is Donna Anna and of course beautiful, although I think DiDonato carries the honors for this one. Ramon Vargas is Don Ottavio and his singing is of course fine (er, hes not quite as hot as, well, all four of the others, and Don Ottavio isn't that interesting, so I'm afraid I kind of ignored him a bit). So, yes, it's very well sung!

I'll say that the production was fine, but not to the level where I felt I had to buy it myself? But I also am generally not as in love with DG as I am with, well, Don Carlo or La Traviata :)

[iberiandoctor]

RL opera friend may have just forgotten about that moment, he's wearing clothes the rest of the time

I will say, that is not something I would have forgotten, myself ;) How I sympathise with the directors who have to resist directing him in non-artfully ragged clothes!

[cahn]

Hee! :D

You know, that ROH/Met production of Don Carlo didn't dress him in ragged clothes (although he also looks so good in period costume!!) -- there's this Vienna State Opera production he'll be in in the fall, I'm wondering which way they'll go ;)

[nineveh_uk]

I thought I'd have a couple of one-sentence/one-phrase synopses that might convince people to go see opera:

As an opera fan whose favourite operas have plots (I find The Magic Flute is 4 minutes of awesome Queen of the Night and three hours of snooze), I think this is a really good idea. Because it is about story as well as music.

Tosca as an easy crowd-pleaser with some great tunes? In terms of "may have seen it elsewhere" there's that brilliant bit in the James Bond Quantum of Solace.

Or just show act 1 of Figaro :-)

[cahn]

:D What are your favorite plotty operas? I do like Magic Flute although generally I like listening to it more than watching it.

OH! Maybe I can show the bit where the Count pulls the cloth off Cherubino... one of the (many) great moments :D

[dariaw]

Carmen is a crowd pleaser

[cahn]

Ooh, Carmen! Thanks for reminding me of that!

[melannen]

The main thing that's stopped me from really enjoying opera much is that there seems to be this style that a lot of classic opera is sung in that I really dislike, where the singers seem to depend on the *music* to convey all of the emotion, and don't put any emotion into their *voice*? Which I guess makes sense if you're singing to a packed house without a sound system: "loud and clear" is more important than "emotive". (Maybe that's not even a good way to describe what I don't like, I dunno. I first noticed it listening to old musical theater records, where you can really tell who trained as an opera singer because they don't bother to put any voice acting into the vocals, and when it's a mixed cast of opera-trained and vaudeville-trained singers it really stands out that the opera people can sing but not act and the vaudeville people's voices aren't spectacular, but they emote much better.)

I don't know if that's still as much of a thing in modern opera because I haven't gone looking much. But maybe finding some tracks that are sung in various different singing styles (not even just the styles I like! But a variety, to show off the music and the plots and not just the voices) would be helpful to draw people in.

[cahn]

*nods* I know exactly what you're talking about, and I think there are basically two issues.

1. There's all this... machinery, bodily speaking, involved in projecting the voice in the way opera requires. You have to breathe correctly in your diaphragm AND your chest AND have your larynx positioned correctly AND have your face muscles positioned correctly! Relative beginners (like me, back when I took operatic voice lessons) are way too worried about doing all those things to figure out emotive, heh. It's sort of funny, I went and watched a bunch of master classes by Thomas Hampson (one of the world's best operatic baritones) and he basically every single time was like "uh, yeah, you need to emote more."

2. The best opera singers put all kinds of lovely emotions into their voice AND they can act (this is a relatively new thing -- there were always opera singers who could act, but it's at a much higher premium these days since opera video became a Big Thing). And yet... even so... I think it can still be hard to listen to, relative to (for example) Broadway. Broadway singers are basically putting on a conversation with their voices -- that's not quite right either, but there's this convention where Broadway singers sound to me more like they're talking, and opera singers sound to me more like they're musicians -- e.g., when singing Verdi getting those long legato lines is way more important than emoting the content of the lines (although a good operatic singer will emote the content, the same way a good Broadway singer will do musical phrasing as well).

But, heh, I agree, I don't really have use for singers who can't act. Opera is also a story medium! (And a visual medium, for that matter.)

[melannen]

Yeah, I totally understand the justification! It's hard to belt *and* act at the same time! And certainly in all styles of music, belting was a lot more common before microphones were a thing.

And I suspect there have been plenty of opera singers who are fine actors (at least in the stage style) but the acting is all visual, so none of it comes through in an audio recording (or is hard to follow if you're reading subtitles.)

I think it's not just Broadway, either, though - a lot of pop music in the last, oh, seventy years uses emotion in the voices to make up for lack of musical talent in the voices (and auto-tune to cover the rest...) So hitting up against a lot of the "classical" choral styles, not just opera, that emphasize the sound more than the story in the singing can be tough for someone who's never encountered singing that's about sound first and foremost; it just stands out even more in opera because just enough story comes through that you can tell it's *not* supposed to be all about the sound!

I think it also doesn't help that I personally am very bad at getting the "emotional" quality of music, beyond stuff like tempo - I can play a song in a minor key and then major key and can't possibly tell you which one sounds sadder, for example, and there are classical instrumental sounds that are supposed to be throbbingly tragic and I think they sound warm and comfortable. IDK if it's a brain thing for me, or if it's at least partly training (I had a very idiosyncratic musical education.) So if you are depending on the melody to convey emotion, there's a class of listeners who will just miss that.

The reverse of that though is that if I do find classic/choral/operatic vocals where the emotional chords hit for me, I will love them and hug them forever. (My current most-played vocal classical tracks for the past several years are "Gesang der Junglinge" and this specific recording of Erbarme Dich with Eula Beal, although that might be as much about the sound quality of the recording. So, you know, there's range there, at least. :P)

Anyway, yeah: if you can put together a recs list of opera being sung in a way that is going to be less disconcerting to people who are used to the emotiveness of modern Broadway and pop, that might work on me! Although to be fair, that might also make it Not Opera. But the underlying music is often SO GOOD (I will sometimes listen to instrumental bits of operas and then have to switch when the singing starts) that I feel like it could be made to work in different singing styles even without completely changing the genre of the work, you would just have to ... decide to value emotiveness over long legato lines.

[cahn]

re: pop music: Oh, yes, sure! I just happen to be a lot more familiar with Broadway than with pop music in general :)

There's some stuff that's in the in-between opera-Broadway sort of space -- Porgy and Bess (which is usually staged in opera houses), Candide (which goes both ways), something like Maria Christine (usually considered a Broadway musical). And of course singers who go every which way, like Audra McDonald, and those who've crossed over, like Renee Fleming singing in Carousel.

For me the most useful thing was listening to opera sung in English! It's a lot easier to see how the emotiveness is working when one doesn't also have to contend with not understanding any of the lyrics, at least for me! Also I think it's easier for the singers -- again, the best-in-the-world singers know a lot of the languages as well, but less-than-world-class singers have an easier time emoting in their native language :) Anyway! This is inspiring me -- maybe after I give this presentation I'll upload the clip list :)