Opera for Beginners (Part 3 of 3)
Aug. 6th, 2019 09:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnI talked about Opera for Beginners for my family reunion talk and used much of the advice I was given here, thank you! :)
-I brought speakers, because there isn't much use in giving an opera talk if you can't hear the music! The hilarious thing was that I was not the only one who had audio/audiovisual components to my presentation, but I was the only one who had brought speakers. I had been a little bitter about lugging them all around Montana, but less so when they turned out to be broadly useful :) What was more irritating was that after they worked fine when I tried them out in my office, they didn't work at all for a while when I was trying to give the talk. Finally my cousin's teenager, who was acting as unofficial tech support, suggested rebooting as a last resort, and of course that worked. Sigh.
-A couple of people mentioned talking about where one might go looking for opera. My biggest recommendations to a newbie are the following:
1.The Chandos Opera in English CDs, without which I would still hate opera today. I highly highly recommend all the Mozart ones, particularly the da Ponte operas (Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Cosi fan tutte), and the bel canto comedies (e.g., Barber of Seville, The Elixir of Love), and dis-recommend their Verdi except Don Carlos (for some reason Verdi tends to come out a bit muddled). Their French opera also seems to be very good, and I absolutely adore their Eugene Onegin (which stars Thomas Hampson and Kiri te Kanawa).
2. Met On Demand, which comes with a free 7-day trial. People who know a lot about opera rag on the Met for not being adventurous in its staging and concept, which, fair, but for a beginner, in my opinion, that's exactly what you want, and you can't do better than the Met for gorgeous staging and costumes, great singers, and great videography, which I didn't even know would affect me until I started watching a bunch of these... and... it does actually make a huge difference when watching video. (Watching live is, of course, different.)
-I showed several clips, one of which was a 3-minute clip of Kaufmann/Hampson/Salminen in the auto-da-fe scene from Don Carlo. (Alagna/Keenlyside/Furlanetto is still the whole version of Don Carlo I would recommend, but for auto-da-fe out of context I thought the former was better, not least because it didn't have a giant weeping Jesus in the background.) I explained beforehand the background about how Posa is Prince Carlo's best friend but also has the relationship where he has sworn fealty to King Philip. (I have uploaded the clip here (google drive video clip, ~3 minutes) --mildredofmidgard, I know music/opera is Not Your Thing but this is the moment in Don Carlo I was talking about, check it out) and my big triumph, as far as I am concerned, is that when the clip ended my cousin cried out, "Oh, that's so sad!" MY WORK HERE IS DONE.
-My other great triumph was that E was curious about what I said about Don Giovanni. Being her, she could not care less about Don G himself -- she was perfectly content with a limited understanding that he was the Bad Guy -- but she was particularly interested in what I said about Don G coming to a sticky end, and asked about it the next day. Once I further explained that there was a singing statue and that in many productions Don G disappeared into flames with the statue at the end, both she and A really wanted to watch it, so that afternoon we all snuggled up on the couch and watched "Don Giovanni, a cenar teco" (this one with Rodney Gilfrey) and they still ask for "the statue opera" on occasion. (That's the only part they have watched or are interested in watching, or that I am interested in playing for them, until they're a lot older. Well, okay, "O statua gentilissima," but that's along the same lines.)
-Since you guys said it was fun for people to recognize music in opera, another short clip I showed was from Thais, because, well, I don't know if it's all Koreans or just my particular family, but all our extended relatives LOOOOOVE Meditation from Thais and all of us cousins who play violin (or piano, if that cousin happened to be near one of the cousins who played violin) have had to play that song approximately six million times, every time a third cousin twice removed came to visit. There was much groaning when the melody was revealed :)
-It turns out my aunt (uncle's wife) really likes opera!!!! We are already making plans to go to Salzburg or Italy sometime and watch opera :D (well, pipe dreams right now... I certainly wouldn't go until my kids are older)
(Part 1 was where I asked for help; Part 2 was an outtake of this post about emoting in opera)
-I brought speakers, because there isn't much use in giving an opera talk if you can't hear the music! The hilarious thing was that I was not the only one who had audio/audiovisual components to my presentation, but I was the only one who had brought speakers. I had been a little bitter about lugging them all around Montana, but less so when they turned out to be broadly useful :) What was more irritating was that after they worked fine when I tried them out in my office, they didn't work at all for a while when I was trying to give the talk. Finally my cousin's teenager, who was acting as unofficial tech support, suggested rebooting as a last resort, and of course that worked. Sigh.
-A couple of people mentioned talking about where one might go looking for opera. My biggest recommendations to a newbie are the following:
1.The Chandos Opera in English CDs, without which I would still hate opera today. I highly highly recommend all the Mozart ones, particularly the da Ponte operas (Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Cosi fan tutte), and the bel canto comedies (e.g., Barber of Seville, The Elixir of Love), and dis-recommend their Verdi except Don Carlos (for some reason Verdi tends to come out a bit muddled). Their French opera also seems to be very good, and I absolutely adore their Eugene Onegin (which stars Thomas Hampson and Kiri te Kanawa).
2. Met On Demand, which comes with a free 7-day trial. People who know a lot about opera rag on the Met for not being adventurous in its staging and concept, which, fair, but for a beginner, in my opinion, that's exactly what you want, and you can't do better than the Met for gorgeous staging and costumes, great singers, and great videography, which I didn't even know would affect me until I started watching a bunch of these... and... it does actually make a huge difference when watching video. (Watching live is, of course, different.)
-I showed several clips, one of which was a 3-minute clip of Kaufmann/Hampson/Salminen in the auto-da-fe scene from Don Carlo. (Alagna/Keenlyside/Furlanetto is still the whole version of Don Carlo I would recommend, but for auto-da-fe out of context I thought the former was better, not least because it didn't have a giant weeping Jesus in the background.) I explained beforehand the background about how Posa is Prince Carlo's best friend but also has the relationship where he has sworn fealty to King Philip. (I have uploaded the clip here (google drive video clip, ~3 minutes) --
mildredofmidgard, I know music/opera is Not Your Thing but this is the moment in Don Carlo I was talking about, check it out) and my big triumph, as far as I am concerned, is that when the clip ended my cousin cried out, "Oh, that's so sad!" MY WORK HERE IS DONE.-My other great triumph was that E was curious about what I said about Don Giovanni. Being her, she could not care less about Don G himself -- she was perfectly content with a limited understanding that he was the Bad Guy -- but she was particularly interested in what I said about Don G coming to a sticky end, and asked about it the next day. Once I further explained that there was a singing statue and that in many productions Don G disappeared into flames with the statue at the end, both she and A really wanted to watch it, so that afternoon we all snuggled up on the couch and watched "Don Giovanni, a cenar teco" (this one with Rodney Gilfrey) and they still ask for "the statue opera" on occasion. (That's the only part they have watched or are interested in watching, or that I am interested in playing for them, until they're a lot older. Well, okay, "O statua gentilissima," but that's along the same lines.)
-Since you guys said it was fun for people to recognize music in opera, another short clip I showed was from Thais, because, well, I don't know if it's all Koreans or just my particular family, but all our extended relatives LOOOOOVE Meditation from Thais and all of us cousins who play violin (or piano, if that cousin happened to be near one of the cousins who played violin) have had to play that song approximately six million times, every time a third cousin twice removed came to visit. There was much groaning when the melody was revealed :)
-It turns out my aunt (uncle's wife) really likes opera!!!! We are already making plans to go to Salzburg or Italy sometime and watch opera :D (well, pipe dreams right now... I certainly wouldn't go until my kids are older)
(Part 1 was where I asked for help; Part 2 was an outtake of this post about emoting in opera)
Katte and Fritz (and mildred_of_midgard) psychology
Date: 2019-09-18 03:27 am (UTC)for a bita lot about Katte, just because. That *is* my ship, after all. :DI wrote about EC above, "I think, if [Fritz] was going to be forced into an incompatible marriage, someone like EC without a strong will was probably the best bet." I was reminded of something I said about Katte early on, namely that I don't have enough data to get a confident sense of his personality, but the way I read him, he may also have been laid back enough to not clash constantly with Fritz, and if so, their relationship probably benefited from this.
Now, I write all these "Katte lives" AU fanfics, and because this is my hurt/comfort fandom, they all end in True Love and Happily Ever After. :D But that's my fandom brain. My historian brain has to wonder how that realistic that would have been in real life. Unknowable, of course. But unknowable answers sometimes still go with interesting questions.
On the one hand, Fritz was notooorious for volatile relationships. Half the time, he got upset and cut off someone he had loved; the other half, people found him too difficult to live with (but often came back for more, sometimes from a distance, because, like I said, he had all those good qualities that made him easy to admire).
On the other hand, pretty much everyone is agreed that watching Katte get executed emotionally fucked him up for life. I haven't seen anyone else mention this, but I personally feel Keith getting sent several hundred miles away because of their relationship at age 16 was like a foreshock before the big earthquake in Fritz's emotional world, and did his chances of passing Interpersonal Relationships 101 no good at all either.
So in a universe without the Katte execution...I wonder. Maybe Fritz is still difficult but less impossible. Maybe he still wants what he wants and wants it now, but he's less likely to jump all over other people for the least thing (or nothing).
Historically, Fritz has a reputation as emotionally cold and aloof, but that's based a lot on the fact that he died alone, after long outliving the people he was getting along with when they died. ETA: it's also based on how coldly he treated people he *didn't* like, plus his deep need for privacy, unusual for an 18th-century monarch. None of which is directly relevant to his chances of a successful relationship with Katte.
I would say that part of him was definitely holding back a lot of the time, and protecting himself, especially later in life, but he simultaneously had a huge and not-to-be-underestimated drive to seek emotional intimacy and get deeply, passionately involved with other people. He expressed more than once his belief that friendship (18th-century passionate friendship, not the modern Western kind acceptable between men) was necessary to make life worth living, and he actively distrusted "lone wolves" like me. :P
So, of course this depends on the exact nature of the AU, but it's possible that in at least some scenarios, he and Katte do end up with a long-term, stable, non-volatile relationship, especially if Katte is as willing to go along with his wishes as I perceive him. Obviously Katte suffered from a severe case of divided loyalties IRL, but if he'd lived to see Fritz king, almost all of that would have resolved immediately in Fritz's favor. Plus we know Fritz did have *some* stable close relationships, they didn't all end in implosions. Admittedly, every time I mention one, I ask myself to what extent the person in question, like perhaps Katte, died before an inevitable implosion. There's a certain amount of blind chance to the timing of implosion vs. death.
But here's an interesting thought I've been having: some of Fritz's implosions were clearly 100% on him, but not all were. Voltaire is only the most notorious example. A lot of Fritz's unstable relationship history may have been due, not just to him being personally difficult to live with, but with the types of people he chose to get involved with, and the dynamics he ended up in.
And here's where I'm going to view Fritz through the lens of my own brain where I think it's relevant to understanding him: his life displays a pattern that I recognize from my own. We are both people who come across to others as very intense, goal-driven, and definite about what we want. We're also both driven by intellectual hunger. And I think Fritz did exactly what I do, which is instinctively be drawn to relationships that feel stimulating and exciting. Relationships with people we intellectually admire, who are also intense, goal-driven, and definite about what they want.
And I was in my early twenties when I realized that these relationships usually escalate into competitiveness, one-upmanship, and generally never being able to let down my guard for one second. I realized that the people I was most likely to get into long-term, stable, emotionally satisfying relationships with were the ones I looked up to less, and could be more chill around. The people I would previously, as a teenager, have made belittling remarks about and shunned. We still have to have enough in common to be able to talk about intellectual interests (no EC for me either). But if I don't want a relationship of constant friction, I have to go against the grain of seeking out the people whose work I most admire for my closest emotional relationships. (You know, as close as it ever gets for me, which is not very. My lack of investment is also why I get massively less upset about the ones that don't work out than did Fritz, who neeeeeded these relationships.)
Critically, I don't think Could-Not-Chill Fritz ever figured that one out. I think he just watched relationship after relationship implode, and got more and more misanthropic about how other people were letting him down and the human species was terrible. Relatedly, Fritz and I also have the same workaholic tendencies; he rationalized his, while I consciously toned mine down with great effort. I *like* workaholism, but I do my best to accept the brain I have, not the brain I wish I had, and it works out better for me. (Fritz was not a happy person. Again and again, I see him trying and failing. Trying to name his palace Sanssouci, deciding he can only be "sans souci" when he's dead. Trying to treat relationships as the most important thing in the world, not succeeding at most of them.) Perhaps relatedly, FW was a workaholic; my parents had good work ethics but were distinctly not workaholics and did not understand my drive.
So, if my reading of Katte is accurate, and if Fritz never gets quite as badly scarred in some AU, maybe they have the kind of successful relationship I've been writing. In a totally fanon but also psychologically insightful way, I've been using my best friend to inspire some of Katte's personality in these fics, specifically the "I'm happy not sweating the small stuff" and "I'm very intellectually curious but not at all driven" traits that I can't relate to myself but can translate from observation of my friend into fic. ;) And while I'm not romantically inclined toward this guy, he's the only person other than my wife I can imagine living with. Before I got engaged and moved across the country, he and I were talking about moving in together as soon as his roommate's financial situation was sorted, and I'm still trying to make something work where he can come be my chauffeur and my "listener". ;)
And so that's my Fritz/Katte ship. :)
Coda: Part of the reason I parse Fritz/Fredersdorf as queerplatonic and Fritz/Algarotti as acted-on-at-least-once (this is wild fanon speculation on my part, I hasten to add!), is that I parse Fredersdorf as one of his most comparatively chill relationships* and Algarotti as one of his more stimulating relationships. And for a possibly asexual gay man trying to figure out his sexuality, the latter might have been more motivating to try. Algarotti is also much more likely, imo, to have reciprocated and been open to same-sex relationships. Against this is the fact that Fredersdorf got in much earlier (1731 vs. 1739). Algarotti may have missed the experimentation window, if there was one.
* It still ended badly! Partly Fritz's fault (the usual "You can't marry a WOMAN, you're married to ME!"), partly (apparently) Fredersdorf's fault, if the embezzlement was real and not something Fritz accused him of unfairly.
Fritz: "Yes, all of you. All of you at Sanssouci are married to ME. Deal with it."
I should clarify that he *let* his friends like Fredersdorf get married, just not without consequences. Like "You're dead to me."
Tooootally unrelated soap opera anecdote: Katte's two half brothers (his mother died young and his father remarried; he was apparently close to his stepmother), who were small children when he was executed, ended up dying in their twenties from a duel they had fought over the same woman. I gotta wonder what went on in *that* family. Fortunately (!), both their parents were dead by this point and didn't have to watch. (Both outlived our poor Hans Hermann.) Actually, I wonder if Mom dying when they were so young contributed to their willingness to kill each other over a woman. I swear Tuchman was onto something with "everyone in the past was traumatized and traumatizing all the time."
Re: Katte and Fritz (and mildred_of_midgard) psychology
Date: 2019-09-18 03:42 pm (UTC)Oh, LOL, I just remembered this anecdote from high school. I was writing an essay for a scholarship or college or some such application, and getting it reviewed by a couple of my teachers. After reading the draft, my US history teacher said gently, "
Me: "How so?" (Thinking, "I haven't invaded any provinces lately.")
Mr. D: "Less arrogance, more humility. I like you the way you are [he really did], but it'll come across better to the committee."
Me: "What? No! Frederick is the best! I won't pretend to be someone I'm not."
I'm laughing so hard right now, you have no idea.
1) I was obsessed with Fritz even back then, to the point where I have multiple memories of talking about him with other people, like even my sister who fricking hated history and learning and everything. She actually knew stuff about him, like how he avoided his wife, because I would never shut up about my interests at any given time.
2) I am not making up the part about having personality overlap with Fritz. At least one knowledgeable-about-history person spontaneously observed the same!
3) I remember thinking at the time, Mr. D picked the wrong example if he wanted to convince me. I can see why he did it, but if he had sat me down and talked about presenting myself to the committee without references to historical figures, or even picked one I was less emotionally invested in, he would have had a better chance of getting me to tone it down a little. Even at the time, I knew he had a point, but he accidentally pushed my fandom buttons and got my dander up. "Fritz is MINE! *grabby*"
Oh, god, I can't believe I'd forgotten this story. I can't stop laughing. It's SO on-brand in every possible way.
Re: Katte and Fritz (and mildred_of_midgard) psychology
Date: 2019-09-20 04:38 am (UTC)Re: Katte and Fritz (and mildred_of_midgard) psychology
Date: 2019-09-20 04:37 am (UTC)I didn't fall into that particular hole too much (then again, I'm not a super workaholic type, so maybe I had less of a tendency anyway) in large part, I feel, because my mom is a fairly overbearing individual, so it took me one serious boyfriend to figure out I wanted someone who was Not Competing With Me. Now, I did fall... every single time... into the "go for the smartest boy in the room" trap (as my best friend, who is also susceptible to this trap, once put it)... I guess I ended up marrying one of those smartest boys, as well. But I actually super lucked out that D is both the smartest guy in the room and extraordinarily chill about it. (Of course, that comes with other disadvantages, but I was willing to live with those. Huh, I wonder whether your friend and D are similar in some ways. D also spent... many... years in grad school, quite happily. Though he also got a heavy dose of Protestant work ethic growing up, so he understood the need of actually getting a reasonable job after that. He would also not have been happy as your listener :P :) )
I can totally see Fritz falling in love with Katte because, well, adolescent, and Katte just happening to be the right sort of person for him (whereas as an adult, and with more choices, he might have gravitated towards the "unhealthy" Voltaire-like relationships :)
Re: Katte and Fritz (and mildred_of_midgard) psychology
Date: 2019-09-20 04:58 am (UTC)Interesting! That does not surprise me at all. And now I'm wondering if there's any reason to parse Fritz as on the spectrum. My first guess is no, but deeeefinitely type A, like, named his palace "I would like to have a type B moment from time to time but idk how, HALP." :P
even if you are not on the spectrum, you certainly have some traits!
Indeed, to the point where I used to wonder if I was on the spectrum. Fritz and I probably have in common the fact that we're not on the spectrum but have a few overlapping traits. (I feel like I might have more than he did, but I'll have to keep that in mind and see if I come up with more examples for him.)
Huh, I wonder whether your friend and D are similar in some ways. D also spent... many... years in grad school, quite happily.
17+? Because that's what we're up to with my friend. :P He's actually dropped out and gotten a full-time job, but he's still "working on the dissertation."
It occurred to me when writing that comment the other day that both my wife and my best friend made it as far as working on their dissertations before dropping out of their PhD program. That may be the sweet spot for me with between someone who's got enough interests and intellectual curiosity in common with me for us to connect, and yet is laid back enough that our drives don't start either coming into conflict or leading us in opposite directions.
I can totally see Fritz falling in love with Katte because, well, adolescent, and Katte just happening to be the right sort of person for him (whereas as an adult, and with more choices, he might have gravitated towards the "unhealthy" Voltaire-like relationships :)
This is really interesting and makes a lot of sense! Poor Fritz. My own engagement with Fritz and Katte in my fiction has been that they may not have been Right for Each Other (whatever that means) from the start, but once Katte demonstrated his total devotion in such an unignorable way, Fritz is much more committed to making the relationship work and much less likely to blame Katte for random shit. This is especially true in my a) reincarnation AU, where Fritz remembers Katte dying for him, and b) imprisonment AU, where Fritz inherits and pardons Katte after 10 years in prison.