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)
no subject
Date: 2019-08-19 05:37 am (UTC)Good point, especially given that the Jacobite Situation was very contemporary to FW. (BTW, refreshing my vaguer Hohenzollern memories reminded me that young FW managed to beat up future George II of England when they were both kids, despite being five years younger. No wonder adult George had a general "These Hohenzollern are all nuts, why is my sister married to one?" attitude.)
(Again, the politics of the Diplomatic Revolution are more complex than I have mastered, but I seem to recall Fritz blithely making enemies left, right, and center and then going, "I am innocent of this war."
That's how I recall it, too. There was a recent German tv two parter on young Maria Theresia which took a lot of liberties but did convey the general "What the hell, Prussian Ambassador? Did your king really just say/do that?" attitude quite well. Since both August Wilhelm and Heinrich strike me as more naturally cautious, I doubt they would have ended up in that situation.
And yes, on the one hand I can acknowledge that Fritz played his role in a sequence of events that culminated in the Nazis, and on the other, maintain that their propaganda that he would have been totally on board with their program is completely unjustified and he would have been appalled.
Oh, no question about that. He was ruthless in war, but his Prussia actually had the most modern laws of any German state until Napoleon in terms of citizen's rights, and he'd have regarded the whole racial superiority dogma as vulgar and stupid even before it got genocidal.
Btw, I always thought Goebbels telling Hitler that Roosevelt had died by saying "the Czarina Elizabeth is dead" and the lot of them promptly concluding that this would lead to the US withdrawing because that's what Russia had done in the 7-years-war was a perfect illustration of both historical ignorance and utter delusion about the present on a scale not rivaled until Ceaucesceou went out to greet the masses on his balcony in 1989 and just couldn't understand why they weren't cheering but wanted to kill him.
no subject
Date: 2019-08-19 01:46 pm (UTC)That has always been a large part of my explanation for why FW never made serious moves to disinherit Fritz without killing him, regardless of how much he talked about it, and why I don't think Fritz stood a chance offering to give up his place in the succession in exchange for Katte's life.
(BTW, refreshing my vaguer Hohenzollern memories reminded me that young FW managed to beat up future George II of England when they were both kids, despite being five years younger. No wonder adult George had a general "These Hohenzollern are all nuts, why is my sister married to one?" attitude.)
Oh, damn, I had somehow missed that anecdote! No wonder 18th century history, dang.
He was ruthless in war, but his Prussia actually had the most modern laws of any German state until Napoleon in terms of citizen's rights
Yup, yup. Fritz is the living embodiment of the "fair for its day" TV trope.
no subject
Date: 2019-08-19 07:48 pm (UTC)Just remembered some article or blog post or something I ran across recently, which began, memorably, "Every happy family is alike. Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Most of those ways were explored by a Hohenzollern at some point."
Trufax.
no subject
Date: 2019-08-20 08:06 am (UTC)BTW, in recent months one of the current Hohenzollern made headlines here in Germany, in typical Hohenzollern fashion.
Prince: So I‘m thinking. Maybe it‘s time for the German state to pay my family some money and/or restore some property to us?
Germans: WTF?
Prince: You did it for the House of Wittelsbach. The Wittelsbacher Ausgleichfond was founded after WWI and is still ongoing.
Germans: A) The Wittelsbach dynasty didn‘t lead us into WWI. That was your ancestor Willy.. B) The Wittelsbach family didn‘t afterwards get chummy with Hitler, despite living in the same province, but wisely kept their distance. Whereas your ancestor Son-of-Willy was all public fawning over AH because for some deluded reason, he thought HItler would restore the monarchy, and even showed up on propaganda occasions like the Day of Potsdam. C) The Wittelsbacher Ausgleichsfond is something the state of Bavaria pays, not the Federal Republic.
Prince: Son-of-Willy was much misunderstood. He was really anti Hitler.
Germans: WTF? There are films, photographs and documents.
Prince: ...he hung out with a friend of Stauffenberg‘s that one time. Now, maybe gimme a castle or two?
Our Insane Family
Date: 2019-08-20 03:39 pm (UTC)Also, accurate? My nineteenth-century history-fu is too weak to say, but I love the concept and execution.
Re: Our Insane Family
Date: 2019-08-21 04:26 am (UTC)However, while I understand the sentiment of fighting FW 1, I would point out that this relies on fighting him during the last years of his life when he was ill if you imagine winning or surviving that fight. I mean, we're talking about someone who won physical fights as a kid against a five years older kid (ask George II), who created the army his son would later use for his conquests and who has a track record of physical brutality through his adult life. Sorry, but I think I'd lose such a fight, any day, and so would most people not into martial arts. (Now, why Sophia Dorothea didn't just commission someone to poison him is another question.)
Also, what's F3 ever done to the poster? He was a devoted, mild-mannered husband to Vicky and would have been a progressive ruler, if he hadn't had cancer. Why would you want to fight him?
Re: Our Insane Family
Date: 2019-08-21 04:38 am (UTC)LOLOL! There are counterarguments to be made, but point definitely taken. Commitment to the fight outstrips size and skill in a great many cases, which, without knowing anything about the anecdote, I'm guessing had a lot to do with the George II as kids situation. As I once saw someone put it, "A serial killer with a clothesline trumps a cheerleader with a bazooka."
Can some of us gang up on an absolute-power-less FW 1, though? Please? No one said it had to be 1 on 1. :P
Also, what's F3 ever done to the poster? He was a devoted, mild-mannered husband to Vicky and would have been a progressive ruler, if he hadn't had cancer. Why would you want to fight him?
I know nothing about him, so cool, thanks! *takes notes*
no subject
Date: 2019-08-21 01:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-21 04:38 am (UTC)Incidentally, the current Hannovers, true to form, are carrying out a bitter Father-son feud which has now gone to court. They're both called Ernst August (the older one was married to Caroline of Monaco for a while and infamous for beating up reporters and pissing in public when the big fair at Hannover was opened), and if you want to employ Google translate, you can read one typical article about it here.
no subject
Date: 2019-08-21 04:40 am (UTC)