Opera for Beginners (Part 3 of 3)

[cahn]

I 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)

Comments

[mildred_of_midgard]

And interesting about ASOIAF, I've only ever heard about the Wars of the Roses as inspiration.

Yes, exactly, that's all I ever see anyone talk about. But beyond Simon Fraser/Walder Frey, I swear Viserys is straight out of the Stuarts in exile. And the anecdote about "Late Lord Frey" hanging out and watching the battle and only declaring which side he was on once it was clear who had won has echoes in Rob Roy at Sheriffmuir.

Now Peter I. might be an obvious reference, since not only was he a contemporary but the Prussian Royals had actually met him in person, but naming Philipp II as an example to FW as to why he shouldn't kill his son is rare synergy, wouldn't you say?

You keep anticipating items in my notes of things to talk about! I was going to mention that one of Fritz's biographers says that FW must have had both Peter and Philip in mind when thinking about killing his son. I had forgotten he was mentioned in that speech in Wilhelmine's memoirs, though. Presumably because when I read it, I was unaware of Schiller. It all makes sense to me--a modern European monarch killing or accused of killing his heir must have been a pretty rare thing.

re: Schiller being named after Friedrich II - well, his father was an army doctor. And a fan.

Well, yeah, I imagine a million people were being named after him at the time, not to mention all those taverns. ;)

[selenak]

And the anecdote about "Late Lord Frey" hanging out and watching the battle and only declaring which side he was on once it was clear who had won has echoes in Rob Roy at Sheriffmuir.

Though didn't either Stanley, Percy or both pull that one at the Battle of Bosworth?

With you about Viserys as a Stuart, though.

[mildred_of_midgard]

I was going to say, I know Rob Roy wasn't the only one who did this (if nothing else, I really thought it was Lovat, would have been totally in character, and it turned out I was misremembering), and I wouldn't have proposed a Jacobite source just on the basis of that one anecdote, but since Frey is already basically Lovat in my mind, I didn't look too far for parallels. GRRM may of course have had Bosworth instead or also Bosworth in mind (I myself don't remember the battle well enough to confirm your memory).

[zdenka]

IIRC, Stanley waited to see who was winning; Northumberland just hung back and didn't fight at all (which led to him scornfully being called "Northumberland, the shame of the North" though at this point I can't recall by who).

[mildred_of_midgard]

Cool, thanks! I am super rusty on the Wars of the Roses, sadly. IIRC, Henry VII dated his reign to before Bosworth and accused Richard's supporters of "treason"? Making the noncommittal approach seem like a pretty reasonable move to protect your neck, if you ask me.