Opera and oratorio thoughts

[cahn]

-In the past month I've watched videos of Roberto Alagna/Angela Gheorghiu in Faust and in L'Elixir d'Amore. Based on my sample size of two, Alagna seems to excel at playing the good-hearted slightly dorky cheerful lead with a side of lovelorn angst. This works amazingly well in Elixir, and… not so well for Faust.

-Am I the only person who is fascinated with Roberto Alagna's hair and the way it fluffily bounces up and down? …Yes? Well, okay then.

-And nope, I still don't like bel canto. I'm weird.

-I still adore Simon Keenlyside, but he's definitely an opera guy. I've been listening to him do oratorio and I keep thinking, "Man, if this were opera I would love it so much!" That being said, the recording of Elijah that he's in is the only one that I've actually liked (partially because Robert Murray as the tenor is possibly the only Obadiah I can stand, why must all the others insist on making it all quavery), and then his War Requiem --

-WAR REQUIEM. WHY HAVE I NEVER LISTENED TO THIS BEFORE. It's oratorio, it's Benjamin Britten (an acquired taste, so I'm not necessarily reccing this to you, but it's an acquired taste I have), it's Wilfred Owen, it's "Strange Meeting," for crying out loud, it's like all my kinks right in one place, and I've known that for years, what was I waiting for? Oh yeah, that's right, at the time I was considering buying it I was a student, and I remember the recording being like $40. Now it's not, and I'm not, and there's Spotify, and then last year they came out with a recording that has Ian Bostridge and Simon Keenlyside and AND. Even though I sort of wish they had gotten a less operatic voice than Keenlyside, I obviously love him, and I have to say that he and Bostridge are always just spot on and fantastic, and their duets work surprisingly well. …I fail to see how you can listen to this and not come out the other side a confirmed pacifist.

-The War Requiem recording that has Peter Pears, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, and Britten himself conducting is all kinds of brilliant, though. I must confess to loving Bostridge more than Pears, but Fischer-Dieskau is amazing (even if sometimes his pronunciation is slightly wonky), and Britten's conducting leads to a greater impact, I think. The "So Abram rose, and clave the wood" is shocking and harsh and brilliant, as it should be (it's a shocking and harsh poem). And Britten's rehearsal recordings at the end are FABULOUS.

-...but I must admit I wish someone would set "Strange Meeting" to a slightly more regular setting, because it's actually got meter and rhyme and would benefit from this...

-Also: EUGENE ONEGIN. Why have I never listened to this before? Dear brain, you like the poem and you like Tchaikovsky, why not? Because it was in Russian, that's why. Yay Spotify and Chandos' Sung-in-English series! (Seriously — at some point I will do a post about this. I LOVE this series.) Oh, I love it. I might even start being a little obsessed. I can't wait until September, when the Royal Opera House production (…yes, with Keenlyside, I am so predictable) becomes available!