(no subject)

[fajrdrako]

It's all Lionel Luthor's fault I have a new passion. He has a lot to answer for.

Opera.

I've always thought I should, would or might love opera. And then I was disappointed because I didn't. Remember in "Pretty Woman", where Richard Gere takes Julia Roberts to the opera, and says that some people don't get it, and other people get it soul deep? Well, I always wanted to be in the second category, but always found myself in the first category.

I put it down to the fact that I'm fairly unmusical - not tone-deaf by any means, but more geared to the visually complex than the audially complex.

Or maybe that isn't it, either.

When I was a student in London I saw "Madame Butterfly" and "Der Rosenkavalier" and though I enjoyed both the thing that hit me deeply and motionally in each case was the set. (I will ever forget either of them - spectacular and beautiful.) The music? It was there. It was... nice.

I felt I was missing the point.

In New York once I saw "Porgy and Bess" and was a little restless during it. I gues I enjoyed it, but there was no emotional resonance for me at all - even though I generally like Gershwin music. I love Broadway musicals and Andrew Lloyd Weber (most of the time anyway) and I was crazy over "Les Miserables". Plenty of emotional resonance *there*. Maybe there was something wrong with me when it came to classical opera, I thought.

Well... a few weeks ago seeing Lionel in suicidal mode to a backdrop of opera music attracted my attention. Of course it did - it was Lionel! I was curious as to what it was. So I started doing some research. I eventually learned the name of the song (aria?) they used in the show - it was "Je crois entendre encore" from Bizet's "The Pearl Fishers" - and by the time I found it I'd stumbled across such wonderful stuff that I was suddenly passionately in love with opera.

And now I'm trying to find all I can. By raiding the local library for CDs, mostly, though I bought one today - "The A to Z of Opera". A sampling.

I just finished reading the book "Opera for Dummies" (a nice, funny way to start) and listening to the audio-tape of the same - abridged, but with musical selections. My head is swimming. I am confusing Puccini and Verdi and Bellini and good knows who else. (But it's impossible to confuse Wagner with anybody.)

I am also fantasizing about going to see "The Pearl Fishers" in Detroit in June. I don't know if there's any possibility or feasibility, but... I feel as if it's "my" opera because it was my starting point. I want to see it because it's *there*. Will I ever get another chance? But is this a chance at all? Detroit isn't exactly close. Is it a silly self-indulgent whim? Do I really want to go alone, and if not, can I find a friend willing to go with me?

It's playing in New York in 2005. Is that any easier to get to than Detroit?

These are questions to ponder. The only live opera available in Ottawa is amateur; I am more inclined to save money I can't afford for professional opera in other cities than to spend a lesser but still substantial amount for the home-grown non-professional productions here.

So now I'm wondering where should I go from here in my desire for more. What recordings should I look for? I've played the library CD of "The Pearl Fishers" about three dozen times now, and I'm not remotely tired of it yet. After the first dozen times, what seemed like nonsense syllables set to music started to make sense as French words: that was epiphany #1. Epiphany #2 was figuring out that the reason I could understand the other singers but not the version by Benjamino Gigli was because I was trying to understand words in French and he was tricking me by singing it in Italian. But I got wise to his tricks and figured that out, too. "Douce reve" was coming out as "sogno d'amore". Hah! I deciphered the code. This was inexplicably exciting to discover.

But maybe I should move on to another opera. Am I in a rut yet?

Comments

[dargie.livejournal.com]

I most heartily second your choice of Carmina Burana recordings. The DGG one is the one I pretty much grew up on, too, and it's set the standard for all that came after. Few measure up.

[ceruleancat.livejournal.com]

Ohhh! Someone who likes the same Carmina Burana recording! Cool! It's been one of my absolute favorite classical pieces since I was 4 or earlier. What's your favorite tracks?

[dargie.livejournal.com]

Well, it's been quite a while since I've had a copy of this (mine was on vinyl, and it gave up the ghost), but if memory serves, I'd have to say that apart from "O Fortuna" (is anyone unmoved by that one?), I like "When we are in the tavern" (I'm checking the names from the listing at Amazon.com; my memory is not that prodigious!) "I bemoan the wounds of Fortune" and "If a boy with a girl." Of course if I sat down and listened to it now, or listened to another recording of it, those might be different.

[ceruleancat.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. I grew up on a badly scratched vinyl. I used to compare the latin lyrics to the english translation and i knew exactly where the lines skip. Then i couldn't listen to it for years and when i saw the cd, i just had to get it. But i was so used to the scrathed versio that some lines threw me off completely.

O Fortuna is brilliant and the entire in taberna section has always been favoured. (My mom says I'd ask for "bibit" before I could speak whole sentences).
I have yet to find another recording that won't annoy me. I'm so happy I found that cd! It's heartily recommended. :)

[dargie.livejournal.com]

And as I read further on the Amazon.com page I see that this particular recording was authorized by Orff, which really is an excellent recommendation. I need to get another copy of it.

Tell me, do you like Tallis? Talking of choral work always makes me think of "Spem in Alium", though the Kronos Quartet does a killer instrumental version of it.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Who is Tallis?

(Curious, always curious.)

[dargie.livejournal.com]

Thomas Tallis, Elizabethan composer roughly contemporary with Byrd. Surprisingly modern-sounding, particularly his "Spem in Alium"

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I'm happy to say my library has this recording, too! How I love that place.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

The library has "Spem in Alium" too. Now requested.

[dargie.livejournal.com]

Most excellent! I must know what you think of it.