Operas that are the most accessible

[IcedNote]

Hey, all. It's been a while! Most of my time has been spent writing about Prokofiev for my master's thesis...happy happy joy joy.

Anyways, what operas would you suggest to someone who likes classical music but can't stand operas? Surely there must be some that are more accessible to the population-at-large than others, right? Assuming I'm correct, what are they?

-G

[jbuck919]

There are plenty of people who like classical music but don't like "some stuff." I will not be tendentious and call it a blind spot because it covers quite a few of our most distinguished posters, and I've been accused of certain exclusionary tendencies myself (quite unfairly and with oversimplification in most cases ), though not with respect to a specific genre.

My first thought would be to suggest that you give your young self a chance and don't make a sweeping conclusion about opera at an early age. I will share my own experience with you, just to share, not to make it normative. I have always loved certain operas rather than opera opera per se. It is not necessary to be a true opera buff to understand that a handful of the very greatest composers put some of their greatest music into operas, and a couple were devoted to the genre. It would, in my opinion, be a loss to one's appreciation of music if you could not squeeze in at least Mozart, that thing by Beethoven, Wagner, Verdi, that other thing by Debussy, and perhaps some other stuff.

To answer the question you actually asked, it would be difficult for me to imagine the listener whose soul was so dead that he could not appreciate The Magic Flute (though we once had a very astute poster who hated precisely that opera). If you want to come at it from the other direction, there are a number of fine works in the common repertory that are filled with unassailable vitality and musical interest without being by the first rank of composers, the "pops" of opera without being its bargain basement, so to speak. Again, it is hard to imagine anyone not liking Tales of Hoffman or Carmen, or even Gounod's Faust (or even Cav and Pag, or much of Puccini, etc., etc., etc.).

[DavidRoss]

Carmen
The Marriage of Figaro (or Don Giovanni, or Cosi fan tutte)
The Barber of Seville
La Boheme

[MaestroDJS]

For many listeners, one of the big obstacles to the enjoyment of opera is language. Another obstacle is that some operas seem to go on and on without any break. These obstacles eventually shrink or disappear as one becomes more comfortable with operas, but how to address them at the beginning? One excellent opera for beginners is The Rake's Progress by Igor Stravinsky. It is set to a superb English libretto by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, and Stravinsky composed it in a Neoclassical idiom which almost sounds like it was composed in Mozart's time. Moreover, Stravinksky divided up the music into nice convenient arias, duets, choruses, recitatives etc., so the opera can be enjoyed in manageable sections. It even has some pretty good tunes too, at least for Stravinsky. It is a delightful work.

[diegobueno]

The first opera I fell in love with was Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress. It's in English, it's funny, and has some good tunes.

[Corlyss_D]

Carmen
The Marriage of Figaro

Amen. I'd add any of the Verdi 3 and Massenet's Cendrillon.

[jbuck919]

Carmen
The Marriage of Figaro

Amen. I'd add any of the Verdi 3 and Massenet's Cendrillon.

Exactly which are the Verdi 3, he asked disingenuously.

Er guess: Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, La Traviata? Not that it's a bad suggestion--far from it.

[Lance]

On the other side of the coin, I wonder what would happen if you exposed a possible newbie to opera to the complete Wagner Ring of the Nibelungen. Would it ring in his/her bones, or would it ...

[Haydnseek]

Fidelio for the Beethoven fan. If you like his symphonies and concertos you can enjoy his opera.

[piston]

Nothing wrong with modern American operas, either. One of them is called "Porgy and Bess." Try Leontyne Price!

[jbuck919]

Nothing wrong with modern American operas, either. One of them is called "Porgy and Bess."

And another of them is not. Except that there is no "one of them" to call that in the first place (uh oh, here comes Diegobueno). The younng man asked for opera, folks, not Broadway musicals pumped up by political correctness and an abundance of eager African-American singers who wished it were necessarily so. And yes, I'll comment on it every time it comes up.

If you want an entree into opera that is American, I suppose that Amahl and the Night Visitors would do, as it is extremely useful for getting children interested, but I think Iced Note is a little past that point.

As far as Fidelio is concerned (as mentioned by the other poster), great idea, if his appreciation of Beethoven is already relatively mature.

[piston]

Well, John, I didn't know that you had been appointed supreme justice of the international Supreme Court for historical accuracy in classical music. Sorry to contradict you but you are completely wrong. Porgy and Bess is an opera, not a musical (whatever your aesthetic standards) and the Leontyne Price interpretation of Bess proved a historic moment in the annals of American music in 1959 (read the story of the whole Porgy and Bess tour, all the way to Moscow). I'll stick to my recommendation here.

Porgy and Bess is an opera with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and Heyward. It was based on Heyward's novel Porgy and the play of the same name that he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy. All three works deal with African American life in the fictitious Catfish Row in Charleston, South Carolina in the early 1930s. (Wikipedia)

P.S. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMCw_FjSQuQ

[jbuck919]

Well, John, I didn't know that you had been appointed supreme justice of the international Supreme Court for historical accuracy in classical music. Sorry to contradict you but you are completely wrong. Porgy and Bess is an opera, not a musical (whatever your aesthetic standards) and the Leontyne Price interpretation of Bess proved a historic moment in the annals of American music in 1959 (read the story of the whole Porgy and Bess tour, all the way to Moscow). I'll stick to my recommendation here.

Porgy and Bess is an opera with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and Heyward. It was based on Heyward's novel Porgy and the play of the same name that he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy. All three works deal with African American life in the fictitious Catfish Row in Charleston, South Carolina in the early 1930s. (Wikipedia)

I knew perfectly well what you meant, and an opera is no more such because some source calls it that than the Korean War was a "police action" or genocide is "ethnic cleansing" because someone called it that. You should be ashamed of yourself for relying on such blatant unsupported self-reporting.

George Gershwin was a fine composer of the higher end of popular music of great cultural importance, but he was no more capable of composing an opera, no matter what his pretensions or intentions, than I am of flying to the moon and back without a space ship and living to tell about it. Porgy and Bess is the musical equivalent of what in medicine would be called a diagnosis of exclusion, meaning that you rule out every possibility that there is no true American opera, and that being an unacceptable case, you let in Porgy, which has the added virtue of being sociologically apologetic in a comforting sense. Musically, is it no more or less an opera than West Side Story, whose composer at least could compose classical music but had enough sense to know that none of if could be opera.

Let's leave Iced Note with Cav and Pag, shall we?

[piston]

I have just added a L. Price link, P.S., in the message above. It's the "Summertime" highlight from the opera. It will probably not be possible to convince you, whatever I add to this discussion. But people can always listen to the very operatic way Price sings that "aria."

[jbuck919]

I have just added a L. Price link, P.S., in the message above. It's the "Summertime" highlight from the opera. It will probably not be possible to convince you, whatever I add to this discussion. But people can always listen to the very operatic way Price sings that "aria."

I once heard Jan de Gaetani in recital (she was performing Pierrot Lunaire) and her encore was several songs by Stephen Collins Foster in their original settings. Very lovely, very artistic, very affirmative of Foster as such an important composer of American song. Does that make him an art composer? No, of course not.

Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me.
Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee.
Songs of the rude world, heard in the day,
Hushed by the moonlight have all passed away.

[pizza]

Porgy & Bess is without any doubt, at least coming from any serious musicological source, an opera. John Ardoin's short article is instructive, and for a more comprehensive source, read Hollis Alpert's great study "The Life and Times of Porgy & Bess".


The Great "Porgy" Debate
By John Ardoin


Porgy may boast of having "plenty o' nuthin'," but George Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess" can claim lots of everything. As conductor Lorin Maazel observed when he made the first uncut recording of this magnificent work in 1976, "Gershwin's compassion for individuals is Verdian, his comprehension of them, Mozartean. His grasp of the folk-spirit is as firm and subtle as Mussorgsky's, his melodic inventiveness rivals Bellini's...."

Happily, the great "Porgy" debate -- is it a folk opera? a musical comedy? a jazz drama? an operetta? -- is now history. "Porgy" is an opera, and a grand opera at that. As a theater piece, it easily meets the criteria for opera once established by Richard Strauss and his librettist, playwright Hugo von Hofmannsthal: It has pathos, comedy, and high drama, and each of these elements is expressed through a wide variety of music.

It took a long time for us as a nation to realize this, however. It was not until 1985, the fiftieth anniversary of "Porgy"'s premiere, that it at last reached the stage of the Metropolitan Opera. If further authentication of its operatic credentials were needed, it came when "Porgy" became the hit of the European summer music festival circuit in 1986, in a landmark production by the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in England, followed a few years later by a production at London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Although it was premiered in 1935, the opera's roots extend to 1924 and a slim novel, "Porgy," by the Southern writer Edwin DuBose Heyward. The idea for the book came from a newspaper clipping about a crippled black man who was indicted in Charleston, S.C. -- Heyward's home town -- for a crime of passion. Heyward took the news item and added to it his memories of the teeming life on Charleston's waterfront and in Catfish Row, the city's black quarter. From these different elements came first a book, then a play, and finally an opera.

In their biography of the Gershwin brothers (Ira, who wrote "Porgy"'s lyrics, and George), authors Robert Kimball and Alfred Simon note, "It is astonishing today how innovative the treatment of black life in 'Porgy' was. Heyward wrote not out of pity for an exploited race, nor with any desire to propagandize; rather it was his intention to dramatize a way of life which he found strange and admirable and worthy of serious artistic expression."

Those qualities would be the basis of the opera as well. After reading "Porgy" in 1924, Gershwin was determined to make an opera out of it. Intensely ambitious, he longed to be regarded as more than a supremely gifted songwriter. After his acceptance on Broadway, he sought and gained acceptance in the concert hall with the Concerto in F, his first "serious" piece. Soon to come was another, "An American in Paris." Gershwin saw "Porgy" as a way of winning final acceptance by the serious music community.

But a decade passed before his only opera became a reality. In the meanwhile, there were a string of musical comedy successes on Broadway that included "Oh, Kay," "Funny Face," "Girl Crazy" and "Strike Up the Band." The music for "Porgy" was finally finished in 1934. It had taken Gershwin eleven months to write and nine months to orchestrate. The Theater Guild, which had staged the play Heyward and his wife fashioned from his book, agreed to produce the opera as well. Rouben Mamoulian was engaged to produce it, Alexander Smallens to conduct it, and baritone Todd Duncan (described by Gershwin as "a colored Lawrence Tibbett") was discovered and signed to create Porgy. His Bess was another newcomer, soprano Anne Brown.

There were tryouts in Boston before proceeding to New York, and here the first of a number of unfortunate cuts were made to trim "Porgy" down to Broadway size, including the opening "Jazzbo Brown" sequence, the "Buzzard Song" and the wrenching lament in the finale, "Oh Bess, Oh Where's My Bess?" The pared-down opera opened in Boston on September 30, 1935, to audience and critical acclaim. "Gershwin's most important contribution to music," said the Christian Science Monitor. "Gershwin must now be accepted as a serious composer," noted the Boston Transcript. The New York opening followed on Oct. 10. The Manhattan audience was just as enthusiastic, but the New York press was not. Thus began the great "Porgy" debate. The critics were unable to accept the piece as an opera. They were upset by what they perceived as a disturbing and unconventional blend of musical comedy and opera. "Porgy," however, lasted 124 performances.

Although the best tunes from "Porgy and Bess," such as "Summertime" and "Ain't Necessarily So," continued to be loved and sung, the opera as a whole went into an eclipse. When it was revived in the 1940s on Broadway, it was in a two-act version with spoken dialogue and further cuts. The world was still not ready to accept "Porgy" for what it was -- grand opera. Beyond this, further acceptance was delayed because many blacks in their struggle for equal rights during the 1950s and 1960s were offended by the portrayal of their race presented in "Porgy."

The road back to "Porgy" as Gershwin conceived it began with the Maazel recording and a production in Houston, Texas, that was mounted for the Bicentennial. At long last, the score was heard in toto, in all its strength and beauty. It was a revelation. "Porgy"'s rightful acclaim came too late for George Gershwin to appreciate, however, for he had died in Hollywood on July 11, 1937, at the age of 38. But one hopes he realized that "Porgy" was a major moment in the history of opera, one where "the livin' is easy, fish are jumpin' an' the cotton is high."

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/porgy/html/work.html

[moldyoldie]

I'd also suggest for an English-speaking novice the fine English language operas of Benjamin Britten such as Peter Grimes and Billy Budd.

For me, good entry points to the world of opera were:

Die Meistersinger von Nuremburg - Wagner
Carmen - Bizet
Tosca - Puccini
Rigoletto - Verdi
Salome - R. Strauss
Eugene Onegin - Tchaikovsky

[IcedNote]

If you want an entree into opera that is American, I suppose that Amahl and the Night Visitors would do, as it is extremely useful for getting children interested, but I think Iced Note is a little past that point.

Just barely!

I've listened/watched Fidelio several times, and I greatly enjoy it. Then again, Ludwig V is my favorite.

-G

[IcedNote]

I'd also suggest for an English-speaking novice the fine English language operas of Benjamin Britten such as Peter Grimes and Billy Budd.

After seeing Paul Bunyan, I am hesitant to expose myself to any of his others!

-G

[diegobueno]

Nothing wrong with modern American operas, either. One of them is called "Porgy and Bess."

And another of them is not. Except that there is no "one of them" to call that in the first place (uh oh, here comes Diegobueno). The younng man asked for opera, folks, not Broadway musicals pumped up by political correctness and an abundance of eager African-American singers who wished it were necessarily so. And yes, I'll comment on it every time it comes up.

And I'll repeat it every time you come up with this kind of idiotic response. Porgy and Bess is an opera and a great one.

[diegobueno]

I'd also suggest for an English-speaking novice the fine English language operas of Benjamin Britten such as Peter Grimes and Billy Budd.

After seeing Paul Bunyan, I am hesitant to expose myself to any of his others!

-G

I saw Paul Bunyan at Glimmerglass in the 1990s with my first wife. She was no friend of modern music, but she was absolutely charmed by it.

[Febnyc]

It appears that, due to the nattering of our resident know-it-all elitist, we have strayed to some extent from answering the original question posed here by IcedNote.

I would recommend Puccini's Tosca as an "accessible" (however one defines that word) opera.

Tosca is concise. It is in three acts, each of which is relatively short. There is no "down" time; no break in the action. The opera opens in medias res - the story has already begun before the curtain rises. There are no side issues, no masquerades. The characters - only three really matter - are human and real - or could be real people. The plot is easy to follow and continues in a straight line to the conclusion. Each act takes place in a venue which actually exists in Rome, even today.

The mounting tension which pervades the work gives it a feeling of impending catastrophe - and the second act is a roller-coaster of possibilities. The torture scene and the final, desperate act of Tosca's add to the anxiety one feels for the protagonists, and set up the bleak finale.

Tosca represents one of Puccini's best scores. The tenor has a rhapsodic aria early in the first act and an emotional and heart-rending one near the finish. The soprano joins him in a ravishing duet early and another later. Her second act aria, Vissi d'Arte, is one of the most famous written for soprano. The baritone, epitomizing evil, has suitably powerful solos. His aria before the massed chorus which ends the first act is shattering in its strength.

In all, I think Tosca is a perfect opera for people who hate opera. Give it a try - surely see it if you can - and enjoy it.

[diegobueno]

This is a hard question to give a definitive answer to since we don't know the tastes of the individual in question. For some people, the over-the-top emotionalism represented by Puccini could be very off-putting.

It took me a really long time to acquire a taste for Puccini. There's something I might call "feminine" about his music, if music may be said to have gender characteristics -- a thesis I find ridiculous today, but seemed perfectly plausible to me as a youngter. I felt intensely embarrassed to be listening to Puccini's music, even at home alone. It made me feel like I was wearing a dress. Nowadays I take this as a sign of how completely Puccini was able to empathize with his female characters.

Anyway, I've noticed that women take more readily to Puccini than men, so I would only recommend him to a female newbie.

[johnshade]

Carmen
The Marriage of Figaro (or Don Giovanni, or Cosi fan tutte)
The Barber of Seville
La Boheme

~
I nominate Don Giovanni (less complex than Marriage of Figaro and more exciting than Cosi -- although I personally like these equally as well).

Reasons this opera is accessible:
- The action is fast moving, there are no longueurs.
- Plot is easy to understand even without a libretto or supra titles.
- The characters are clearly delineated.
- The music is accessable and memorable.
- It is an opera representing artistic creativity that is unsurpassed.

[IcedNote]

To be a bit more clear, let me talk about good ol' rock'n'roll music for a second.

If you were to take someone completely unfamiliar with rock music, where would you start? I, for one, would start with something like:

1) Led Zeppelin - Stairway to Heaven
2) Rolling Stones - Satisfaction
3) Jimi Hendrix - Purple Haze

Is everyone going to like these? Of course not. However, these songs are GENERALLY well-liked by nearly everyone who likes rock music, so it is a great place to start if you want to introduce someone to rock'n'roll, even if they don't like what they've heard on the radio.

KnowwhatImean?

-G

[johnshade]

Fidelio for the Beethoven fan. If you like his symphonies and concertos you can enjoy his opera.

~
I don't know about this. I love Beethoven, especially the piano sonatas and other chamber music, and Beethoven's symphonies and concertos are unsurpassed. Fidelio, however, is well down on my list of favorite operas. I consider myself an enthusiast of German opera.

[lmpower]

I would start off with Carmen. Both the plot and music are accessible to a broad general audience. It was the first opera I ever saw at age 12, and I've been an opera fan ever since.

[Brendan]

Personally speaking, it took some listening to overtures and arias (and masses) before I could sit through an entire opera comfortably. Listening to Callas sing the Habanero from Carmen, however, made me determined - although it was her Tosca that really grabbed me. The Flying Dutchman was another early favourite, along with Figaro and The Barber of Seville.

La Traviata, La Boheme, Aida, Falstaff, Salome and others quickly followed. Strangely, these days I tend to listen to highlights again rather than take the time for a full opera. Depends on mood and time available too, of course.

[MaestroDJS]

It's been said that familiarity breeds contempt, and perhaps one reason American operas tend to be underrated is that they are often in familiar idioms. Oddly enough, Europeans don't seem to have a similar aversion to music based on popular idioms. For example, I fully believe that Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin is a genuine opera, and one of the finest ever composed by anyone, American or not. But one need not take my word for it.

Porgy and Bess is an opera. It is not an operetta, a musical comedy, nor is it a jazz drama, Black Blues, or pre-Soul. We performed and recorded it as an opera, as one worthy of the same care and devotion we would have accorded any operatic masterpiece. Gershwin's compassion for individuals is Verdian, his comprehension of them, Mozartean. His grasp of the folk-spirit is as firm and subtle as Moussorgsky's, his melodic inventiveness rivals Bellini's, ingenious and innovative are his compositional techniques. How glorious it is to hear the entire opera, without the dozens of cuts, which have mutilated form, flow, dramatic tension. The reinstated sections are of the richest inspiration, and serve to realign the internal balance of the work. Love for the opera felt by the case, chorus and orchestra imbued the recording sessions with a fervor, I believe, the microphones have caught. May the listener share our joy.

Another superb American opera is Vanessa by Samuel Barber, to a fine English libretto by Gian Carlo Menotti. The original cast recording from January 1958 sounds as if it were made yesterday, with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos, and such luminaries as Eleanor Steber, Rosalind Elias, Regina Resnik, Nicolai Gedda, Giorgio Tozzi etc. At the high point of one aria, Anatol (Nicolai Gedda) sings, "Who can resist your gentle beauty, Erika?" Indeed, who can resist the wondrous beauty of this entire opera. The Intermezzo to Act IV is sometimes played in orchestral concerts, and features a melody that just goes on and on gorgeously. The entire opera contains some of Barber's finest inspirations.

Other notable American operas include The Tender Land by Aaron Copland, Susannah by Carlisle Floyd, Wuthering Heights by Bernard Herrmann, and A Streetcar Named Desire by André Previn. Although Copland's The Tender Land tends to be slow overall, I absolutely love the rapturous romantic 10-minute Love Duet between Martin and Laurie, which perhaps surprisingly takes place on a Midwestern farm. It's a landscape not too far removed from where I grew up here in the Prairie State.

Whether it's set in a mythical land of dwarves and dragons or down on the farm, a good opera is a good opera.

Dave

PS. Unfortunately I cannot recommend A Quiet Place by Leonard Bernstein. Every few years I listen to this opera to try to reassure myself that it cannot possibly be as terrible as I remember, but it is.

[jbuck919]

It appears that, due to the nattering of our resident know-it-all elitist, we have strayed to some extent from answering the original question posed here by IcedNote.

(Doing my best imitation of Steven Colbert):

So, you admit that you're slumming it when you listen to Porgy and Bess!

[jbuck919]

I fully believe that Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin is a genuine opera.

Let it be noted that every single poster who has taken that stance on this thread has used language reminiscent of what we normally apply to revealed religions with a scripture and inviolable doctrines. Have it your way, folks; I'm not running for office.

However, elsewhere in his post Dave does touch on an issue that perhaps has more bearing on the subject: Where are the American operas? And the answer might very well be, they are there; it's just that the better ones are not sufficient crowd pleasers ever to have made it into the repertory. For that reason, who can tell you whether or not Sessions' Montezuma is a wonderful opera? Nobody, because nobody has heard it, though I know that Sessions is a wonderful and neglected American composer, and a couple of my college professors who had heard it thought it was a masterpiece.

[Brendan]

Actually, the replies and articles supplied (the one supplied by Pizza springs to mind) seem quite sensible and well-balance, and not merely argument by declaration. How is

Happily, the great "Porgy" debate -- is it a folk opera? a musical comedy? a jazz drama? an operetta? -- is now history. "Porgy" is an opera, and a grand opera at that. As a theater piece, it easily meets the criteria for opera once established by Richard Strauss and his librettist, playwright Hugo von Hofmannsthal: It has pathos, comedy, and high drama, and each of these elements is expressed through a wide variety of music.

"reminiscent of what we normally apply to revealed religions with a scripture and inviolable doctrines"? Just nonsense.

[jbuck919]

Actually, the replies and articles supplied (the one supplied by Pizza springs to mind) seem quite sensible and well-balance, and not merely argument by declaration. How is

Happily, the great "Porgy" debate -- is it a folk opera? a musical comedy? a jazz drama? an operetta? -- is now history. "Porgy" is an opera, and a grand opera at that. As a theater piece, it easily meets the criteria for opera once established by Richard Strauss and his librettist, playwright Hugo von Hofmannsthal: It has pathos, comedy, and high drama, and each of these elements is expressed through a wide variety of music.

"reminiscent of what we normally apply to revealed religions with a scripture and inviolable doctrines"? Just nonsense.

"Happily, the great "Resurrection" debate--is it a fabrication? a re-interpretation of real experiences? a metaphysical idea that became more real than reality?--is now history. the Resurrection really happened, and it was the event of all time. As a historical event it easily meets the criteria for such established by Saul/Paul of Tarsus and his neo-platonist school of thought. It has high drama and possibilities for gripping the imagination for centuries to come, and each of these elements is expressed through a large body of great art."

[Brendan]

Actually, the replies and articles supplied (the one supplied by Pizza springs to mind) seem quite sensible and well-balance, and not merely argument by declaration. How is

Happily, the great "Porgy" debate -- is it a folk opera? a musical comedy? a jazz drama? an operetta? -- is now history. "Porgy" is an opera, and a grand opera at that. As a theater piece, it easily meets the criteria for opera once established by Richard Strauss and his librettist, playwright Hugo von Hofmannsthal: It has pathos, comedy, and high drama, and each of these elements is expressed through a wide variety of music.

"reminiscent of what we normally apply to revealed religions with a scripture and inviolable doctrines"? Just nonsense.

"Happily, the great "Resurrection" debate--is it a fabrication? a re-interpretation of real experiences? a metaphysical idea that became more real than reality?--is now history. the Resurrection really happened, and it was the event of all time. As a historical event it easily meets the criteria for such established by Saul/Paul of Tarsus and his neo-platonist school of thought. It has high drama and possibilities for gripping the imagination for centuries to come, and each of these elements is expressed through a large body of great art."

Yeah, right. This is meant to be a sensible response?

[pizza]

When an idea enters the mind of our resident elitist, neither fact, nor logic, nor argument, nor considered opinion, nor rain, nor sleet, nor snow, nor gloom of night shall divert him from his appointed belief.

[jbuck919]

When an idea enters the mind of our resident elitist, neither fact, nor logic, nor argument, nor considered opinion, nor rain, nor sleet, nor snow, nor gloom of night shall divert him from his appointed belief.

Anyone with any inclinations in the direction of connoisseurship, and you, Pizza, are one of our prime examples from whom I have learned a great deal, and whom I have never had to call to task here before as opposed to on the Pub, is subject to being called an elitist. It is an epithet most feared by Americans, and I had hoped that perhaps we would not find a veritable army of people here who want to equate Porgy and Bess with Rosenkavalier and Elektra in order to avoid that label.

[diegobueno]

Frankly, John, I don't see anything in your thinking that comes anywhere close to qualifying as "elite". You're spouting nonsense.

[jbuck919]

Somebody has been using an aerosol that makes people believe that "Summertime" is more "operatic" than "Old Man River" (they both require a huge trained voice but that does not make the works in which they occur operas rather than musicals). If someone would give me the formula, I'd devote the rest of my life touring the world to make people think that world peace is possible as well.

Here's a comparison equally apropos (meaning equally preposterous):

Porgy is Papageno
Bess is Pamina
Sportin' Life is Monostatos

Think about it: It kind of works, doesn't it? (I could extend the analogy but it's getting late.) So everybody is right after all. Porgy and Bess is an opera because Gershwin et al must have once attended a performance of The Magic Flute.

[diegobueno]

Boy, it took a really "elite" mind to come up with that one.

[anasazi]

Someone who likes classical music but not opera? Hey, that's me. So all I can say is that Puccini is 'the man'. Expecially Turandot. I guess that I've been spoiled somewhat by the movies, but I find a certain tension lacking in most other opera composers works. It is just not a musical thing. I love hearing Mozart arias, but the stories bore me. Mostly the same for even Verdi, while Wagner usually puts me to sleep (once I've enjoyed the fine overtures and preludes).

[MaestroDJS]

I fully believe that Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin is a genuine opera.

Let it be noted that every single poster who has taken that stance on this thread has used language reminiscent of what we normally apply to revealed religions with a scripture and inviolable doctrines. Have it your way, folks; I'm not running for office.

Nahhh, I simply agree with a source who probably knows more about music than I ever will.

Porgy and Bess is an opera. It is not an operetta, a musical comedy, nor is it a jazz drama, Black Blues, or pre-Soul. We performed and recorded it as an opera, as one worthy of the same care and devotion we would have accorded any operatic masterpiece. Gershwin's compassion for individuals is Verdian, his comprehension of them, Mozartean. His grasp of the folk-spirit is as firm and subtle as Moussorgsky's, his melodic inventiveness rivals Bellini's, ingenious and innovative are his compositional techniques. How glorious it is to hear the entire opera, without the dozens of cuts, which have mutilated form, flow, dramatic tension. The reinstated sections are of the richest inspiration, and serve to realign the internal balance of the work. Love for the opera felt by the case, chorus and orchestra imbued the recording sessions with a fervor, I believe, the microphones have caught. May the listener share our joy.

Dave

[BC]

My own take on this: go to see an opera or two.

Like many people who grew up with pop and rock, when I first started to explore classical music, I just didn't like the trained voice. The penny dropped the first time I actually went to see an opera. Prejudices I had about opera arising from a casual acquaintance with recorded opera or filmed opera were blown away by the experience of actually being there.

As for what to go and see, I don't think you can do better than the most obvious ones -- the better known ones by Puccini, Verdi or Mozart. You may associate the first two in particular with slightly second-rate music, and with grandmothers in furs eating chocolate, but it's a very different experience when you're actually there.

[diegobueno]

There's nothing even slightly second rate about either Otello or Falstaff. These are the finest operas ever written.

I wouldn't suggest Falstaff as a first opera, though. Otello, perhaps.

[BC]

There's nothing even slightly second rate about either Otello or Falstaff. These are the finest operas ever written.

I wouldn't suggest Falstaff as a first opera, though. Otello, perhaps.

To clarify, I didn't mean to imply that I personally thought Verdi or Puccini were second-rate. But in Britain at least there is still some snobbery about the perceived "vulgarity" of popular operas like Aida, La Traviata, La Boheme, Madame Butterfly etc. Nevertheless, they remain the easiest ones to see, certainly outside London. My advice was to ignore the prejudices and go and see them -- they can be fantastic entertainment, and I for one have no problem in enjoying the music.

[jbuck919]

There's nothing even slightly second rate about either Otello or Falstaff. These are the finest operas ever written.

I wouldn't suggest Falstaff as a first opera, though. Otello, perhaps.

It is nice to be able to agree with Mark on all points.

[jbuck919]

Someone who likes classical music but not opera? Hey, that's me. So all I can say is that Puccini is 'the man'. Expecially Turandot.

For some reason, he hardly ever gets mentioned here (I gave him a nod in an earlier post on this thread). He's often disparaged (for reasons I completely fail to understand) by the kind of musical snob and elitist that I am frequently accused of being, but his operas are works of great power that deserve their assured place in the repertory.

[karlhenning]

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky
Le rossignol (The Nightingale)
Olga Trifonova, Robt Tear & al.
Philharmonia Orchestra
Robt Craft

A delightful one-act opera based on a Hans Christian Anderson tale. (Seems accessible to me.)

John, was it your esteemed self asking after a good recording of this? This Naxos reissue of the Craft is excellent.



Cheers,
~Karl

[karlhenning]

I also think that Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades (Pikovaya Dama) is at once surpassingly excellent, and accessible.

Cheers,
~Karl

[jbuck919]

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky
Le rossignol (The Nightingale)
Olga Trifonova, Robt Tear & al.
Philharmonia Orchestra
Robt Craft


John, was it your esteemed self asking after a good recording of this? This Naxos reissue of the Craft is excellent.



Cheers,
~Karl

Sold, and thanks.

[diegobueno]

It is nice to be able to agree with Mark on all points.

It's got to happen every once in a while.