[Rob Babcock]

Years ago, disgusted over the state of commercial pop radio in my area, I changed all the presets on my car radio to MPR, the local classical FM station.  I'd long loved classic but never really warmed up to opera.  When a piece of opera came on the air, initially I would simply turn off the radio 'til it was over.     As time when on I decided when something I didn't like came on, I'd simply "gut it out" as opposed to trying to find something better (no CD player in my car...).

I guess you can see where this is going.   Eventually I began to appreciate opera a little.  And somewhere along the line I discovered that I'd really begun to like it.  I think it was a program devoted to Maria Callas that finally turned me...

Any "real" opera fans here?  I'd have to consider myself a real "opera nOOb"!     I like Wagner, of course, and some of the old warhorses.  But I'm not very well versed.  Any suggestions out there?  What are the most 'accessible' operas, in your opionion?  A "top 10" of your favorites would be cool.

And has anyone heard Roger Waterss new opera, "Ca Ira"?  Supposedly it's a serious operatic work.  I hate to plunk down $30 for the SACD set if it sucks...

[ooheadsoo]

I'm a totally pathetic opera noob.  

That said, if you can watch the opera either live or on video, Wagner's Ring cycle is a good one if you dig lord of the rings with incest.  

Again, really helps if you actually watch the opera like you're meant to, give Alban Berg's Wozzeck a spin.  Real gutsy.  About an oppressed soldier, oppress, oppress, oppress, real powerful stuff.

For "lighter" fare, and an opera in which you probably know every big tune and number whether you realize it or not, Verdi's Rigoletto.  The story's not light.  You know, rape, murder and revenge, that kind of stuff.  Puccini's operas have some crossover pop hits stemming from them but I can't say I'm a fan.  Last of the bel canto style, if that's your thing.

Don Giovani by Mozart for some old school classical opera.  Really helps to watch.  Ok, I think it should just be a given that you NEED TO WATCH the operas to get the most out of them.  It's almost like listening to a movie playing in the other room in a foreign language, if you don't watch it.  More rape and womanizing in this one.

Pergolesi's La Serva Padrona is another classic for old school buffa.  This one's a comedy, it's light.

Oh yeah, Bizet's Carmen's got some hot numbers in it.  Watch out for the flower song.  You probably know how the story of this one goes.

This stuff needs to be watched!  I wouldn't buy any cds until I've seen a performance on dvd or whatnot.  Then you can shop around for the best performances.  Remember, opera cds tend to be expensive since each opera often runs several hours, and you're not buying a soundtrack, you're buying the whole shebang, so that's often up to 4 cds per opera per performance.  The performances can be hit and miss, as well, especially the ones that weren't meant to be filmed, and you see the big bug eyes and exaggerated stage gestures so that the people way in the back row can tell what's going on.

Ah, almost forgot Meyerbeer's Le Prophete.  Contemporary of Wagner, made him jealous as hell and go on antisemitic rants, which is why Wagner is known as an anti-semite.  I haven't seen a modern staging, though, which isn't surprising since it requires you to reconstruct a cathedral on stage.  About a radical religious plot to take over the world, sound familiar?

Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites gets a big thumbs up from me as well.  Very dramatic.  Don't remember the music though :p  50's french opera about the Terror after the revo.  I loved the bits I watched in class.  Wait, reading the synopsis now, I think I watched the whole thing in class.

[woodsyi]

I'm a totally pathetic opera noob.  

Nice job, noob.  

Good advice and good choices but your personal taste will really dictate what you like. ooheadsoo likes Wagner's Ring Cycle which generally tends to place him in the more dramatic opera camp.  Wozzeck sure is gutsy.  It happens to be one opera I would pick if I wanted to make sure to turn somebody off opera! But if you like atonal music it may be your thing.  Of the two I would say Lulu is more approachful.  One opera that is most accesible to Americans is Porgy and Bess by Gershwin.  Some snooty aficionados don't even consider it opera but I like it since I like Jazz and Blues.  Lyrical operas generally are more accessible.  Bizet's Carmen, Donizetti's L'Elisire d'amore, Verdi's La Traviata and Puccini's La Bohem are generally pleasing and good music throughout.  Visuals are important and I certainly encourage you to go see or see DVDs but I got hooked without ever seeing them first.  For me it's the voices of certain Divas and tenors.  Once you decifer the libretto you can visualize the scenery and let your imaginations fly.  Most of the time they are better than what you will see -- sort of like books and movies.  Some voices just grip me and some I can't stand.  You just have to try.  Tell me what kind of music you generally like and I can possibly point you to a few good ones to match your taste.

[woodsyi]

There is some one in UC system that is hung up on Wozzeck.  My wife took that Opera appreciation course over 20 years ago at UCSB and she has 4 copies of Wozzeck.     You just don't see too many Wozzecks in production anywhere.  It definitely is an academic piece.

[ooheadsoo]

HAH, I took 3 upper div opera classes at ucla!  It's come up in other classes besides just the one where it fell into the right century.  I remember first hearing about it, actually, in a music history class I was taking at a community college, not ucla, so it's not just ucs.  I mean, sure, it's not "popular" in the way that saving private ryan or something like that is but it's an effective work of art, in that avante garde sort of way.  It's not atonal, that comes later and it really blows chunks when it does come (imo) but does need something of a program to help us mere mortals make sense of it without listening to it 20 times in a row.  It's not going to be a money maker, so it's not produced, but just like in movies, it's the summer blockbusters that make the money, right?

Just thought of Rossini's Barber of Seville for some lighter fare.

[woodsyi]

HAH, I took 3 upper div opera classes at ucla!

So I exposed you as a fraud -- trying to pass yourself as a pathetic noob.... How pathetic is that? I don't have any collegiate opera classes under my belt.  I just grew up with Verdi and Puccini in the background.  I didn't really followed up on it until after college.  I have read a few books here and there and read the Kobbe's guide and Victor book inside out but what I really have done is just listened to a lot of operas -- both live and recorded.  Academic interests on certain operas are understandable in the grand scheme of the development of the genre, but the viceral connections are more easily made with the popular pieces -- after all they have withstood the test of time.  Certain voices singing an aria will hit me just the right way for me to empathize with the situation.  Che gelida manina! Se la lasci riscaldar. Cercar che giova? Al buio non si trova....  I can place my self in that setting holding Mimi's hand and gazing into her eyes  for the first time....  FYI,  I like Di Steffano's rendition the best on this particular aria.

[RoadTripper]

Here's a list:

Mozart - Marriage of Figaro
               Idomeneo
               Cosi Fan Tutte

Donizetti - Roberto Devereux

Rossini - Semiramide
                Le Comte Ory
                Italian in Algiers

Verdi - Nabucco
            Falstaff
            I Lombardi

Puccini - Manon
               La Boheme

Glinka - Ruslan and Lyudmila

Borodin - Prince Igor

Mussorgsky - Boris Goudonov

Massent- Werther

Busoni - Faust

Strauss - Rosenkavelier
                Ariadne Auf Naxos
                Salome
                Elektra
                Capriccio
                Die Frau Ohne Schatten

Prokoviev - Love for Three Oranges

Poulenc - Dialogues de Carmelites

Britten - Billy Budd


Note no Wagner on the list. I don't usually have the mental or emotional energy to handle him. I like Opera because it combines all the best of 'long-hair' music. Great orchestral stuff, great choral stuff, and great solo voices.  There is no top ten. And the above list leaves off a lot of really good stuff.  Donizetti's entire operatic output must have consisted in about 50 operas, so just having one up there is misleading.

If you leave Mozart off your 'must have' list, then you are missing the best. The Strauss list is long because I have all his operas and I like them all. Prokofiev wrote several more than one but the Oranges is easily the most accessible. Whoever said don't start with Wozzeck was right.

[Marbles]

There's only one Opera that I like....The Who - Tommy

[nathanm]

I can fully appreciate Rob's opera newbieness.  "Accessible" is about all I ask out of such music myself. To that end I would recommend Henry Purcell "Dido & Anneas" and Carl Orff "Carmina Burana"  Purcell is sung in English which is great if one dosen't understand Italian Latin or German etc. and it doesn't go on and on for 5 hours.  I tried Wagner, but it didn't grab me.  Make sure to get the Riccardo Muti version of Orff, it's got a painting of a guy holding grapes on the cover.  The percussion section actually plays like they mean it on this one.  Hell, even the liner notes allude to this piece being accesible by the common, lowdown, uncouth peasant.  And from what I understand it's all about drinking, sex and general debauchery so that's a plus.

The thing that sucks is that it's total hit or miss with these things. You'll inevitably make a judgement about whatever performance\recording you hear first.  If you don't like it you'll be hesitant about dropping more money in the hopes that somebody elses' version will be better even though that other version may have been just the ticket.  Hmmm.  

I can't even find the CD of the Purcell recording I want.  I've just got the gaptastic MP3s.  *sigh*

[ooheadsoo]

I'm still a newb  Growing up with something and being immersed in it is a perspective I'll never have.

Don't start with listening to Wozzeck, but I see nothing wrong with starting with watching it, especially if you're in an art movie mood.  Hey, I can think of few operas more visceral than Wozzeck

Wagner's whole shebang was incorporating the words, music, and staging all into one dramatic unity, so if you don't watch it, it's no surprise you don't really get into it.  It doesn't have any big numbers, per se.  The problem in general, I find, with only listening to opera and not watching is the pacing, which is definitely bizarre in modern terms. [/i]

[RoadTripper]

I agree with the idea of watching opera. I saw Die Fledermaus on my 8' diagonal big screen on INHD TV (high definition) a while back and it was absolutely rivetting. I have also watched opera on DVD and it was not so good (being as how I am now a high def snob). The out-of-lip-sync moments on the DVD were also very distracting, unlike with a movie where it is not nearly so bothersome.

[Rob Babcock]

Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana" is a favorite of mine- funnily enough I just listened to that last nite.   Yes, watching it is better; people often accuse Shakespear of being tedius and it is a bit if you read it.  But bear in mind that they're plays meant to be seen, not read.  It's like reading the script to a movie vs actually watching it.

Mozart is great, Verdi is good, and of course to me Wagner is king of them all.  Much of the stuff listed is familiar to me, but some will bear investigating.  As I say, I'm an opera nOOb but my appreciation has grown over time.

Still, has anyone seen or heard the Roger Waters opera?

[woodsyi]

Two DVD movies of opera (as opposed to a video recordings of stage productions)  that I think are mainstream and would work as great introduction to Opera are Zeffirelli's La traviata, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0783227477/002-1869032-5189643?v=glance&n=130 and Rosi's Carmen, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000022TSV/002-1869032-5189643?v=glance&n=130
The Stratas and Migenes aren't my favorite sopranos for the respective roles, but they look good and act professionally with good if not superlative singing.

[woodsyi]

Rob,

I have not heard it.  From the review it can't be that bad.  
http://www.pinkfloydz.com/caira.htm

I will order it and give it a listen.  I like Pink Floyd, I love opera and I like some Andrew Lloyd Webber.  Can't be too bad.  

Edit. I just ordered one of those used CDs that is linked on Amazon -- $13.98 shipped.

[Tweaker]

Puccini!!! You are never far, in any of his operas, from a wrenchingly beautiful aria or duet. There is an Australian production of La Boheme available on DVD with some very charismatic, young, and  (and slender!) singers that is superb. There is also a movie version of Madame Butterfly directed by  Frederic Mitterand that is very good. Ying Huang, the Chinese soprano who plays the part of Butterfly has a voice better suited to Bel Canto, but  nevertheless does a fine job. (To hear Madame Butterfly sung with the power and beauty required by the arias one must listen to Eva Marton or Renata Scotto, who actually ruined her voice singing the role too often).
There was also a wonderfully sung and visually stunning Italain production  of Aida broadcast on one of the HD channels recently that we enjoyed tremendously. As someone said, go see a live production, you may get hooked!

[RoadTripper]

Wow. I forgot what is probably my favorite: Bernstein's Candide.

[Randy]

A great recording of probably Mozart's best, Cosi fan tutte, on Harmonia Mundi, conducted by Rene Jacobs.  Jacobs's "Marriage of Figaro" is also supposed to be special, but I haven't heard it yet. 

 Another great opera that's hard to resist is Offenbach's Tales of Hoffman.

[Rob Babcock]

Guys, Carmina Burana isn't an opera.

quote]

I never said it was!   I just said it was a favorite of mine.

[jqp]

You should attend the opera. You can usually get tickets to the dress rehearsal, and it is casual dress. I had a friend in the Opera Chorus and I was able to see The Flying Dutchman, Tosca, Marriage of Figaro, Carmen, Nabucco

[Gordy]

Here's a nice link to a Ca Ira music preview... http://www.ca-ira.com/