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There are still so many things I do not know about opera, so many great singers to know better than I do.  I clicked on this today.  The commenters were discussing which was their favorite, and I had never heard of it. 




The great Régine Crespin imparts a profound sense of dignity and self awareness to a song titled "O ma lyre immortelle."  Did the great Sappho know that she was one of the immortals?   Régine convinces us that she did.

Riccardo Chailly

So not French at all.

How often is the Opera about Love/Sex?

Plots of the 100 most popular operas are primarily about love and/or sex:

Love with Happy Ending (spoiler alert)  (22+)

1.The Marriage of Figaro--the count is humiliated but Figaro gets the girl.
4.The Barber of Seville--Count gets the girl.
7.The Magic Flute--mystical side story, but boy gets girl.
13.The Abduction from the Seraglio--woman is rescued from harem.
14.Fidelio--Leonora saves Florestan.  The great married love opera.
20.Turandot--he answers the riddles and marries the princess.
21.The Merry Widow--who gets the rich widow?
23.Der Rosenkavalier--it ambiguously leaves the impression that Octavian and Sophie are a couple.
25.L'elisir d'amor--potion helps Nemorino work up the nerve.
26.Ariadne auf Naxos--Bacchus rescues Ariadne.
37.Don Pasquale--young man gets the girl.
42.Der Freischutz--magic bullets, hit the target, get the girl.
43.La Cenerentola--she marries the prince.
46.Orfeo ed Euridice--in this version Euridice returns to life.
48.Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg--the tenor gets the girl.
49.Orpheus in the Underworld
50.The Bartered Bride--girl gets the boy she wants.
59.The Daughter of the Regiment
62.Siegfried--love only comes in at the end.
63.La Vie parisienne
65.Zar und Zimmermann--love and politics.
68.The Mikado--two couples.

Love (or at least sex) with Unhappy Ending (33+)

2.Tosca--Mario and Tosca die.
3.Don Giovanni--Giovanni goes down in flames for too much sex.
5.La Bohème--Mimi dies.
6.La Traviata--Violetta dies.
9.Madame Butterfly--for her it's love, for him it's just sex.  She dies.
10.Rigoletto--see Butterfly.
11.Carmen--Carmen dies.  For him it's love, not sure about her.
15.Aïda--Aida and Rhadames both die.
16.The Flying Dutchman--she saves him but then she dies. ??
17.Salome--weird but sex nonetheless.  She dies.
18.Un ballo in maschera--King is assassinated because he loves his friend's wife.
19.The Tales of Hoffmann--multiple love affairs that all end unhappily.
27.Lucia di Lammermoor--Lucia kills her husband.
28.Eugene Onegin--two ships pass in the night.  They love but stay apart.
30.Otello--He kills her, then himself.
31.Il Trovatore--the count kills his brother.
32.Die Walkure--the twins fall in love.  Wotan betrays them.
34.Cavalleria rusticana--Turiddu dies.
35.I Pagliacci--clown kills his wife.
38.Manon--she dies.
39.Lohengrin--usually Elsa dies when Lohengrin leaves.
40.Das Rheingold--Alberich would have settled for a Rhine maiden.
47.Andrea Chénier--love amid political turmoil.
51.Gotterdammerung--everybody dies.
53.Adriana Lecouvreur--Adriana dies.
55.Katya Kabanova--heroine throws herself in the river.
56.Werther--hero kills self.
57.La forza del destino--Leonora dies.
60.Wozzeck--hero kills Maria.
64.The Queen of Spades--Liza commits suicide, Herman goes crazy.
72.Manon Lescaut--same as Manon
75.Tristan und Isolda--both die.
78.West Side Story--Tony dies.

Love but Not Really Sure if it's Happy or Unhappy (8)

8.Cosi fan tutte--women are like that.  Production determines ending.
22.Falstaff--he doesn't get the girls, but everything else is ok.  Production determines end.
29.Faust--religious context, Marguerite dies but goes to heaven.
36.Don Carlos--many subplots but main story is love.  Don Carlo has mysterious rescue.
54.Tannhäuser--people die but all is forgiven.
58.Simon Boccanegra--doge dies but man doesn't marry his granddaughter.
66.Jenufa--lovers are left alone, still not married.
67.Mefistofele--another Faust opera.

Not about Love (8)

12.Die Fledermaus--joke side story.  Love is secondary
24.Hansel and Gretel--too young for love or sex
33.Parsifal--religion, not sure what it's about, sex but not love.
41.Nabucco--religious politics.
44.Elektra--revenge killings.
45.La clemenza di Tito--politics, happy ending.
52.Boris Godunov--Russian politics
61.Macbeth--Scottish politics.

11% of the top 100 operas are not about love.  I got bored before I got to the end of this list, but I think I've proved my point.  Which was that by far the most popular operas are about love. 

Now let's examine our modern list.

Love with Happy Ending (4)

The Postman Always Rings Twice --unwanted husband is murdered.
The Gospel of Mary Magdalene--he dies but then he comes back.
The ghosts of Versailles--I think the ending must be regarded as happy.
The Tempest--love is not the main story, but all ends happily.

Love (or at least sex) with Unhappy Ending (9)

L'Amour de Loin--exactly what the title says, love from afar.
Orphée--Orpheus plot.
The Letter--she gets away with murder but kills herself anyway.
The Great Gatsby--Gatsby is murdered.
Adriana Mater--ambiguous ending.
A Streetcar Named Desire--she goes to the nut house.
Anna Nicole--reality. 
Ainadamar--a great poet dies.
Sophie's Choice--woman chooses man who deserves her.

Not about Love (23)

The Women in the Garden--literature.
Harvey Milk--politics.
Einstein on the Beach--not sure what it's about.
The Martyrdom of saint Magnus--religion.
Le Grand Macabre--politics.
Lear--Ungrateful children.
The Red Line--politics.
The Village Singer--the love of singing.
Sweeney Todd--a profit making scheme.
King Harald's Saga--politics.
The Lighthouse--not sure what it's about.
Satyagraha--about Ghandi's political life.
Saint-François d'Assise--religion.
Nixon in China--politics.
Appomattox--history.
Licht: die sieben Tage der Woche--I lumped them all together, not sure what they're about.
The Death of Klinghoffer--old man in wheelchair is thrown off of ship.
Dead Man Walking--man is executed.
The man who mistook his wife for a hat--an opera about a medical condition.
Dolores Claiborne--child abuse and murder.
Heart of a Soldier--the 9/11 opera.
The Minotaur--a half human monster kills and eats people.
Moby Dick--madman gets everyone killed.

There are many more operas that could be listed, but I think I have cited enough.  66% of modern operas are not about love.  The ratio of love to not love is now completely reversed.  What love we have is often grotesque and perverted.  Obviously these statistics are not scientific, and serve only to illustrate what is going on.


Jesus is given a sex life, but no one seems to realize that the others need this as well.  Which of these operas that are not about love will survive?  Sweeney Todd seems well on the way to immortality, but I don't hold out much hope for the rest.  I loved most Ainadamar and L'amour de loin, both love plots.

For all I know the older operas were also 66% not about love and disappeared forever from our view.  Why commission an opera that you know will disappear forever after it is presented?  Why spend all that time writing an opera only to have it disappear forever?  Maybe someone will come along that can answer this.

Netrebko's Manon Lescaut

I am listening to Anna Netrebko sing Manon Lescaut from Rome, and my sense of it is that she has at last arrived where she should always have been.  Gorgeous.  To achieve magnificence it requires only the perfect tenor.  We can keep Muti.  Go to 1:57.

Prince Igor

Conductor Gianandrea Noseda
Production Dmitri Tcherniakov

Host Eric Owens

CAST IN ORDER OF VOCAL APPEARANCE
Prince Igor:  Ildar Abdrazakov
Prince Galitsky (Igor's wife's brother):  Mikhail Petrenko
Vladimir Igorevich (Igor's son):  Sergey Semishkur
Skula (deserter):  Vladimir Ognovenko
Yeroshka (deserter):  Andrey Popov
Yaroslavna (Igor's wife):  Oksana Dyka
Polovtsian Maiden:  Kiri Deonarine
Konchakovna (Khan Konchak's daughter):  Anita Rachvelishvili
Ovlur (Christian Polovtsian):   Mikhail Vekua
Khan Konchak (Polovtsian general):   Štefan Kocán
Yaroslavna’s Nurse:  Barbara Dever

My list says that I have seen Alexander Borodin's Prince Igor at the San Francisco Opera in 1996.  I don't remember.  There has been a massive effort to improve the theatrical viability of this opera and to alter the score to include only music by Borodin. 

Traditionally the scenes are:

Prologue--Igor's army leaves for battle.
Act I scene 1--Prince Galitsky's drunken bash.
Act I scene 2--Yaroslavna's chamber, news that Igor is defeated, enemy is approaching.
Act II--Singing and dancing in Polovtsian camp.
Act III--Igor and Vladimir are to escape, but Vladimir stays for Konchakovna.
Act IV--Igor returns home and is celebrated.

I am looking at the program for this performance and it seems to be incorrect.  I will attempt to explain what happens.  The Prologue is as before, but it is followed by the scene of singing and dancing in the Polovtsian camp.  This is the famous Polovtsian dances and takes place in a field of red poppies.  It is Igor's reality and fantasy mixed.  The enemy general and his daughter are introduced, and she falls in love with Vladimir.

Act II in this version includes scenes where women of the village come to Yaroslavna to complain that Galitsky has abducted a girl from the village.  Then there is a drunken bash with Galitsky where he plans to overthrow the rule of Yaroslavna.  Then there is a scene when the city council meets, declares that Igor has been captured, his army killed and the enemy is advancing.  Galitsky tries to overthrow Yaroslavna, but is killed.

Then there is a scene where Ovlur tries to persuade Igor and Vladimir to escape, but Vladimir stays for Konchakovna.  This is Act III above, but does not appear in the handout. In the end Igor returns to a ruined city and encourages rebuilding.

I felt that these changes were successful, that a level of theatricality had been achieved and that Igor became central.  The choral work in this opera is spectacular.  But in either arrangement bad guys always seem to have more charisma, and Prince Galitsky is wonderfully nasty.

The singing was particularly enjoyable.  I especially liked Oksana Dyka and Anita Rachvelishvili, next season's Carmen.  Her Carmen will be wild.

I don't think this opera will make it into standard repertoire.

P.S.  All my reviews are a work in progress.  After the Oscars I want to point out the original field of red poppies:  the Wizard of Oz.  Of course, these are California poppies.

Il Trovatore in Sacramento

Michael Morgan, Conductor
Robert Tannenbaum, Director

Ferrando: Tom McNichols
Inez: Rebecca Sjöwall
Leonora: Tiffany Abban
Count Di Luna: Marcus Jupither
Manrico: Arnold Rawls
Azucena: Tichina Vaughn

Ruiz: Theo Lebow

The Sacramento Opera presented Verdi's Il Trovatore at the  Community Center Theater.  It plays again tomorrow, March 2 at 8:00.

Following the trend of present day opera after Muti omitted the anvils, there were no anvils in the Anvil Chorus and no percussion to replace them.  If you insist on anvils, here it is with them:



The film includes some "Stride la vampa" as well.  Verdi did not compose anvils.

I digress.  When this was announced, I felt somewhat dubious about the whole thing.  This opera is very difficult to sing.  The cast changed my mind.

Azucena and Count di Luna in particular were well up to the task.  Manrico was light for the role but threw off a fabulous high C. 

What made a trip to the opera a really wonderful experience was Tiffany Abban, the Leonora of the evening.  She was a last minute replacement and was fabulous.  The picture above is her.  You should go just for her.

Netrebko News

All the news today is about Anna Netrebko.  The strike at the Rome Opera was averted, to show honor to Muti, and Puccini's Manon Lescaut went on as scheduled.  It, and especially Anna, was a triumph in her role debut.

Then more Netrebko news because she has cancelled all impending performances of Faust, including ROH and Vienna.  She has decided that the role is not for her.  My favorite Faust is still Ailyn, if anyone is looking.  Sonya Yoncheva will replace Netrebko in Vienna.

Opinion portion of item:

After all, why blog if you leave out your opinions?  For some reason that we are not privy to Anna Netrebko has been attempting to learn Leonora-Trovatore, Manon-Manon Lescaut, Marguerite-Faust and Lady Macbeth-Macbeth all at the same time.  One of these things is not like the others, one of these things does not belong.  Hint.  Maria Guleghina has successfully sung 3 of these while the fourth has been most notably performed by Victoria de los Angeles, an astonishingly different style of singer.  Who decides these things?  And why?

He is so cute!!

Zurich next season

Things of interest from this side of the pond:

Elza van den Heever will sing Elsa in Lohengrin.
Joseph Kaiser will sing in Juliette by Martinu.
Ailyn Pérez, Matthew Polenzani and Quinn Kelsey will all sing in La Traviata.  Ailyn is doing this everywhere.
Joyce DiDonato will sing her Romeo again in I Capuleti.
Katherine Nagelstad, whom we still remember is from here, will sing Minnie in Fanciulla.  I can't say how happy I am that this opera is getting so much play around the world.
Larry Brownlee will play the prince to Cecilia Bartoli's Angiolina in La Cenerentola.  This is an anniversary for me so I should go.
Nina Stemme will sing Isolde.
Eva-Maria Westbroek will sing Ariadne in Ariadne, and Pereira, the ex-Intendant, will do the majordomo.
Anna Netrebko and Luca Pisaroni will be in Anna Bolena.
Antonia Moore is singing Aida.
Diana Damrau will do Elixir.
Stuart Skelton will sing Das Lied von der Erde.

There's more.  Lots more.  The house in Zurich is small, but the dreams are very large indeed.

American Bach

I chose this photo because it was the only one I could find that shows Elizabeth Blumenstock, the concert mistress, even if it's only the back of her head.

They were terrific last night in Davis, as always, especially the double reeds:  Debra Nagy, Stephen Bard and Dominic Teresi.