Ten Operas

This is a list, and you know I love lists.  These 10 operas are all operas which I had never heard before I began blogging and have never seen a second time.  All stand out in my mind as outstanding memories.  None of them came to me by way of the Met and none are even close to the top 100.  I have listed them in order of their premier dates.  They cover the entire history of opera, and all of them deserve to be revived IMHO.

Francesco Cavalli's La Calisto (1651) in Italiian.  The musical style is late Monteverdi.  I acquired this from a pirated source in a production that involved René Jacobs.  I understand there is a legitimate DVD of this production that with some effort might be acquired.  This opera production seems to try to show us a true Venetian opera production with gods who descend through stage machinery and transform from baritones to sopranos.  I loved it for its sense of  fun.  Venice is the land of carnival so entertainment is the order of the day.  To present this opera you would need a baritone with a fabulous falsetto.

Jean-Philippe Rameau's Comédies lyriques Platée (1745) in French.  The musical style is French Baroque.  I saw this live at the Santa Fe Opera and thought it was great fun.  Since we are in France, the title character cross dresses from a male tenor to a female, instead the usual Italian arrangement at that time which involved mainly sopranos.  Maybe comedy is a theme for me.  I think perhaps operatic comedy was more significant in times gone by.  This plot is also about gods and magic beings. The title character is written for a French type of tenor called a haute-contre.  To present this opera you might need one.  He isn't falsetto.

Gioachino Antonio Rossini's Maometto Secondo (1820) in Italian. The musical style is early bel canto.  This was also seen live at the Santa Fe Opera with marvelous performances by Luca Pisaroni, Leah Crocetto and the rest of the cast.  It's a serious opera of great significance and an important political plot.  It's one of the operas composed for Isabella Colbran.  This needs to return, but to present it you might need someone who can be Isabella Colbran.

Heinrich Marschner's Der Vampyr (The Vampire) (1828) in German.  The musical style is German romantic.  I saw this live at the Komische Oper Berlin.  Is it a comedy, a tragedy, a soap opera, a horror movie?  What?  So Germans aren't as serious as we thought.  Who knew vampires were popular in the 1820s?  Our heroine is also a modern girl who dares all and triumphs in the end.  There's no cross-dressing.  There are no vocal oddities here or particularly difficult roles.  Present this in your local company.

Hector Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini (1838) in French.  The musical style is French romantic.  This is from a DVD from Salzburg that just happened to be in the opera shop in San Francisco when I was there.  The story takes place in Rome during carnival, creating many opportunities for frivolity. The title character is an actual historical figure, an artist from Florence who wrote a famous autobiography.  His bust is on the Ponte Vecchio in Florence. The Pope is a character. Cellini gets into lots of trouble but always finds his way out.  I see no severe difficulties with presenting this opera and don't think it has to be comedy.  Of this set of operas this is the only one that appears in the Met On Demand.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's The Maid of Orleans(1881) in Russian.  The musical style is Russian post-romantic.  Perhaps the reason this opera is not popular is because it is in Russian.  The Verdi Joan of Arc is more popular, but I think this one is a better opera.  For one thing this plot is a lot less ridiculous than Verdi's.  I saw it live at the San Francisco Opera and loved it.  Joan is a mezzo.  Is that the problem?  The difficulty with presenting this opera would be finding a singer to be Joan.  Dolora Zajick might not be available.



Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Die Tote Stadt (1920) in German.   In this list I think it is the closest to standard repertoire and would be classified as post-romantic or what I have called post-Wagnerian.  I saw it live at the San Francisco Opera.  I sat next to someone at the Cosi HD who thought this was the opera she hated most.  The more repulsive parts of the story suit the world view of the early twentieth century.  Maybe you shouldn't revive this for your local company.

Gian Carlo Menotti's The Last Savage (1963) in English.  Menotti's musical style is closest to American musical, but here he approaches bel canto. Modernism makes an appearance.  I saw this live at the Santa Fe Opera.  The plot most resembles a Tarzan movie.  I don't know if you would want this without the production.  The voice parts are not unusual, but you need a baritone who can pass for Tarzan.  Try it.

Philip Glass's Orphée (1993) in French after the Cocteau film of the same name.  In fact the dialog comes from the movie.  The musical style is modified minimalism.  I saw this live at Glimmerglass where they advised that you first see the movie.  I did not.  It seems the most like a real opera of Glass's operas.  It is an angel of death plot, except the angel falls in love with a mortal and tries to cheat fate. I see no barrier to producing this opera.

Oswaldo Golijov's Ainadamar (2005) in Spanish.  The musical style is South American modernism.  I saw this live in San Francisco presented by Opera Parallèle.  It jumps the time frame a couple of times, a problem that was easily solved in this production by displaying the year in the super-titles.  It is a biography of the playwright Federico García Lorca.   The music is exciting and fun and incorporates dance genres.  You will need dancers.
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Wonderful Things in 2013 so far

I believe this is chronological rather than ranked.

Ainadamar.  I keep looking to see what Opera Parallèle is going to do in the coming season, but nothing has been announced.  Here is a film of the opening.




Parsifal - I can't believe I'm saying this.  Here is a clip of Kaufmann singing "Amfortas!  Die Wunde!"



Neon lightning in the last scene of Rigoletto in the Met simulcast.  I couldn't find a film.

Cecilia's Norma recording.  This clip is "Mira Norma."




Discovering that the American Bach Soloists play in Davis.  I love the way they play Bach.  Here is the Kyrie and Gloria from the Messa in H-moll.



Anja Harteros and Jonas Kaufmann in Il Trovatore from Munich.

Natalie and Matthew in Tales of Hoffmann. 

Finding the film of Die Walküre with James Morris on YouTube.

And the best was Ainadamar.  These include live, simulcast, filmed, recorded and streamed performances.

Ainadamar 👍🏻

Chorus members in costume wandered among us before the drama.

Oswaldo Golijov's opera Ainadamar, Arabic for “fountain of tears,” as presented by Opera Parallèle, is a complete theatrical experience.  We have costumes.  We have marvelous dancing.  We have atmosphere created by lighting projections.  We have fascinating orchestral textures in Spanish style music.  We have poetry.  We have women's chorus.  We have history filled with violence.  And best of all we have gorgeous, full voiced singing.

I went with friends who had seen it before in Santa Fe and were completely confused by the Peter Sellars production.   And they actually know things about Federico Garcia Lorca.  For me a few quick glances at the program were enough to clarify everything I needed to know about this complex drama.  Congratulations to Opera Parallèle for another job well done.

Margarita Xirgu, sung by Marnie Breckenridge, is the main character of the drama.  The story begins in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1969 when Margarita is an old woman who teaches about the historical Spanish figure Mariana Pineda who was the subject of a play by Federico Garcia Lorca, sung by  Lisa Chavez.  Xirgu's main student was sung by Maya Kherani.

Perhaps you are already confused.  Margarita appears with her students and they sing about Mariana.  Margarita knew Lorca, whom she calls Federico, and flashes back to their last meeting in Granada, Spain, in 1936.  The changes in time and place were flashed on the supertitles.  You knew they were good for something.  Federico hands Margarita a drink and tells her that as a child there was a statue of Mariana Pineda outside his room.  She was a martyr to an earlier Spanish revolution in 1831.

So we have three time frames:  1831, 1936 and 1969.  We see Mariana Pineda executed on the stage.  And we see Lorca shot by members of Franco's army.  Margarita tried to persuade Federico to go to Cuba with her on her dance tour, but he wanted to stay in Spain to experience the violence.

The almost Flamenco dancing was extremely beautiful--I say almost because it included everything except the banging on the floor.  The head dancer is named La Tania, I think.  Jesus Montoya sang in a Flamenco style.  He was incredible.  I was on the edge of my seat the entire performance.

You should know by now that I am a fan of Golijov.  Stop writing stupid symphonies and give us another opera.

If you are searching for intelligent life in your opera, I can highly recommend Opera Parallèle in San Francisco.  They have pretty much cornered the market on the National Opera Association's Opera Competition, winning first prize for 2011 and 2012.  Perhaps they will win again this year.

I have just one question:  suitcases?

Recommendations

Gramophone recommends a list of instrumental CDs you should buy so you can get familiar with the new composers. I would like to make some different recommendations.


Rent the movie Koyaanisqatsi to hear Philip Glass's score.


Or try Dawn Upshaw's recording of Ayre by Golijov.


Jump into Arvo Pärt's Passio.


Get deeper into Golijov with his St. Mark Passion.


Mr. and Mrs. Lieberson are both excellent together in the Neruda Songs.

Do modern operas.

Start with John Adams' Nixon in China.


Then move on to L'Amour de Loin.


And for the definitive Philip Glass experience what better than Einstein on the Beach? Don't keep any sharp objects in the vicinity.

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Pronouncing Golijov

A gentleman from Argentina, the young conductor Daniel Canosa, informs me that Osvaldo Golijov, a fellow countryman, is properly pronounced with a [x] sound, like in noch or chanukah: goal-i-choff. I met him at a party after a concert by Camerata California, a chamber ensemble in Sacramento. I enjoyed very much the repertoire they performed, especially Fern Hill by John Corigliano on a poem by Dylan Thomas. When I was very young, I performed a recital with Betsy Collins as my accompanist. She is still playing and did an excellent set by Chopin on this concert. About 20 years ago we did the fourth of the Brahms Four Serious Songs together at a wedding. I didn't think this piece was suitable for a wedding, but my friend requested it, and I couldn't say no. Betsy didn't have a piano reduction for Lohengrin, otherwise known as the wedding march, so she played from an orchestral score.

The Voice of Now

I attended a Cal Performances concert last night at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley that featured three pieces performed by Orquesta Los Pelegrinos, orchestra of pilgrims, one with Dawn Upshaw. All three were fascinating, probably in ascending order. Ms Upshaw and the orchestra are touring these pieces around the country.

All three works involve electronic music in one form or another. The audience experienced the electronics through the auditorium's sound system, but the musicians were aided by speakers that pointed back toward them. Clearly we are in the realm of today.

There are unusual features galore. The first two works featured a prepared Steinway grand piano, an idea invented / popularized by John Cage that involves making physical changes to the piano that alters the sound. In Meanwhile the sound was muffled by padding the hammers. The prepared piano in the second piece was a more traditional mixture of distorted sounds and strumming on the strings. Imagine--John Cage now represents a tradition. This is a sign that one has lived too long. The player was a young woman named Lisa Kaplan who came attired in jeans, a black blouse and high heel boots.

First is Meanwhile (2007) by Stephen Hartke.

Is there anything else I can say about Meanwhile besides that it used prepared piano? The piece is described as incidental music to imaginary puppet plays. Imagine any play you like. The viola is tuned a half step lower than normal.

Percussion is vital to this sound scape work. The flautist and clarinetist eventually turned into percussionists by the end. The percussion ensemble included a lot of wood tones and an invented electronic instrument. The sound ideal seems derived from gamelan. It was fun.

Second is Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale, 1971) by George Crumb.

Have you heard whale songs? Judy Collins once had a song that included them. They are eerie and mysterious. When you were listening to them, did you imagine these sounds could be produced by electronic flute, cello and prepared piano? In the presentation of the theme the flautist, Timothy Munro, played and sang through his flute to produce some pretty bizarre sounds. The tunes clearly come from the whales themselves, but it is the phrasing that makes you actually feel whale songs. I would not have thought this possible. There were no recordings of whales included in the performance.

This piece was played with the lights dimmed and the players blindfolded. One is to imagine oneself deep in the ocean. They walked off with their blindfolds still on, though I think the pianist may have been cheating. The masks and dim lighting are suggested by the composer. Nothing is said about any possible role for extemporization, so I assume they memorized their parts.

The most curious sentence in the program says that "George Crumb is one of the most famous composers of out time." I am even more out of the loop than I thought.

Last is Ayre (2004) by Osvaldo Golijov.

If they'd said Osvaldo Golijov is one of the most famous composers of our time, I would have believed it.

The orchestra expands to eleven players, including Jeremy Flower on laptop computer who adds recorded elements when they become necessary. This is a very tricky job which he pulled off expertly. His part included Dawn Upshaw singing with herself. Percussion is also vital to Ayre, and it is curious that the percussionist hid on the floor behind the double-bass player. Was this to prevent us from knowing how much of the rhythm came from him and how much came from the laptop?

Ayre is deeply middle-eastern, fundamentally monophonic with several players providing the same melody, rather like Turkish music with a much more high tempo, driving rhythm. In my CD review of this piece I compared it to Klezmer, and this still feels right.

It was wonderful to see and hear Dawn Upshaw. She stands in the middle and leads her ensemble in a way that can only remind one of La Bartoli. I'm glad she figured out a way to present this cycle to the public. It's very exciting. It is her ability to immerse herself in the style that makes this work. All is done without compromising classical vocal technique. Best wishes.

I'm going on and on. And I haven't said anything about the hyper-accordion. The entire concert was completely fascinating. I have a feeling that this is what passes as classical music in the twenty-first century. There are apparent connections to whales, klezmer and gamelan, but connections to classical music as we know it were not there.

Oceana

I am a fan of Osvaldo Golijov and enjoyed very much his St Mark's Passion when I heard it in London. The difference between the passion and Oceana, which is supposed to be a preparation for the passion, or at least a stylistically related piece, may lie in the performance. In London the players and chorus were primitives from South America who sang in a raw style that very much attracted me. Oceana is performed here by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Robert Spano, and the severe, almost monotonous classical style of the chorus is distancing. Maybe you would prefer it that way, but I didn't. It doesn't put me all the way off. Like all of his music, it's fascinating.

The pieces Tenebrae I and II, played by the Kronos Quartet, and Three Songs with his muse, Dawn Upshaw, are gorgeous and quite somber.

Golijov achieves something that not many modern composers achieve: he makes you want to hear more.
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Pronouncing Golijov

I have tried in vain to find any hints on how to pronounce Golijov. I have been saying "go-ledge-off" which simply can't be right. Even "hawl-yoff" seems more likely. Everyone seems to think we should learn how to pronounce it since he's going to be around, but no one gives any clues.

News

News from the Met:

'The Met has commissioned Golijov to compose his first full-length opera for the 2010-11 season. Gelb commented, “Osvaldo Golijov is a true and original voice who composes with great emotion and range. I’m very proud that his first major opera will be written for The Met.” Golijov said, “It’s time to grab the bull by its horns, and Peter Gelb is doing it by setting up a beehive of activity with wildly different creators that have something to tell, and a burning desire to tell it. I believe that this is the best chance for something wonderful to happen that will reverberate beyond the walls of The Met. For my part, I hope to compose a work that will not only be deserving of this house but, more importantly, of the power of opera as a vital means of expression in our world.”'

The man is everywhere. Forgive me for obsessing over him, but this guy is not doing classical music as we know it. Is he the wave of the future?

News

I was sucked in to reading an article in the Daily Telegraph this morning by this headline: "Karaoke crooners hijack classical music." I was fooled into thinking it was a complaint about the recent phenomenon of Boccelli, Groban and an unknown number of other singers who croon opera arias. This is brought on by the overwhelming success of Pavarotti's rendition of "Nessun dorma" in the Three Tenors concerts. Now everyone wants to sing it, imagining themselves capable of achieving Luciano's heights of expression. 

But no. It turns out to be a diatribe against crossover in general. Soon the distinction between classical and pop will be so blurry we won't be able to tell the difference at all. Hand wringing! Viewing with alarm! So guess what it turns out he is actually writing on and on for paragraph after paragraph about? . . . . . 

 

Osvaldo Golijov. If you guessed this, you get three points. Some of the singers, though certainly not all, in the passion concert could be mistaken for karaoke singers. Only the coloratura soprano had a classical technique. 

I will give one of my lectures here. The fundamental difference between classical and pop music is that classical arose in a hierarchical society where one preferred sharp distinctions between the upper and lower classes, while pop is a democratic art form. Read how hard Mozart worked to make sure that his wardrobe reflected the class of people he wanted to associate with. He wasn't poor, he was just not as rich as the members of the upper class who paid his bills. With the passage of time the desire to form into rigid social classes is fading.

Golijov is classical only in the complexity of his music. The Buena Vista Social Club is not this dissonant. If classical means difficult while pop means easy, he's classical. In his list of influences, a long list including virtually all of world music, he doesn't include Mozart or Beethoven.

St Mark

I'm going to try to describe Osvaldo Golijov's The Passion According to St. Mark, performed at Barbican Hall and conducted by Maria Guinand. It isn't going to be easy.

You start with a string orchestra about the right size for a Vivaldi concerto, then you add a lot of bongos and other drums, a guitar, a coloratura soprano (Anne-Carolyn Bird), people calling themselves "vocalists," a couple of dancers, a Bulgarian chorus.... No, they're not really Bulgarian, but they sound exactly like a Bulgarian chorus I once heard. They're Venezuelan and sing with an open throated, sometimes crude but very emotional style.

I said Ayre was klesmer. This is the Buena Vista Social Club with chorus.

This should not be mistaken for criticism. I'm just trying to give you the idea of it. It's very intense, the poor man's death of Jesus. Jesus was a poor man when seen from our point of view.

Golijov doesn't care where the idea came from, he just uses it. He is world music all wrapped up in one person. The package he creates is very involving and moving. You can listen to bits on Amazon.
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Golijov

Osvaldo Golijov, composer of the St. Mark Passion, Ainadamar, Ayre, and other works, is so hot right now! Dawn Upshaw's recording of Ayre --highly recommended-- has put him on the map. I'm going to hear his St. Mark Passion at the Barbican on Friday and will report. If his other stuff is anything like this interesting, it puts him well ahead of a long list of composers.

I am puzzled about why this is "classical music" and songs about people in WWII is not. Classical music is often a puzzling topic. A symphony is something that is played by a symphony orchestra. Opera is something sung by opera singers. Or what exactly is the definition?

I keep listening to Susan Graham's recording of Ned Rorem songs, but it simply never comes to life for me. Perhaps something interesting could be made of his songs, but I sure haven't heard it.
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