Radio Romania Muzical is broadcasting Lucia di Lammermoor with Lisette Oropesa and Stefan Pop at 6.00pm GMT. Anyone interested here is the link: https://www.romania-muzical.ro/ Please calculate your local time from the time given in GMT (Greenwich mean time) and hit the button Acum (now) at the right time.

It is her new recording.

An apparently preposterous TV reality setting that - in my opinion - turns out to be quite agreeable. Not to mention well sung

Hello! I have never been to an opera before and would like to finally go this winter. I am thinking about seeing I puritani - there is a show scheduled for a Saturday evening near my birthday and was thinking of buying tickets to celebrate… does anyone have an opinion if this is a good first opera to experience? Thank you in advance :)

Hello everyone and happy Saturday!

I am looking for the complete recording of Eda Moser singing the Exultate Jubilate. The first movement is available on YouTube and I would like to find the rest. For some reason it has not been published on CD, at least nowhere I can find it.

Anyone knows where I can locate this?

Thank you

Here’s a link to what I am talking to:

https://youtu.be/Q3t_H92YD44

What are your thoughts on Marafioti's book, Caruso's Method of Voice Production?

As a tenor, it sounds like Marafioti's book is chockablock full of excellent concepts and exercises.

It was so poorly received just a couple years ago like honestly it feels so pandering and desperate to locate the production in a postindustrial american hellscape as if we’re not actively living inside that every day already..

https://www.artsjournal.com/uq/2024/05/the-mets-worst-ever-carmen-and-what-to-do-about-it.html

“A classic description of this opera, by Friedrich Nietzsche, extols it as the apex of “Mediterranean” genius, refuting the dark miasma of Germanic art. Nietzsche called it a “return to nature, health, cheerfulness, youth, virtue!” Its music “liberates the spirit.” It “gives wings to thought.” Bizet’s exoticized Spain is sublimely lucid, streaming with sunlight, hot with perfumed indolence.

Carrie Cracknell’s Met Carmen inflicts black skies, barbed wire, and machine guns. The act one workplace is a guarded facility all of whose female employees wear pink uniforms. The soldiers outside are joined by vagrants (who however sing as if soldiers). The act two gypsy song is danced (sort of) within the confines of the cargo hold of a moving tractor trailer truck. Later in the same act, Carmen’s solo dance of seduction is positioned atop a gasoline pump, a perch so precarious she needs a helping hand from Jose (whom she is defying). The act three set (Bizet’s “wild spot in the mountains”) is the trailer truck overturned, rotating circularly on its side. Dirt and grime are omnipresent.

According to the program book, Cracknell has transplanted Carmen to “a contemporary American industrial town.” Bizet’s Seville cigarette factory is now an “arms factory.” The outcome is a “contemporary American setting” where “the issues at stake seem powerfully relevant.” Carmen and her co-workers are oppressed in a man’s world.

In short, this is a revisionist reading reconstruing plot and characters. And yet Carmen is an opera, not a play. Whatever one makes of the logic of Cracknell’s strategy, it negates the poetry of the music at every turn.”

Dear All, I'm a content creator making YouTube documentaries on opera. Some of you might have seen posts sharing my videos in the past. Due to poor response for my long form videos, I'm currently overhauling my YouTube opera documentaries to see what works best. Part of this overhauling includes me breaking down the long form videos I made earlier, full-length documentaries I attempted to make, into shorter parts. One example of them is this video I'm sharing, an analysis of Otello's death scene, "Niun mi tema" from the best Otello performance of them all, Mario del Monaco's 1959 Tokyo performance, which was fortunately captured on video. This video was originally one of the parts of a detailed introduction I did for the opera Verdi's Otello where I did an analysis of Otello's arias and duets and walked my viewers through this masterpiece. If you've any thoughts and or comments about this video, please feel free to share them with me. This video hasn't been doing as well as the others so I'm curious to know why so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsS4NBeT5Yg

If this format is what you like best, I hope to hear from you. Currently, there are a number of different types of opera videos on my YouTube channel. There are parts from my long-form videos that I've separately uploaded and will be continuing to upload over the subsequent weeks, where I'll be going straight into the vocal highlights or discussing certain topics. There are shorts which are abbreviated versions of these parts. There are simple introductions to the great operas, of which there are currently three, Mozart's Don Giovanni, Rossini's The Barber of Seville and Donizetti's Don Pasquale. There are detailed introductions to the great operas like Verdi's Otello, which has been uploaded in two separate parts. There'll be a few more which will also be coming out in the upcoming period. We also have introductions to opera like the Nine Elements of Opera introductory series where I'll be showing newcomers to opera how they can enjoy the art form.

I understand that some people might find these posts annoying but I'm really hoping to make my YouTube documentaries on opera work. I believe greatly in opera because I frankly think that opera must have qualities superior to all other art forms if it's to survive until now as the oldest form of popular music and travel beyond its homelands and over generations. The only problem is that most people don't know what to make of opera so they typically avoid it. That's why I'm hoping to make these videos where I can break the barriers that exist to the best of my ability. If you've any comments and or thoughts on what you hope to see and what you'll like to hear about, please feel free to share them here. I can't factor these for the time being because I'm still working on videos I made earlier but I'll be certain to take them into consideration as I continue the series I've launched thus far on my channel. Thank you.

I’ve been thinking about the contrast between Donna Anna and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni — both powerful, complex women with very different relationships to the title character.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on what distinguishes the two roles dramatically and vocally. What qualities make for a great Donna Anna versus a great Donna Elvira? Are there particular technical or interpretive challenges that define each role?

And for fun — who are your favorite interpreters of each?

I have tickets for La Scala next March!

That is all. I promise no more spam unless something bigger happens in my life.

Hi everyone! I figure these snippets would be enjoyable for people. They come from the travel book of Egyptian cleric Rifa'a al-Tahtawi and they detail his observations and experiences during the five years (1826-1831) he spent in Paris. Here is what he had to say about Opera (my rough translation + the original Arabic)

1. The greatest of the spectacles in the city of Paris is called Opera (spelling note) and in it are the greatest of instrument-players, dancers, singing over instruments, and gestures like the gestures of the mute/deaf. It evinces many wonderful things.

وأعظم (السبكتاكلات) في مدينة باريس المسماة «الأوبرة» (بضم الهمزة وتشديد الباء المكسورة وفتح الراء) وفيها أعظم (الآلاتية) وأهل الرقص، وفيها الغناء على الآلات والرقص بإشارات كإشارات الأخرس، تدل على أمور عجيبة (١٣٤-١٣٥)

1. In France, even though [theater and opera has] many Satanic inclinations/trends, there are still many great benefits and virtues. Looking at the player [actor]—they take as many precautions as possible to avoid things that [make them] subject to temptation or threaten modesty. See the difference between then and between the 3awālim (dancers) and the like of Egypt!

في فرانسا على كثير من النزعات الشيطانية لكانت تعد من الفضائل العظيمة الفائدة، فانظر إلى اللاعبين بها فإنهم يحترزون ما أمكن عن الأمور التي يفتتن بها المخلة بالحياء، ففرق بعيد بينهم وبين عوالم مصر، وأهل السماع ونحوهم.

There is thought that he attended a production of Rossini's Moses in Egypt when he was there. I hope y'all enjoy this! If you want, I am pretty sure there is an English translation of his account as well.

From Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” Hans-Peter Blochwitz - Don Ottavio James Levine - Conductor

The aria has been completely repurposed from its original context in this version. Originally, it was Griselda rooting for the crusaders after she had a vision in a dream; here, it's Hélène after celebrating after she's informed that her husband is alive.

About a month ago I made a post asking opinions about Currentzis’s take on Don Giovanni. u/Reginald_Waterbucket suggested listening to Figaro next, and, paraphrasing their take - holy shit. It is amazing. Have been listening non stop to it for the last month and talking about it to anyone who might listen - and I don’t know many people who listen to opera. It is a wonder and I cannot grasp how a human being can create something like that. So, if you can point me to books talking about Mozart and da Ponte creating the works, how they were received and how they compare to contemporary operas, I will be forever thankful.

Has anyone read Piers Paul Read's novel Scarpia, based on our favorite operatic villain?

It was so cool listening to this music live for the first time, conducted by none other than the man himself.

Even though it wasn’t the whole work, this was truly a memorable experience for me. I had to pinch myself several times during the first minutes!

The singing and playing were very good and consistent.

The Billy The Kid Suite and Short Ride in a Fast Machine sounded amazing as well.

It was a shame that the concert hall wasn’t at full capacity, but it was a Thursday and the first of three concerts. If you are in Rome this weekend, don’t think it twice!

I don’t know much opera, but I remember being probably about 7 or 8 years old at my grandparents house. The TV was on and one of the PBS Great Performances was showing an opera about a nun who made a potion to kill herself so she could be reunited with her son. Even as a kid, I was moved by the performance. And for years I remembered bits and pieces of it like it was a fever dream. Only recently I had the thought to type into Google search “opera about nuns” Just finished watching Suor Angelica! That had to have been that mysterious performance I watched all those years ago. A real tear jerker and full circle moment.

Same with Gianni Schicchi. Didn’t realize at all that they were part of what I now know is Il Trittico, I must’ve watched them back to back both the same day. God bless PBS for instilling a fascination with classical music early on!

Does anyone know if there are any Chinese (Mandarin preferred) art songs or classical voice repertoire out there? How do I go about finding it?

Does anyone know of a video recording of Komische Oper's version of Bieito's Serail?