Classical Listening

[Charles Darnay]

The ending from one of my favourite symphonies (sorry if it's already been posted on this thread)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rECVy...eature=related

Also, watching Berstein conduct is always fun

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Believe it or not, this is the first time I've ever seen Bernstein conduct. I've heard plenty of his recordings, but never saw him. I can see where his fame comes from. It seems like he's really sloppy, but I've never seen a conductor so into it before, singing along like that. I'm assuming that's why his orchestras are so powerful--the players can't help but get not it when watching him.

[stlukesguild]

Damn!!!

This just arrived this week. Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos with Hilde Zadek, Rita Streich, Sena Jurinac, etc... conducted by Joseph Keilberth with the Westdeutschen Rundfunks Köln Orchestra (WDR) recorded in 1954. The sound for this era is quite stupendous and both the soloists and conductor of great historical and artistic merit.

Best of all... the prices on these Historical WDR recordings are ridiculously inexpensive. I immediately rushed to pick up the following:



While Fidelio has never been my favorite opera, how could I possibly lose at $5 US for a recordings with Birgit Nilssen, Hans Hopf, and Gottlob Frick in his greatest role?! This performance was conducted by Erich Kleiber just weeks before his death.



Niccolai Gedda and Hermann Prey with Keilberth performing Gluck! I already have this opera in a more contemporary period recording... but still, I couldn't pass this one up.



Von Weber's masterpiece performed by Elizabeth Grümmer, Rita Streich, etc... with Erich Kleiber again. Again for only $10 US!!



Strauss' masterpiece with Astrid Varnay, Leonie Rysanek, Hans Hotter and Richard Kraus?

Double Damn!!!

I have gotten to the point where my recordings of Strauss operas outnumber those by any other composer... Wagner included!!! I must rectify this immediately. Perhaps another Ring cycle?

In the end, I even jumped on this disc from the same WDR historic recordings series.



Returning to Ariadne auf Naxos, this work is a marvelous slapstick comedy... an opera about opera and the theater... with the libretto by the brilliant librettist, Hugo von Hofmannsthal. The opera was first performed (in its original form) in 1912, a few short years after the Expressionistic tragedies, Salome (1905) and Elektra (1909). In the original form, the audience was presented only with a brief hybrid: an opera that combined a serious classical story with a comedy performed by a commedia dell'arte group. Not only was the result confusing, but impractical, at barely 30-minutes the work still demanded both an orchestra and opera singers as well as a troupe of comic actors. in 1916 Strauss expanded the work with a prologue that essentially "explains" the bizarre serious/comic opera: "Ariadne auf Naxos", a tragic opera, the first work of a young composer is to be performed at the home of the wealthiest man in Vienna. The music master in informed that a comic play and a fireworks display will immediately follow the performance of the opera. The music masters protests, but informs that he who pays has the ultimate say. The composer is fascinated with the beautiful, young Zerbinetta, leader of the comic troupe of actors, but is outraged when he learns that a comic play will follow his opera. While he is raging, the steward of the wealthy man again arrives and announces that for the sake of expediency, both the tragic opera and the comic play are to be staged at the same time. The composer is aghast, but Zerbinetta is able to seductively talk him into seeing it from another perspective. The opera takes the tale of "Ariadne and Theseus" in which the daughter of the King of Minos aids Theseus (the Athenian enemy of Minos) with whom she has fallen in love, in killing the Minotaur. She then elopes with Theseus who abandons her on the island of Naxos where in despair, she commits suicide. This tragedy is mutated into a farce when Zerbinetta and her four companions from the burlesque group enter and attempt to cheer Ariadne by singing and dancing. In a sustained and dazzling piece of coloratura singing, "Großmächtige Prinzessin" / "high and mighty princess" (the most well-known aria of the opera) Zerbinetta insists that the simplest way to get over a broken heart is to find another man. In a comic interlude, each of the clowns pursues Zerbinetta.

Ariadne auf Naxos proves a striking contrast to Strauss' other operas. As opposed to his usual penchant for lush, rich, and grandiose orchestration, Ariadne auf Naxos is performed by a stripped-down, chamber orchestra of some 35 instruments and piano. It and clearly illustrates the fact that Strauss had the ability to write striking passages of chamber music... and yet at the same time never abandon his signature sensuality.[/QUOTE]

[Charles Darnay]

I just can't get into any Strauss opera - maybe I just haven't come across the right recordings. I will have to check out some that you posted.

[stlukesguild]

Which Strauss operas have you heard?

[Charles Darnay]

Salome and Elektra

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Which one (and which part) of Mozart's symphonies is this?

[Charles Darnay]

Not a symphony. It's Eine Kline nachtmusik, first mvt

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Cool, thanks.

[stlukesguild]

Salome and Elektra

Damn! Those are almost certainly the two best of Strauss operas... of course they are also the two most Modernist/Expressionist. Of course I should note that Strauss probably has the broadest range stylistically between operas. Nothing else in his oeuvre is like Elektra and Salome. Der Rosenkavalier is championed by an equal number of Strauss admirers as being his greatest achievement. Der Rosenkavalier merges the lush 19th century Romanticism with elements of Mozart's operas (especially Le Nozze di Figaro) and Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus. Another equally brilliant opera is Die Frau ohne Schatten while Ariadne auf Naxos, mentioned above, introduces the chamber opera genre.

Beyond Strauss... which operas have you experienced and particularly liked?

[Charles Darnay]

I'm fairly well versed in opera. Rossini and Mozart are probably my favorites. Others that I love

Bizet's Carmen
Wagner, particularly Tristan and Isolde
Purcell, anything by Purcell
Puccini, particularly La Bohem
Verdi, particularly Othello or Rigaleto
Gluck, Paris and Helen

There are others, but those are the top. As you can see I tend to not go past the Romantics when it comes to opera (Wagner being the exception, because he is fantastic)

[Charles Darnay]

He is a better singer in Russian than he is in Italian, but I am really liking Dmitri Hvorostovsky's stuff. I just picked up his album, "Portrait"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUpfMwkiwac

[stlukesguild]

Yes, I have several of the so-called "silver fox'" CDs... especially of Russian lieder and opera. Yet he is particularly good as La Traviata's Germont:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p37B...eature=related

And how about DM with Anna Netrebko:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36vm2VoXuXA

There can be no doubt why these two are among the most in demand performers in opera today!

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I just caught about the last hour and a half of Phillip Glass's Satyagraha on PBS earlier today. I was really, really surprised by how much I enjoyed it, do in no little part by the beautiful voice of tenor Richard Croft, not to mention some of the beautiful staging:

[stlukesguild]

I'm giving a first listen to Carl Maria von Weber's (not to be confused with Anton WeberN)... Gothic masterpiece:



I actually first heard this opera a good many years ago... perhaps not long after I graduated high-school but only now have I finally picked up a copy ... and I'm already thinking of grabbing hold of a second (if not a third) recording.

This particular recording is by Erich Kleiber, father of Carlos Kleiber... who also recorded a classic version of this opera. Indeed, there are a number of highly regarded versions of this seminal opera:

Erich Kleiber recorded the version that I am currently listening to with the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra and soloists including Elizabeth Grümmer, Rita Streich (one of my favorites among the older singers), Hans Hopf, Kurt Bohm, etc...

Wilhelm Furtwangler recorded this opera with the same soloists as Erich Kleiber

Carlos Kleiber recorded the opera in 1973 with the Dresden Staatskapelle and soloists Gundula Janowitz and Peter Schreier

Joseph Keilberth records the opera in 1958 with the Berlin Philharmonic.

For a historic recording (1955) the sound on this recording is consistently excellent. Even so, I'll probably pick up another copy of this opera as I currently seem to have an obsession with German opera... from Handel to Gluck to Mozart to Wagner to Strauss. Quite likely I'll go with Keilberth... but then again Carlos Kleiber always has something interesting to offer... and in this instance, his is the newest of the great versions... and includes the full libretto.

Der Freischütz was an instant hit and immediately established the genre of German Romantic opera. Like Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, Weber's opera makes use of simple memorable folk-like melodies. In this way Weber's opera contrasted with the more ornate, courtly Italian operas and clearly took the side of the humble German peasants who had long suffered under the rule of foreign potentates. To Mozart's model Weber brought the drama of Romanticism... the "Sturm und Drang" of Beethoven. He also brought something truly new to opera: the element of the supernatural of German Gothic. The scene in the Wolf's Glen, where the two peasant hunters meet with Zamiel, the "Black Hunter" who hunts for human souls, employs a music worthy of Goethe's Walpurgisnacht... and it set a model for an endless exploration of the supernatural in subsequent operas: Charles Gounod's Faust, Berlioz' La damnation de Faust, Boito's Mefistofele, Heinrich Marschner's Der Vampyr, etc...