I agree that the Callas recording is better. Better than that, however, is the Tebaldi recording. She was the best Mimi in history in my opinion.

I do agree; the Pavarotti/Freni Boheme is excellent. His voice is much more pleasing to the ears than it becomes in later years, and Freni is excellent. I still don't think that it compares to the Callas/di Stefano/Moffo, however. Freni's Mimi seems just a bit off, a bit too mature. Callas, on the other hand, sounds wonderfully young and tragic. Then there's the spectacular Anna Moffo, who has yet to be equaled as Musetta; most sopranos shriek the high notes in Quando Men' Vo, but Moffo is utterly graceful, realizing that the notes call enough attention to themselves and don't need any extra emphasis from her. Finally, I do have to give di Stefano the one-up on Pavarotti; his voice is so luscious and full of passion that he is every inch the romantic poet. Both recordings are excellent, but Pavarotti ain't the best game in town.

Hi Melissa,

If you like comedic satirical opera, and you're not ashamed -- and why should you be? -- then if you want something a little less rum-ti-tum than G&S you might like to try some of Offenbach's delightful operettas. Sadler's Wells Opera produced most of these in hilarious English language versions, and if you like G&S you're almost certain to love Offenbach.

And if you do,perhaps you could even try Sadler's Wells Englih language versions of some of the Viennese operettas Rand herself loved.

Enjoy.

Cheers, Peter Cresswell

There's a recording of La Boheme from the '70s featuring Pavarotti and soprano Mirella Freni. It's conducted by Herbert von Karajan.

I'm going to launch a pre-emptive strike here: don't get sucked into any anti-Pavarotti snobbery. This is one of his finest recordings, and his singing is perfect for this. His sound is youthful, unpretentious, and vibrant. If someone criticizes that other tenors may offer a more emotionally nuanced performance, I wouldn't worry about it. Karajan conducts this in a full-blooded style that brings on goosebumps.

La Boheme is my favorite opera. I've seen it four times in the last twenty years at the Metropolitan Opera and own several different recordings of it. You can't go wrong with this version.
--
http://blog.mariodiana.com

I am almost afraid to post this here, I'm sure I'll be endlessly mocked...

I like Gilbert and Sullivan operas. I have ever since I was little. The silliness, the wild music, the absurd plotlines...the puns...

My brother and I could sing along to Pirates and The Mikado (and re-enact scenes from them) since elementary school.

You can say it's juvenile (it probably is) you can say it has no musical value (it might not) but it never fails to make me laugh.

That's right, I like comedic satirical opera, and I'm not ashamed!

Melissa

*goes to hide in cave from rock-throwing opera critics*

I have tons. I just listed a bunch in the other thread on 'best arias'!

Get Maria Callas "Lyric and Coloratura Arias". It is amazing. Listen to Tebaldi in La Forza del Destino. Caruso in just about anything. Emmy Destinn, Titta Ruffo, Rosa Ponselle, Ghiaurov, Siepi, Nilsson, Flagstad, Melchior, Gigli, Del Monaco and Corelli. That is a good start. You can see most things sung by these people on youtube.com

Frankly, SOLO turned me onto Lanza. I started picking up some of his recordings here and there to see what Linz was making all the fuss about, and quickly became enamored of that silky-smooth yet passionate voice.

It's also funny that the article should mention von Karajan; I had the good fortune yesterday to pick up a copy of his 1963 recording of Beethoven's symphonies purely on impulse, done with the Berlin Philharmonic, and got blown out of my seat. Those are DEFINITELY staying on the ol' iPod for a while.

Finally, I think that all my fellow opera-lovers at SOLO should see this. It shows how damn good Aida is when it's done well. The singer is Leontyne Price, the aria is O Patria Mia, and the occasion is her final operatic performance, broadcast all across the U.S. Sit and enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VlDPiLHQO4

I suspect you're about to be weaned off the KASSless Fischer-Deskau!

One more thing I can't resist saying about Tosca: for the most thrilling E Lucevan le Stelle you'll ever hear, repair to Mario Lanza. See Mr. Cresswell's comparison of Lanza's performance with those of other notables in his SOLOHQ article, Italian Idol:

http://solohq.solopassion.com/Articles/Cresswell/Italian_Idol.shtml

*buys the Tosca recording at once*

I'm actually about to leave for a twelve-day family vacation to Italy, which means that I am not only allowed but ENCOURAGED to make large purchases involving Italian things. Yes, this is like a dream come true. My parents should just be glad we're not stopping in Milan, becuase if we did then they would neither sleep nor eat until we had tickets to La Scala in our hands

Oh wow, I just found a dual recording on iTunes of Cavalliera and Pagliacci, with Giuseppe di Stefano and Maria Callas!
*dies of bliss*

Now you're talkin'! Those two in Cav & Pag are about as good as it gets. Not to mention in Tosca, in the recording mentioned by Mr. Cresswell, where you have Gobbi's Scarpia thrown in for good measure. Almost equalled by Caballe's & Carreras's 1973 Tosca with Sir Colin Davis.

Speaking of bliss and di Stefano and Callas, I've taken to introducing non-operatic friends to opera by sitting them down with a libretto in front of Act III of 'Tosca,' with these two in the main roles.

It takes less than half an hour, but if that doesn't grab them with what opera's all about, then nothing will.

Oh wow, I just found a dual recording on iTunes of Cavalliera and Pagliacci, with Giuseppe di Stefano and Maria Callas!

*dies of bliss*

Some less prominent picks:

Delibes' Lakme has some absolutely gorgeous passages. "Viens, Malika... Dôme épais le jasmin" will be familiar.

Gounod's Faust is fun.

Really, it's hard to go wrong with the Devil in Opera. I used to have a great compilation called "Opera Goes to Hell: Arias, Choruses & Ballet From the Underworld". (Looking it up for this thread, I found it again at Amazon for $1.39! )

I love Fischer-Deskau's Dichterliebe.

I know where I'd dich his terliebe!

... for your kind invitation. Unfortunately, the thought of Wagner combined with Domingo's nasal squawkings means it's an invitation I couldn't possibly not refuse.

Linz wrote: Wagner "occasionally ... rose to great heights".

Yes but what heights they are. Not mere peaks, but hours of unrelenting intensity. Certainly, there is some "dirge", more so in his earlier material, but at his best those brief moments are a small price to pay.

The entire Ring Cycle is being staged over a week next year at Covent Garden. Bryn Terfel, Placido Domingo, John Tomlinson, Lisa Gasteen ... You should come over Linz - pay back for putting me on to the Jessye Norman version of the 4 Last Songs.

Richard was not the son of Johann.

Oops.

I love Fischer-Deskau's Dichterliebe.

Richard was not the son of Johann. His father, Franz, was a Munich horn-player. Yes, his Four Last Songs are divine. I believe I personally turned our estimable Wagnerian Sturm onto those (the Jessye Norman recording).

Jeff's Wagner is fine—sublime, even. Dunc, you can fit the good stuff on a CD or two.

As for Fischer-Deskau: my first singing teacher made me sing lots of lieder—and listen to F-D's recordings of it. He (F-D) drove me up the wall, vocal eunuch that he was, & made me hate the stuff. Till, years later, I heard Wunderlich doing it. Now there was a singer!

"Siegfried's funeral music from Götterdämmerung..." YES! YES!

"The liebestod from Tristan und Isolde..." [Expires with ecstacy!]

YES! for me, too. Best to keep the flammables away when these are on. The Siegfried funeral march especially - I've actually used it to turn some of my friends on to classical music.

I wasn't really a fan of opera myself until I studied and helped perform a few of them. Once you're familiar enough with the story and the libretto, the Mozart recitatives can be hilarious. I was bored silly by most of Don Giovanni until I really knew the whole show, and then it became my favorite piece. But I still find the recitatives in most operas pretty tiresome.

Linz, Wagner was a superb melodist. His themes were ingenius - long, simple and bold lines, brilliantly integrated and economical. Nothing of the "heights" you so generously concede to him would remain without that. Johann Strauss??!! You can have him. I'll take his son's "Four Last Songs" anyday.

And while I'm in a grump, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau is the most BORING singer EVER.

Sigh.

We're in complete agreement on these:

"The drinking song from La Traviata..." Yes.

"The Queen of the Night's song from The Magic Flute..." Yes.

"Siegfried's funeral music from Götterdämmerung..." YES! YES!

"The prelude to the third act of Lohengrin..." YES! YES! YES!

"The liebestod from Tristan und Isolde..." [Expires with ecstacy!]

Nietzsche was just pissed off that he was in thrawl to Wagner for most of his young life. Nietzsche being Nietzsche, his way to 'independence' was to begin by abusing his friends and his heroes. Odd that so many still choose to emulate that.

You must be a talented crapper!

"Do you have any opera recommendations, Jeff?"

I'm not real big on opera. The recitative bores me. It's mostly highlights - arias and orchestral setpieces -- that are worth listening to. I think most or all of my own favorite arias and orchestral pieces have been mentioned: the drinking song from La Traviata; the Queen of the Night's song from The Magic Flute; Siegfried's funeral music from Götterdämmerung, the prelude to the third act of Lohengrin, the liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, and other Wagneriana; the "sea interludes" from Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes; etc., etc.

"Or do you just prefer being an asshole?"

No, no, you must have me confused with Fred Weiss.

JR

...I love all his overtures. They are glorious.

I hope to see one of his operas eventually.

Puccini and Verde are also wonderful.

(Music ignoramus alert!)

Try again.

"Gershwin and [AND!] the broadway hits don't even begin to qualify as opera."

Anybody who thinks "Porgy and Bess" is a "broadway hit" has never seen a production of it and has elevated ignorance to a level undreamed of even by Fred Weiss.

Sir Riggenbach is a curmudgeonly old bat who only crawls out of his little shell to smite down his online enemies, of which there are doubtless many. No, "Porgy and Bess" (which I like) isn't a "broadway hit". But I didn't say that, did I? I would say it's more than a musical and less than an opera.

Do you have any opera recommendations, Jeff? Or do you just prefer being an asshole?

...wrote of Wagner's music,

"Whatever of Wagner's music has become popular (also apart from the theater) shows dubious taste and corrupts taste. The Tannhäuser March I suspect of bonhommerie; the overture of The Flying Dutchman is noise about nothing; the Lohengrin Prelude furnished the first example, only too insidious, only too successful, of hypnotism by means of music (—I do not like whatever music has no ambition beyond persuasion of the nerves)."

Nietzsche, a Wagner confidant when young who then rebelled agianst him, writes this about Wagner's philosophy:

"One pays heavily for being one of Wagner's disciples. What does it do to the spirit? Does Wagner liberate the spirit?— He is distinguished by every ambiguity, every double sense, everything quite generally that persuades those who are uncertain without making them aware of what they have been persuaded. Thus Wagner is a seducer on a large scale. There is nothing weary, nothing decrepit, nothing fatal and hostile to life in matters of the spirit that his art does not secretly safeguard: it is the blackest obscurantism that he conceals in the ideal's shrouds of light. He flatters every nihilistic (Buddhistic) instinct and disguises it in music; he flatters everything Christian, every religious expression of decadence. Open your ears: everything that ever grew on the soil of impoverished life, all of the counterfeiting of transcendence and beyond, has found its most sublime advocate in Wagner's art—not by means of formulas: Wagner is too shrewd for formulas—but by means of a persuasion of sensuousness which in turn makes the spirit weary and worn-out. Music as Circe."

Composers - Puccini, Rossini, Giordano, Leoncavallo, Mascagni, Massanet, Verdi, Mozart.(Not listened to much Wagner)

Tenors - Pavarotti, Domingo, Alagna, Alvarez, Cura
Baritones - Hampson, Keenlyside, Hvorostovsky
Bass Baritones - Terfel, Raimondi
Sopranos - Norman, Fleming, Gheorghiu, Mattila, Frittoli, Isokoski
Mezzo - Bartoli, Graham, Kozena

I like to get the DVDs, especially Covent Garden and Glyndebourne performances on Opus Arte.

Happy hunting and listening!

"And while I'm in a grump, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau is the most BORING singer EVER. Without exception. Utterly KASSless. He should be The KASSless Society's mascot. He should have been shot long ago."

Have you heard him do things other than Schubert? I'm not partial to lieder, so I typically avoid any of those recordings, as they bore me. His Don Giovanni, however, is one of the best that I've ever heard. In all honesty, if you played them side by side, you wouldn't know that the guy singing the Don and the guy doing vocals for Der Wintereisse were the same person.

(Music ignoramus alert!)

"Gershwin and the broadway hits don't even begin to qualify as opera."

Anybody who thinks "Porgy and Bess" is a "broadway hit" has never seen a production of it and has elevated ignorance to a level undreamed of even by Fred Weiss.

JR

Duncan, when you come to compile your collection, please don't be tempted to confuse noise, bombast & aimless dissonance with "depth." As a melodist, Wagner had about one tenth of the imagination of Johann Strauss (supposedly a much "shallower" composer) & one one hundredth of that of Puccini. Yes, he could orchestrate, and yes, occasionally, he rose to great heights—briefly, before meandering off again into dirge or cacophony. If you're tempted to believe these pretentious protestations of "depth," ask the folk uttering them to sing! That'll give you objective guidance as to their musical sensibilities!

And while I'm in a grump, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau is the most BORING singer EVER. Without exception. Utterly KASSless. He should be The KASSless Society's mascot. He should have been shot long ago.

Bah, humbug!

Linz

I agree with Cresswell. You should work your way up to Wagner, because once you've experienced Wagner nothing else will seem to have as much depth. Lately I've been trying to find my way back to the three-minute wonders and have seen both Tosca and Turandot. Turandot was the far more satisfying of these two.

(Music snob alert!)

Gershwin and the broadway hits don't even begin to qualify as opera. That doesn't mean they aren't any good. (Necessarily.) But then you have to add Bernstein to the list! Really, what's wrong with you people?

Re singers, Maria Callas is the sine qua non for the Italians. I don't even know if they had the word "Diva" before her. But until you find something within the genre that really "hits" you, I wouldn't worry about looking for specific performers. On the other hand, the conductor can make a big difference on your initial impression, and here I recommend Carlo Maria Giulini for the Italian stuff, and then anything you can find with Szell, Solti, Leinsdorf and Barenboim is also likely to be first rate.

As for Wagner - the only music of his I could name is Ride of the Valkyries, from Die Walkure. Is the rest of that opera not up to the same standard?

Oh, fuck yeah. I think it might be his best.

It's generally good to start with the Italians, per Mr. Cresswell's advice, but many people of the stormier persuasion who are perhaps already drawn to excerpts of Wagner's orchestral work (three cheers for Bugs Bunny!) can appreciate the real thing. Oh, and get the "Excalibur" soundtrack. It has Lorin Maazel conducting some of the best orchestral Wagner that you'll ever find. Or just watch the movie -- again and again and again.

One of my favorite operas is George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess.

There are a lot of really great ones, but many are dead or retired, so the recordings are rare. Leontyne Price did amazing work with Puccini's material, especially Madama Butterfly and La Boheme. Elizabeth Schwarzkopf had an astounding career; look for recordings of her in Don Giovanni as Donna Anna. Bryn Terfel is a great Welsh baritone; lots of power and a rich tone. But a rare gem indeed, although he's more well-known for his work with Schubert's lieder, is Dietrich Fisher-Dieskau. His operatic recordings are very, very rare, but his diction, pitch and tone quality are all sublime.

"If Cresswell & Sturm suggest Wagner, don't take any notice, unless you've an affinity for meandering hooting & droning that goes on for years."

Alas, poor Wagner, the calumnies up with which you have to put!

What Cresswell advises is to start with the Italians, and then when ready you can graduate to the real thing. When you're enjoying 'Otello,' then you're ready for 'The Ring.' Either start with 'Die Walkure' as Mr Simovici suggests, or get yourself one of the 2-CD 'Ring' highlights albums.

But what you listen to next really depends on what's grabbed you already.

"As for Wagner - the only music of his I could name is Ride of the Valkyries, from Die Walkure. Is the rest of that opera not up to the same standard?"

Oh my goodness, yes!

Tommy

... I'll go and have a hunt for them shortly. Also you're right, I should have clarified: for the time being I'm talking about listening, not watching.

On a related note, how about individual singers? As I've done with the operas I've been listening to, I've choosing singers based upon recommendations: so far, Mario Lanza, Placido Domingo, Enrico Cruso, and Zsuzsa Csonka.

As for Wagner - the only music of his I could name is Ride of the Valkyries, from Die Walkure. Is the rest of that opera not up to the same standard?

Aida's great!

And a good one to couple with the Cavalleria is Pagliacci. Spine-chillers both.

My favourite is Verdi's Aida!

Julian

Mozart: Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Magic Flute. Provided these aren't your introduction to Mozart, I would definitely recommend them.

But for pure listening enjoyment (as opposed to watching), these are my favorites, in descending order:

Tosca (Puccini)
La Boheme (Puccini)
Tannhauser (Wagner)
Lohengrin (Wagner)
Die Walkure, Gotterdammerung (these are the 2nd and 4th Operas in Wagner's Ring cycle)
Rigoletto (Verdi)
Cavalleria Rusticana (Mascagni)

I'm personally a huge fan of The Magic Flute, and it's worth listening to at least once. The famous Act II aria for the Queen of the Night is especially a must-hear! I'd also check out Don Giovanni, but only if you can see it live. The music is no fun unless you know everything that's going on, whereas the others mentioned (especially the Puccini) can stand on their own without an absolute direct translation.

Are we just talking classical opera or can I throw in the Gilbert & Sullivan operettas? Because those are excellent comedy even though the musicianship doesn't compare to the greats.

Aside from what you've started with (good choices) go for the Puccini & Verdi warhorses first: Boheme, Butterfly, Tosca, Manon Lescaut, Rigoletto, Otello ...

If Cresswell & Sturm suggest Wagner, don't take any notice, unless you've an affinity for meandering hooting & droning that goes on for years.