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I found a soundboard recording of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue a little while ago and now I'm kinda going nuts for Bernstein. What're some of his best works? I'm familiar with 1600 (and the thorougly un-fun White House Cantata), Candide, and West Side Story but really nothing else. Also, 1600's not a bad show at all. I wish it hadn't crashed and burned like it did, because then we might have a proper recording of Patricia Routledge singing Duet For One.
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Jun 20, 2011 01:13
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| # ¿ Apr 24, 2024 17:58 |
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Has anyone here been to the recent Einstein on the Beach tour? I'm thinking about buying nosebleed tickets to the LA performance (last North American stop, I think) since I missed the Berkeley performance last year. Is it worth it sitting so high up?
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Jul 27, 2013 02:56
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Is Mahler's 10th worth seeing live? The front row seats are like 20 dollars (I know front seats have subpar sound but that's cheap and I like watching the cellists sweat) but I'm totally unfamiliar with his work. It's the Cooke version, if it helps.Wyw posted:America has ???????????????????) The answer is not John Adams or Philip Glass for obvious reasons. Why not? Nixon in China and Satyagraha are both amazing. Magic Hate Ball fucked around with this message at 02:14 on Nov 12, 2015 |
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Nov 12, 2015 02:09
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Just subscribed to the Met HD on demand service because I enjoy burning money, what are the unmissable opera classics?
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Oct 6, 2017 04:50
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So far I've watched: Eugene Onegin - I love Tchaikovsky and this did not fail to disappoint! I loved the mirror set, particularly during the duel sequence, and though I was left kinda cold by the "letter" sequence, the burning, organic poetry that foams up elsewhere is really stunning. The guy who played Onegin looked kinda like Walter Matthau and he was loving amazing. La Cenerentola - omg I loved this! I had Rossini music in my head for days afterwards, I woke up hearing Rossini music. The production was a little heavy-handed (the big wedding cake is cool but tbh it just felt like a dark, empty room) but Joyce DiDonato was so impossibly endearing and wonderful, like an Italian Emily Watson. The Magritte flourishes were cool. Hansel and Gretel - I loved this too. I'm a huge fan of folk-inspired music, and the set design was terrific, particularly in the forest sequence. I really want to see this again, and I'm now agonizingly sad that I missed the Seattle Opera's production of it. The melodies are so charming and beautiful. La Traviata - I have to admit I found this to be kind of a snooze, but straightforward romances kind of lose me. I liked the set (the use of the huge clock was neat), and the music was pretty good, but something about it just didn't grab me. I also watched part of Madama Butterfly but Kristina Opolais looks like the terrifying evil villain in a movie about children trying to save puppies so I put it on the backburner. I'm really looking forward to this season's production of The Exterminating Angel, which is one of my favorite movies and I like new opera (Breaking the Waves is amazing). Sadly, there's no video of Wozzeck, which I was hoping for (Sondheim calls it his favorite opera) but they do have Lulu.
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Oct 18, 2017 07:00
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Money Bags posted:I bought the Met's production of Wagner's Die Meistersinger on DVD and it's one of my most treasured possessions. Check it out if you have the time. It's almost five hours long so you might want to spread it out over a few days. I watched this like a miniseries and loved it! The characters and story move in a way that feels so contemporary, almost like a Bergman film that's blown up to zeppelin proportions. That burst of Hitlery nationalism at the end was a little startling but a) sort of expected and b) a fitting ending. One of the most intriguing things a story can portray is craft, and while that includes broader terminology (eg Kieslowski's "Blue" could be construed as depicting the craft of grief), it's also just fun and engaging to watch a story detail and inform you about an actual craft, or trade, or skill. It's why I like upstairs-downstairs stories, and backstage movies. The craft of the master singers was so well detailed and explicated, and I'm glad Wagner had the guts to spend so much of his five hours on the ins-and-outs of it. Beckmesser's humiliation reminded me of Frasier botching Buttons and Bows. I also watched La Nozze Di Figaro, which I enjoyed but didn't love - the plot moves like a Swiss watch, which I appreciated, but the music didn't lift me. After that, I watched the other version of Madame Butterfly, which I had a similar reaction to. The music is terrific (the humming chorus is incredible) but the story felt too languid, and when the tragedy finally strikes it was too little too late. I think I was just kind of distracted by the yellowface casting and the slightly overbaked production - the black-on-black mirrors remind me of the bathroom in a fancy Japanese restaurant we used to go to when I was growing up, which was done entirely in glossy black, even the toilets. I enjoyed Patricia Racette well enough, she has a certain innocent motherly look, though I was still craving the true childishness that I imagine is required to make the role pop. At least she didn't look like a witch, though having to see the child puppet in so much detail via camera close-up was unsettling. Since I can't do anything without overdoing it, I also watched Capriccio, which is apparently an opera for devoted opera buffs only but wow, I loved it! Again there was the concept of craft put to the forefront, and the debate was spirited, lively, and engaging. The production feels a little dusty, though - it's set in a 1920s villa, which I think I prefer to the 1700s setting suggested by the libretto, but it was premiered in the 90s and it really feels like it, lots of clashing muted colors. There were also moments of weird comedy that felt out of place. Most of the opera is really witty and kind of understated, which I liked, but the bits with the ballet dancers and the opera singers were done in a bizarre, broad style.
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Nov 11, 2017 00:31
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They use one of his clarinet sonatas for the hold music at a medical insurance company we work with and it actually makes me like calling them. edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcK_VSzsv1s edit 2: it's bitterly ironic that this is the music they use at a company that treats dying people Magic Hate Ball fucked around with this message at 18:00 on Mar 6, 2018 |
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Mar 6, 2018 17:56
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I haven't found anyone to beat Philip Glass for me yet, but some of Riley's works come close, particularly Rainbow In Curved Air and Embroidery, less for the hardcore minimalism and more for the raga vibes (see also the unbelievably grimy original version of G Song). There's something about Glass's sound that's so richly emotional to me that I've rarely seen anywhere else, and honestly if anyone knows anyone similar I'd be all over it. The endless ascending notes of Satyagraha's evening song, the burning hymnal of the Koyaanisqatsi finale, the eerie, alien patterns of Bed all have something I've always wanted more of, like Bach on acid.
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Mar 9, 2018 20:43
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| # ¿ Apr 24, 2024 17:58 |
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Not sure when it’ll be recorded, but I just saw Rufus Wainwright’s new opera, Hadrian, at the Canadian Opera Company. The start and end were pretty laborious but the middle two acts had a number of really stunning pieces. There’s a fabulous interlude between the first and second acts depicting Hadrian’s travel back in time that wa staged with a massive stream of red sand pouring into the middle of the stage, which I can imagine becoming a standard. Whatever Wainwright’s next opera is, it’s probably going to be incredible.
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Oct 24, 2018 04:03
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