Most loved, hated etc

[Serial_Apologist]

The few operas I love:

Zemlinsky: The Dwarf
Berg: Wozzeck, and Lulu
Ravel: L'enfant et les sortileges
Brian: The Tigers
Malipiero: L'Orpheida
Nono: Intolleranza
Alan Bush: Men of Blackmoor
Turnage: Greek, and The Silver Tassie

[vinteuil]

.

... isn't a 'guilty pleasure' akin to a fondness for too many belgian chocolates - you know they're sickly sweet, and you will subsequently regret eating them - but at the time they are just so scrumptious...

Not sure whether I have such guilty pleasures. However - I usually think I don't like Tchaikovsky, but I always end up enjoying Евгений Онегин...






.

[Richard Barrett]

The Silver Tassie

What on earth did you find to like in that? (Serious question! I found it unlistenable, and I would say that about very few things.)

[Serial_Apologist]

What on earth did you find to like in that? (Serious question! I found it unlistenable, and I would say that about very few things.)

I'm always trying to find something I like about opera!

[Once Was 4]

Reading these posts, I see that there are very few named that I have not played for.

I would name two that I have enjoyed: (a)"The Barber of Seville; for light hearted entertainment, and
(b) "Tosca" for sheer drama.

I once asked a viola player what it was like to play the Ring Cycle:

His reply:

"Well, the operas are very long so we have to start at 5.30pm. Two hours later, you look at your watch and it says Ten minutes to Six!

Hmm! a cellist was once making similar comments to that viola player in a bandroom; a 1st horn who shall be nameless responded "you are in the wrong job mate!"

Yes, those are two great operas for the reasons which you state.

For me they would also come into the 'much loved' category as would Fidelio, The Magic Flute, Figaro (in fact anything by Mozart), Jenufa, Katya Kabanova, The Valkyrie (in fact all of the Ring plus Mastersingers, Tristan and Dutchman - I did not enjoy Tannhauser so much), La Boheme (sob, sob!) and anything by Richard Strauss.

Hates? The Pearl Fishers (boring but good horn parts) and the Tales of Hoffman (boring but reasonable horn parts) plus Benjamin Britten's smaller operas (I love Grimes and Budd and like Gloriana - the rest - YAWN - but at least I never had to play them!!: ).

It's a great art form and I am happy that a lot of my life has been spent in the pit for these shows.

[Serial_Apologist]

Jenufa, Katya Kabanova

Yes, I dare say I would love the Janacek operas too, were I to investigate them...

And I should have mentioned Debussy's "Pelleas", and Schoenberg's three, as loves of mine.

[cloughie]

A lot of Italian opera (particularly verismo) is fairly lowbrow stuff: lots of shabby little shockers. I love most of it and am dimly aware that I should feel guilty for preferring it to the 'elevated' likes of Mozart or (shudder) Handel's impossibly undramatic 'operas'. A bit like admitting you prefer listening to Kiss instead of Pink Floyd (which I do, to be honest)!

Fine, but don't call it a guilty pleasure have the courage to say I like x y or z and don't give a monkey's what anyone else thinks. I've even dared on these boards not always to revere St Bernard of Haitink, Elvis was OK but not brilliant and that most 'punk' was rubbish, and that Callas did not alwys hit the note. Maybe I'm just less tolerant as I age!

[MrGongGong]

Fine, but don't call it a guilty pleasure have the courage to say I like x y or z and don't give a monkey's what anyone else thinks. I've even dared on these boards not always to revere St Bernard of Haitink, Elvis was OK but not brilliant and that most 'punk' was rubbish, and that Callas did not alwys hit the note. Maybe I'm just less tolerant as I age!

Correction
Elvis was cr*p
a close run thing with DoG though

But Johnny Cash was genius

We were playing "musicians death match" in the car the other evening

Paul McCartney vs Dylan was rather a tricky one

[gradus]

Not keen on most of Donizetti and Bellini or anything that features high-wire acts for soprano or a tenor yelping top C's. Unenthused by The Bartered Bride, G and S (all) - too many performances/endurance tests put on by well-intentioned amateurs but I enjoy most everything else.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

What joy it is to discover that music one thought one didn't enjoy is entrancing.

Swathes of it.

[MrGongGong]

What joy it is to discover that music one thought one didn't enjoy is entrancing.

I once spent a day travelling round various schools with the Maggini and Sacconi quartets as part of the start of a project.
Though I would normally run away when offered Mendelssohn's chamber music, after listening to them play the octet some 6 times I was surprised at how fantastic it is.
Sad to think of Dave Angel no longer being with us though

[verismissimo]

... or Rimsky-Korsakoff!)

Who knew that Rimsky was primarily a rather good opera composer? Not me.

I came to this through researching the soprano, Nadezhda Zabela-Vrubel, a Marchesi pupil, for whom R wrote the leading soprano roles in all his later operas. He became in love with her, two or three decades younger, while married, of course.

She was a famous Snow Maiden (which I saw for the first time in Nottingham last month - the excellent Opera North). Terrific. Can't wait to see all the others, though may not live that long.

[gradus]

Not keen on most of Donizetti and Bellini or anything that features high-wire acts for soprano or a tenor yelping top C's. Unenthused by The Bartered Bride, G and S (all) - too many performances/endurance tests put on by well-intentioned amateurs but I enjoy most everything else.

Forgot to hate Lohengrin but I do.

[verismissimo]

Forgot to hate Lohengrin but I do.

Interminable while being musically obvious. Not a good combination.

[Rcartes]

I love Wagner (from Lohengrin onwards) and Puccini, but can't stand Verdi, any of it (apart from the Requiem).