How often do you sit down and listen to a whole opera on record

[Barbirollians]

I was looking at my opera recordings today and realised it is ages since I have listened to one more than 2CDs long . I do not seem to have the time . Maybe that is why I have never really got into Wagner - I seldom have a preliminary evening and three long afternoons !

Do you succeed in listening to whole operas on record often and if so where - at home , in the car ? ...

[Bryn]

I have listened to Brian's The Tigers twice in the past couple of weeks, and now that I will be off work for the next couple of months, I intend to listen to it again, and to some others, maybe even The Ring. There again, I have no live-in partner to make such things difficult. On long car journeys, say down to South Devon, I often listen to Glass's Einstein on the Beach, in one or other of its recordings. I should perhaps add that I love solitude, though am quite capable of being gregarious when the fancy takes me.

[jayne lee wilson]

I guess I've all but written off opera as a musical allergy now... I fantasise about listening again to the French Baroque, Rameau especially... but it always ends up with just the Suites. When I see some obscure work reviewing well (like Steffani's Niobe) I'll put it on a list somewhere... but rarely ever buy it. But then I've never really loved Classical Vocal, so...

[akiralx]

Very rarely, especially as I listen mostly via headphones. I listen to Tosca or Fidelio occasionally but nothing much longer - hence I no longer buy opera recordings.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

About once a month. More regularly these days, I will spread a long opera over three days (an act a day) - but some grab your imagination so strongly that other arrangements for the day are jettisoned (most recently the Kubelik Meistersinger). 2CD-sized works I listen to in one day - with a break between acts.

I learnt many of the Wagner operas on my car cassette player back in the mid-late '80s when I used to travel a lot between London/Sussex and Lancashire. I don't do such long journeys on my own these days.

[rauschwerk]

I tend nowadays to use DVD as the visual image helps to hold my attention and generally it's preferable to audio only with libretto in hand. The last time I watched one was about a month ago - George Benjamin's Written on Skin - which I enjoyed a great deal. I would never listen in the car.

[vinteuil]

... in my bachelor days, and when living abroad, I did listen to operas on CD pretty seriously - with score or libretto to hand. I got through most of the baroque opera then available, and most of Mozart, Rossini, Verdi, Wagner ( the Ring several times a year), Puccini, Strauss. Nowadays I seldom settle in for a whole evening of opera - perhaps three or four times a year, usually when Mme v is out. She is not a great fan of opera...




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[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I never realised this until now, but the majority of my many opera recordings have remained on the shelf since their one test-hearing.

[EdgeleyRob]

About once every month.
Usually Britten or Vaughan Williams although the last one was Weinberg's 'The Passenger'.

[Ferretfancy]

I never realised this until now, but the majority of my many opera recordings have remained on the shelf since their one test-hearing.

I used to listen a lot to opera, but nowadays it's just the juicy bits. During the sixties and seventies I waded through masses of opera recordings, particularly the spectacular Decca recordings, and perhaps that was a large part of the attraction. There was that ambition to create a stage in your living room.

A couple of weeks ago in Gramex I found the Testament issue of the first act of Die Walkure , the Klemperer recording with Cochrane, Dernesch and Sotin.
I'm still looking for a convenient moment to listen to it.

[gurnemanz]

Not so often but much more often than I did before I retired. With mortgage and family I did not have too much spare cash or time and tended not to buy opera sets. There were many standard repertoire operas which I hardly knew at all. I now have quite a lot of CDs am very much enjoying gradually catching up. I don't have so many DVDs but record opera off TV onto hard drive. eg Sky Arts had ROH Turandot on Wednesday. Not so much on the BBC but we have a satellite dish for German TV and I often record from Arte or 3Sat - now both in HD free-to air. Recently, Alceste from Teatro Real Madrid. A fascinating Tsar's Bride from Berlin Staatsoper with Barenboim. Vienna Fanciulla with Jonas Kaufmann and Nina Stemme. The "controversial" Traviata fro La Scala with Diana Damrau.

[Barbirollians]

Not just me then . I plan to look though my opera CDs and pick out some 3CD plus ones and play them in the car .

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

For a while, I was a full-time peripatetic woodwind teacher, travelling to schools 50 miles away at the crack of dawn. In one week, I listened to the complete Ring cycle in the car.

(And I didn't crash. That only happened once and it was K.543's fault.)

[mathias broucek]

I never realised this until now, but the majority of my many opera recordings have remained on the shelf since their one test-hearing.

+1

Worse in fact. My moment of realisation was when I spotted the EMI Wagner box still in the cellophane. I love Wagner but don't have the time these days or - I fear - the concentration....

[cloughie]

Got to say that having tried occasionally to listen to opera over the last 50 years or so I've decided I will probably never really like it very much - there are bits which are irresistibly good but overall I've got better use for the time I have left on this Planet.