We are hopes, you should have hoped us,
We are dreams, you should have dreamed us.
“The world to come has come, is theirs.”
"Everything seems to move beyond our remedy."
— Alice Goodman, Nixon in China: Act III ending.
untitledopeningnumber asked: i saw 'fill up my ask' so here i go. say, hypothetically, after having had my interest hypothetically piqued by your miscellaneous posts about it, that i were to, hypothetically, of course, maybe start exploring and listening to opera. what path, hypothetically, would you suggest i take? (hypothetically, of course, because let's run this gag into the ground)
Yes. Yay. Ok.
The first thing would be to ask if you have ever heard/liked/explored any opera before. So I’m doing that now.
Some good starting places for different types of opera:
For early opera (pre-Mozart), I would start with Monteverdi’s “L’Orfeo”. It is generally considered to be the first successful opera and it is highly representative of the Renaissance style. Plus, it has a classic plot and the music is gorgeous.
For Mozart, I would start with Le Nozze di Figaro. It’s my personal favorite of Mozart’s operas and the easiest to get into Mozart’s style. There are tons of famous arias and the story is so so much fun.
For post-Mozart Italian opera, go with Verdi’s “La Traviata”. It’s Verdi’s most famous opera, and in turn one of the most famous operas of all time. The story is beautiful and tragic, and the music fits it every step of the way.
For Italian verismo opera, you have to go with Puccini’s “La Boheme,” probably the most famous opera of all time. This one is pretty self-explanatory.
For non-Mozart German opera (the Strauss/Wagner era), start at Der Rosenkavalier, one of my absolute favorites. It has some of the best music ever written for the operatic stage. It also has my favorite pants role (a male role played by a woman) and his name is Octavian, just like your tumblr name so opera connection.
For earlier 20th century opera, start with Samuel Barber’s “Vanessa.” It premiered at the Met in like the 1940’s and it has one of the most original and moving stories I have ever seen. Barber also won his first Pulitzer for this opera.
For later 20th century opera, start with John Adams’ “Nixon in China.” It premiered in 1987 at Houston Grand Opera and was arguably a landmark for both Adams and opera in general. A big bonus is that it contains arguably the greatest opera libretto of all time by Alice Goodman. It is seriously fantastic and one of my top 3 favorite operas.
And finally, for 21st century opera, start with Jake Heggie’s “Dead Man Walking”. Based on the book by Sister Helen Prejean and the movie of the same name, it was a smash success for Heggie’s first opera and ushered him in as one of our greatest living opera composers.
After these, there are like 10 zillion more operas I could talk about for days and days.
I’ve just realized what an intimidating list this is. Give me like 5 minutes and I am going to make a playlist of arias from these that you can listen to that makes this seem less crazy.
I finally changed the title of my blog
It is in honor of three things:
- That gorgeous section in Act 1, Scene 2 of Nixon in China. “The world to come has come, is theirs.”
- David Lang’s gorgeous piece “world to come”
- and Steve Reich’s incredible piece “WTC 9/11”
I have been listening to The Death of Klinghoffer every night when I sleep.
There’s got to be something there for my therapist.
Tonight I am listening to The Christmas Star from El Niño and I am obsessed with two things.
1. There are a couple of almglocken moments that send shivers of glee up my spine.
2. Dawn Upshaw effortlessly tossing off those high Bbs, Cs and Dbs at the end. Yes, please.
This makes me think that I should start doing Seth Rudetsky style deconstructions.
