It's 9:50 am and we are getting ready to take the train downtown, to Chicago, to see the opera Aida at the Lyric Opera.
I have never seen this famous opera. I went to music school and so ended up playing in the pit for a few operas, but opera was never part of my regular concert-going until a few years ago. Dean and I decided we ought to expand our musical horizons and subscribe to the Lyric Opera.
Conclusions so far: Mozart's operas are wonderful! He was a musical genius, but he also understand drama and people. The melodies are wonderful and the stories heartfelt. Wagner was also a genius, but of a different sort. His stories are epics, like the ancient myths, and the music lush.
Besides those two composers, I have noticed recurring themes in many operas: Love stories. Gypsies. Two brothers who don't realize they are brothers (sometimes because one of them has been raised by gypsies) until one of them kills the other (usually over a woman). The main characters, or at least one of them, dies at the end.
Aida, by Giuseppe Verdi, is a love story and the two lovers die at the end. But before that there is a lot of wonderful music.
I have only seen two operas in my life: Carmen and La Boheme. Years age we would get operas at the Hershey Theatre, but they were always in February when you couldn't rely on weather.
ReplyDeleteCarmen was the first opera I ever saw, in 9th grade, a school trip to the Metropolitan Opera. (The advantages of growing up in the NYC metro area!) I saw La Boheme more recently. Those are two operas to have seen, but I highly recommend going to a Mozart opera -- light-hearted with beautiful melodies.
DeleteThat was arjeha with the above comment.
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