Posted on 10/30/2023 8:18:00 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Maybe, but the pause in immigration made assimiliation and higher wages possible, so even the people who were discriminated against weren’t entirely opposed to it.
If it aint got a jungle beat, it be white, suckas.
hamilton was great based on audience appeal alone opera has been great for a few hundred years
“Are the operas in question vulgar and inappropriate for children?”
Why on earth would any composer bother writing an opera in which the benchmark was whether it has to be child-friendly?
Only someone opera-illiterate (as I guess NC PBS must be) would worry about that criterion.
Mozart’s Don Giovanni: rape and murder
Verdi’s Rigoletto: rape and murder
Puccini’s Madama Butterfly: sex by means of a phony marriage, suicide
Wagner’s Ring Cycle: murder, incest
Bizet’s Carmen: murder
Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier: As the curtain goes up the married Marchallin is post-coital in bed with her young lover
Verdi’s Aida: double suicide
I could go on all day, but you get the point.
Semper libre, mon ami
I know the composer of The Shining, which has had runs extended in some the cities it’s played!
Philip Glass has done some good work.
Scuzee signorri.
Sempre libera
Oh and you left off the sexual harassment of the juvi(the part played bu cross-dressing women) by the sluts in Marriage of Figaro
I must’ve seen it well over a dozen times. It is my favorite opera both musically and dramatically. While I like some operas which take their time in developing their stories (Don Carlo and of course any Wagner,) the fact is that there is no fat on the plot with the exception of the Spanish dancers in the third act. Every other bar of music is story-driven.
Follie, follie!
I like the one about the girl who freezes to death in an attic.
"Hamilton" is like Michelle Obama. If the MSM constantly tells us how beautiful, demure and lovely she is, a lot of people will begin to believe it.
"You'll Be Back" and "Burn" stood out to me as being memorable (with the former also being whistleable).
But the waltz sequences are absolutely divine..
They should ask Leontyne Price if she thinks operas are White music.
Madama Butterfly: Dude’s baby-momma goes psycho.
Wagner (overall): Listen for places where he rips off Les Preludes. There’re more than one.
Carmen: Crazy ex-girlfriend can sing so very sultry.
Rosenkaviler: Creepy production all around. Also, fell asleep during the performance. But in my defense I was 12 years old.
Bonus
Zauberflotte: Dr. DeepVoice... or how I learned to stop worrying and love the Masons.
Don Giovanni, Aida, and Rigoletto...Mozart music always sounds pretty similar to other Mozart music. It should be noted that while Puccini wrote brilliant arias which flowed in and out of the score like strokes on a painting Verdi wrote arias which stand alone as actual songs. Mozart music always sounds pretty similar to other Mozart music.
Except for Muzetta’s Waltz which is now stuck in my head
There are also Russians ones; however, I don't like them, so tend to forget to add those to the list.
There has actually only been ONE, JUST ONE, American OPERA and that was PORGY AND BESS, whose songs ( arias ) are ALL memorable, hummable, and beautiful!
There actually IS at least ONE opera specifically written for children: HANSEL AND GRETEL, by Engelburt Humperdinck ( the real one ), which was written in German, but when performed here, is sung in English. It has great music and I can still sing some of it, though I saw it looooooooooooooong ago, when I was 4.
My two favorite operas when I was about twelve years old were “Carmen” and “Faust”.
Brief Synopses of the plots:
Carmen:
A young corporal Don Jose falls in “lust” with a Gypsy girl named Carmen. He has to arrest her because she stabs a coworker in the cigarette factory (yes, even smoking is involved!).
She seduces him into helping her escape. For this, he spends two months in the brig. Meanwhile, Carmen is running a smuggling ring.
As soon as he gets out of the brig, Don Jose is once again seduced by Carmen to desert the army and join her smuggling ring. He does this because he is so enamored of her.
While on the lam with the gang, Carmen falls in love with a bullfighter and dumps Don Jose. Not only that, but his mother dies in the middle of all this other s$%T.
Jose tries to win Carmen back, but she laughs in his face so he stabs her to death and gives himself up to the authorities.
THE END
Faust:
Aging, disillusioned scholar Faust sells his soul to the devil so he can be young again. He goes out and seduces inncocent Marguerite, whose elder brother is away fighting some stupid war and therefore not home to protect her.
Margerite’s brother comes home from the war, and Faust kills him in a sword fight.
Faust dumps Marguerite when she becomes pregnant, and she KILLS her illegitimate child, which gets her the death penalty.
Satan and Faust team up to break her out of jail, and Marguerite has a vision from God, saving her and taking her up into heaven (she dies).
Satan gloats as he pulls Faust down to hell.
THE END.
The music from both of the operas are among the most breathtakingly beautiful sounds ever produced on Planet Earth. But, I have to admit, the plots are Rated “R”.
I still love those two operas, even though I am a Rock musician.
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