What about Opera???

What operas/musicals are , in your opinion, worth listening??? Tell me you favorites or sth.

What about Opera???

Gosh, what a huge, wide open question.

There are many, many great operas to listen to. A few of my favorites:

Cosi fan tutte, Mozart

Le nozze di Figaro, Mozart

La Boheme, Puccini

Turandot, Puccini (%26amp; Alfano)

Tosca, Puccini

Rigoletto, Verdi

Il Trovatore, Verdi

La Traviata, Verdi

La forza del Destino, Verdi

Aida, Verdi (sublime! find a recording with Leontyne Price!)

Selections from the Ring Cycle, Wagner (you can get the whole thing too, but it's huge!)

Tristan und Isolde, Wagner

Parsifal, Wagner

Der Meistersinger von Nurnberg, Wagner

Guillame Tell, Rossini

Il barbiere di Siviglia, Rossini

Pagliacci, Leoncavallo (the aria Vesti La Giubba is one of the default arias when some TV show or movie needs a tenor singing opera, usually as a comedy piece. Get past that and it's an incredible aria, from an incredible opera.)

Nixon in China, John Adams

The Death of Klinghoffer, John Adams

There are many, many others, but these have spent the most hours in my CD player/phonograph/tape deck, depending on the decade :-)

As for musicals, it depends on what you're looking for. If you want shows evocative of opera, in that sung through style, where the form of the music fits the story rather than the standard song style, you'll want to stick with folks like Sondheim, Jason Robert Brown (Parade, in particular), Maury Yeston (Titanic) and their ilk.

That said, there's a lot of good quality out there. Much of the output from the big writing teams of the 40's through the 60's (Rodgers %26amp; Hammerstein, Rodgers %26amp; Hart, Lerner %26amp; Loewe, Adler %26amp; Ross (a sad story, that)) is fabulous and lush.

Despite his decline (IMO) Andrew Lloyd Webber's earlier works were quite good, particularly Evita and Jesus Christ Superstar. Cats is lovely, though a very different type of show, and Phantom is quite good, if a little uneven in the second act.

Les Miserables is in a class by itself, for me. Though not the most amazing music, per se, the overall effect is very moving and unique.

Stephen Schwartz has done some nice work, most noted for Wicked and Oliver.

I very much enjoyed Rent, Hairspray, Legally Blonde, Batboy, Little Shop of Horrors....

I could go on and on, and in fact already have, far too long! Happy listening!

What about Opera???opera mobile opera theaterThanks. I did make one mistake, one I've been making for years now!!! Attributing Oliver to Schwarz! I was thinking of Pippin, which is silly, of course, yet I keep doing it!!! Pippin *is* a wonderful musical. Oliver is also, and was beautifully written by Lionel Bart. Report It


Madame Butterfly to start with
I'm sure for some people, opera is very enjoyable. In my opinion the style of the music is very soothing. It's something you could listen to while reading a book, or studying for a test (depending on the type of opera). But, it's not for me. Lol.
La Boheme is beautiful. So is Madame Butterfly. If you listen to Madame Butterfly also listen to Miss Saigon - which is basically a modernized version of it. Its interesting to compare.
Carmine is personally my favorite opera, I was fortunate enough to see it last year with my voice teacher. It's so good. It's also surprising how many songs from it are well known.

My favorite musical at this very moment is Spring Awakening. The music is so good, it's written by Duncan Shiek. I mean, with songs like, "Mama Who Bore Me" and "The ***** of Living." I mean the whole musical is about sexual awakening so it's sort of raunchy, but it's amazing.
Opera - Madame Butterfly is gorgeous. Marriage of Figaro is pretty funny. La Boheme. Turnadot.

Musicals - Hair, Rent, 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Monty Python's Spamalot, Spring Awkakening are all pretty good (sorta) modern musicals. Some anyway.