Lots of new blood at the LA Opera last night!

[bigguyinpasadena]

I was thrilled to see so many new faces at last nights great performance of Tosca.So many handsome young men and lovely gals from every portion of the Los Angeles mix.

the production itself was great-really GRAND opera.The soprano singing Tosca was a new singer for me-and had a lovely big voice and the stage presence to carry off the role.Samual Raimy was a very dark and threatning Scarpia.I hope anyone with an interest in great music will see this fine production.

So I think the campaign to diversify the audience is really going great-and that is wonderful.

[Guest Tristan]

Getting younger people interested in classical music has not been easy. For various reasons, it appears that opera has become the exception. One helpful thing that some opera companies have done is to flash the English translation, so people unfamiliar with the opera know what's going on. I suspect this has been one important factor. Do they do this in LA?

 

Another is the way younger people view opera. I believe they see it as another form of a good musical show with great singing, as opposed to a high brow symphony. Nice to hear that the audience was also very culturally diverse.

 

Tosca is one of my favorite operas, though La Boheme is my very favorite. You were fortunate to see Samuel Ramey. I have an older SONY CD of Kismet starring Ramey. Excellent performance and super sound quality.

 

- Tristan

[bigguyinpasadena]

Tristan for the staging last night they had to raise the supertitle screen way above the proscieneum.Impossible to see it from my front orchestra seats without looking above the stage.And whoever did the supertitles as usual left quite a bit out-but the main points wwere mostly there.

[+ Charlie]

This may be a West Coast phenomenon: I also noticed it at the San Diego Opera's "Vanessa" in the Spring. However, when I was at the Met for "La Cenerentola" last month, I was depressed by the absence of almost anyone under 50.

[pierrot]

The Met pioneered a new subtitling system that is superior to the projections over the stage. They have small computerized screens on the backs of the seats that can be turned on or off. Other opera houses are now using these and supposedly you'll eventually be able to choose the language. These types of titles are much less obtrusive than the big screens over the stage.

I agree that opera has more to offer the generation who has grown up with video games and MTV. The visual element is often quite amazing, so even the musically un-educated or inexperienced, have something to hang on to, which is not the case for concerts.

The big challenge for opera is to make it cheap enough for young and less wealthy people to attend.

[whipped guy]

Charlie, I missed the Met's "La Cenerentola" by one day due to a hotel reservation snafu (but did catch City Opera's last "Viaggio a Reims" the night before... and the night before that, well you don't want to know!!

 

How was Borodina in the title role?

[FourAces]

Opera? Wouldn't you guys rather hear about the cute twinks I was playing poker with last night in Oklahoma

[bigguyinpasadena]

Strip Poker?

[+ deej]

More like Texas Hold 'Em, I'd bet. :o

[FourAces]

>Strip Poker?

mmm I wish but deej guessed it, Texas Holdem in Oklahoma who could have known

 

But the opera sounds facinating. I haven't been to an opera since I was in my mid-teens. When my folks sent me off to a private boarding school, mmm those roommates were always sooo cute - we could head to NYC on the weekends and every so often they would take us to a cultural event like the opera or a play or whatever.

 

Personally had I known about the Stellas back then I would have prefrred that field trip

[FourAces]

>More like Texas Hold 'Em, I'd bet. :o

 

That is one bet you would win.

[Bilbo]

Maverick and I went to a concert yesterday of mostly brand new music, all by Houston composers. Your comment about interesting young people in classical music reminded me of it very much. The two best pieces all afternoon were by two high students, one 15 and one 16. For my money they were more accessible and more exciting than anything else on the program, even by a man who had taught both of them, though his did come in third for me. And the two pieces had both been written to be danced to by a Houston Ballet's student corps.

[+ Charlie]

In spite of being much bigger than her prince, she was very good--at times she even sounded eerily like Horne. However, I would much rather have seen the "Viaggio a Reims", if it had been on while I was in NYC.

[whipped guy]

Charlie, in 1825 when Rossini wrote "Il Viaggio a Reims" he was at the height of his powers... It is indeed an exceptional opera and was very well done. I left the theatre that night thinking all was well with the world... in spite of the fact that NYC was in the midst of the subway bomb scare. If I had seen Cenerentola the following evening I think she would have sounded indeed like a poor misplaced stepsister in comparison!

 

In compensation for not getting to see the opera in the flesh, I purchased the new Naxos recording of "La Cenerentola" with Joyce DiDonato... excellent... I can't imagine Borodina doing it any better. Still I hope to see La Borodina in "L'Italiana in Algeri" in D.C. this spring... with J.D. Florez.