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squonkhunter — Altri mi maledicono
Published: 2014-06-30 23:35:01 +0000 UTC; Views: 1126; Favourites: 23; Downloads: 0
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"Others curse me."Rigoletto from Verdi's opera. Probably one of the most tragic fictional characters ever created, and by far my favorite opera character. My favorite piece of fiction, to be honest. Rigoletto is just...perfection, and it reveals more and more depth the more I delve into the score.
Been Magic Fluting a lot recently, so I haven't drawn Rigoletto in a while. Then he came out of my pencil.
And thank you for doing so, lovely. My girlfriend calls this the "No Photos" picture.Ladies: "Rigoletto! Rigoletto!"
Rigoletto: "Ladies, please!"
Dialogue inspired by this comic: harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=…
30 June 2014
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Comments: 50
ACH NEIN...that would've been amazing.
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So it would. But alas, I had only enough money for cheese!
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The eternal question...hmmmm.....opera....or cheeeeese...?
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Well, cheese in Austria is very low-price and the Wiener Staatsoper is not, so it's simply a question of income.
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True...true. Also, you can eat cheese and you cannot eat opera, so opera needs to catch the fuck up.
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It's on its way. There are, after all, many tasty opera singers out there.
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Oh, certainly. *and here she ceases comment so that this conversation does not come back to haunt her in her future opera career*
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That's also why I didn't name names.
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OhohohoHOHOHOHOHO clever. Do you, my dear, intend to become a famous opera tenor?
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I do indeed. One of the sad and droopy ones rather than the heroic ones.
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*leans forward with big creepy grin* PERRRRFECT...
No really, I'm a composer, and I only ever write sad, droopy tenors. Other than that one character tenor I'm writing for my current opera. Keep training your voice, young star, and keep in touch. I shall call you to audition someday.
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Fantastic. I'm still an egg student, but I will grow.
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And likewise, I am an egg composer starting on my first opera. I have only seven minutes of it fully composed, but unfortunately most music-writing programs don't offer any way to write down waterphone music.
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I had to Google waterphone.
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It's a very new instrument; don't feel bad. Its sound will add a lot of ambiance to what I'm trying to accomplish.
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My dad always used to joke 'If I could play any instrument, it would be the sackbut.'
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Haha it looks very difficult to play, what with having to reach those notes from muscle memory.
Here's another strange instrument that requires precision: youtu.be/w5qf9O6c20o?t=14s
A theremin reacts to the energy a living body is putting off while near it, and depending on how far away your hand is from the vertical bar, and volume is adjusted by the horizontal bar. Here's a good breakdown of this strange instrument: www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJACNH…
I don't think I'm every going to compose for the theremin. My favorite "odd" instruments are the Armenian duduk: youtu.be/iBDJwyyO3Ck?t=17s which is ANCIENT as Biblical times and, to me, sings almost like a human voice.
The mbira: www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKbfUE…
And the glass armonica: www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEKlRU…
My current opera features the glass armonica as the sound of nostalgia, as it is impossible to perform vibrato on the instrument, so the hanging, crystalline notes create a sense of uneasiness. Mark my words, sir, someday I will customize and own one of these.
It also features the Armenian duduk, which I often use with the oboe, because they sound very similar to one another except that an oboe is sharper, so I will often have one start the melodic line and the other finish, either softening the sound by switching to duduk, or sharpening it by switching to the oboe.
My current opera does not have an mbira, but it does contain the waterphone. I will be using it not so much for solo work as it will be something that adds to the ambiance of a fantastical swamp tale, much in the same way that Peter Gabriel uses it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpXCpm…
Sorry for bombarding you with videos!
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No need to be sorry. This is all very fascinating for a simple flautist.
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Simple is not the word I would use.
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Well, after seven years of it, I'm moving on to the bass clarinet.
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I hear the clarinet has the largest range of the wind instruments, though I know very little about the bass clarinet. What inspired the change?
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I'll still play the flute, just not primarily. I found the sound was too sharp, perhaps because I have a cheap flute, and I prefer the roundness of the clarinet's sound. Also, it's the instrument used in old Japanese monster movies. It's true, it has quite a considerable range.
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Haha all good things. I played the violin for a while but never liked it. I should have played the cello. The violin is too screechy for me too, expected to go high, which I found annoying, but the cello has a warmth the violin never will.
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When I was at the Venice Biennale this year I saw this most amazing video, of Robert Burns' poem 'Slave's Lament' as sung by Ghetto Priest and accompanied by string players of the Scottish Ensemble. Ghetto Priest is normally a reggae singer, and I've barely listened to any reggae, but here he was singing very differently, and the man has a voice just like a cello.
Anyways, here's a thing about the piece: www.theskinny.co.uk/festivals/…
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I love Rigoletto. My absolute favorite of Verdi's!
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MINE TOO! Don Carlo is a close second, and Simon Boccanegra a third. I have yet to see Otello, but Rigoletto wracked me like no tomorrow. I was emotionally bed-ridden for about three weeks afterwards.
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Verdi was truly a master. Rigoletto is one of those operas, you can't just hear or see once. I'd love to see it live someday.
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I agree. It's so complex; I'm finding new things out about it every single time I listen to my recording. It would be amazing live, only if it were handled by the right director. So many people screw it up; it's depressing. Like taking away Rigoletto's hunch or portraying Gilda as stupid, or even worse, trying to sexualize the two.
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Yes, I'm an extreme purist when it comes to opera. I just can't respect these overly modern productions. Don Giovanni set in the ghetto? It exists, I've seen this. I can appreciate little modern stage tricks being added, but to actually go in and make changes doesn't suit my tastes. I don't like modern for the sake of being modern. It's kind of pretentious. I'd love to direct opera. It's been a dream of mine to direct Don Giovanni with a decent budget. I liked Raimondi as Don Giovanni, but I didn't like the production. I think Ponelle's Rigoletto is great, but it's missing something, which is weird to say, because it has a lot more than a lot of productions. Ponelle was the best opera director as far as home video is concerned. I'd be too scared to attempt Der Ring........I hold any conductor in high regard who can take on that challenge.
I've dreamed of doing that, but all my favorite opera singers are either gone, or too old for the parts I love them for. I hate to say that I don't like any new opera singers, I just have my own ideas of who is perfect for their roles.
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I agree, being modern just to be modern and bring stories to a modern audience is a dumb idea. People go to see period movies and operas to be absorbed in that time period and to escape their own. It's not like we can't identify with an 18th century character who's losing the love of his wife to someone else. We can empathize with that as long as it's human.
I did not like how Ponnelle treated the character Rigoletto at all. In my opinion, the Ponnelle version is missing a LOT. The Duke was not humanized either, as Pavarotti plays him as a straight-forward dick. There is no indication that he hates himself later on Act Three, even though the evidence is clear in the score (particularly the "Bella Figlia Dell'Amore") so I feel ya, someday I'd like to direct a version of Rigoletto.
I know my friend is training to be a conductor and is going to take on The Ring. She's asked me to be part of the artistic development, which of course means I need to actually watch the last three operas. XD
Yeah, you have to look harder for good newer singers nowadays. A lot of them aren't singing in the big opera houses. For example, I've found the perfect Don Ottavio for Don Giovanni and he's not too big right now, but his name is Kenneth Tarver, and I had to search hard to find him: www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPLy0Z…
And I found the perfect Duke for Rigoletto, Wookyung Kim, but again, you have to search hard. YouTube helps.
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Oh, I like this Kenneth Tarver. Very nice and strong tenor without going nuts with the vibrato. Thanks for showing him to me. I judge tenors too harshly, which is problem of mine. I always leaned towards the basses and it made me pretty picky towards them. Mozart liked to fill his operas with basses and baritones (who were considered basses at his time) and I guess that caused me to be more of a bass person. Look at a list of my favorite opera singers and it's like 85% basses.
Kenneth Tarver has a very strong voice that has a bit of a sweetness to it. I'd love to hear him do tenor on Beethoven's 9th, he's got the perfect voice for it.
I think it would be cool to see the Ring done right. I really need to see the whole thing, I wish Solti had filmed his cycle, as I have his set, which sound-wise, is the best I've heard. Back in the day, if you wanted Mahler or Wagner, you called Solti. I'll probably end up watching Levine's cycle, as I really like James Levine as a conductor. The Met wouldn't be the same without him. He did my favorite Le Nozze Di Figaro as well as my favorite live Don Giovanni, but that isn't out on video. Karajan is my favorite studio Don Giovanni. Solti's is my favorite Magic Flute, and Bohm did my favorite Abduction from the Seraglio. Barenboim did my favorite Cosi Fan Tutte. I was exposed to a lot of Mozart because I watched Amadeus all the time. Other kids had Disney movies, I had Amadeus. That tape was falling apart. So a lot of my opera choices are based on which sounds closer to Amadeus. I've kind of gotten away from that, and gone for which effect me the most emotionally, which sound the best, but still it's subtle things that I pull from my early impressions of the pieces. Thankfully that didn't happen with Beethoven, and I'm more open to who is doing the conducting. I actually have like 4 Beethoven Symphony cycles that I could call my favorite. I don't get why I'm so stubborn with Mozart.
There I go a rambling on...
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Oh my goodness Tarver would be great doing Beethoven's 9th! ACH! I do know he's done Carmina Burana: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6Ab14…
Stephanie Blythe is another modern singer I adore. Her range is from mezzo soprano to contralto, and she's incredible: www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSBlnX…
Wow, you saw James Levine LIVE??? Where were you?! Oh my God, I grew up on Amadeus. I was trying to get my friends into it but no one my age was interested, which is understandable, as it was my favorite movie since I was four. I broke my VHS too. XD
Well, Amadeus kind of psychologically brands you if you watch it when you're young enough. I know for a very long time my concept of Mozart was the Hulce version and it's taken a couple years to delve away from that and see Mozart as the man he really was. A Life in Letters helps: www.amazon.com/Life-Letters-Pe…
as does purchasing his scores and reading into the music and what he was trying to say. And Bernstein has been introducing me to Beethoven through his Harvard Lectures, which are thankfully available on Youtube, and I know I've heard Beethoven before, but never really delved into him like this before.
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No, I wish I had. I've never been blessed with seeing anything on that scale live. I would love to see James Levine, and I'd love to go back in time and see Bernstein and Karajan when they where in their prime. I'm not big on Bernstein's musicals, but the man is one of my absolute favorite conductors, and many of his recordings I consider definitive. His Rite of Spring with the NYPO is unrivaled. Karajan's earlier New World Symphony with the Berliner is spectacular.
Tom Hulce did such an amazing job in Amadeus, I'm sort of sad he didn't explode as a film actor, but he's a man of the stage. Immortal Beloved is a great film for Beethoven, and while it isn't 100% accurate, it stays a little truer to history than Amadeus. Gary Oldman is my favorite actor ever because of it. Amadeus and Immortal Beloved are probably the only films that can always make me cry. The music plus the stories just take it to another level. I also like Immortal Beloved for introducing more pieces that aren't on your regular Walmart classical samplers. Amadeus probably did, but I think it made a lot of pieces more popular. People didn't seem to give Symphony 25 much thought before Amadeus came out. Everybody knew his 40th though.
I'm trying to make more of an effort to give pieces I haven't heard 100 times a try. I've got so many classical recordings, but I always skip to my favorites. I don't like to force myself to listen to a piece. Sometimes a piece you might not care for when you are happy, might just knock you back when you are sad.
I love Bernstein's Harvard lectures. I haven't seen them all, but I watched a couple. It's so great that a man of his genius poured his mind out and shared his knowledge. You see such a burning love for music. He didn't have that stomach flu face that some of his contemporaries would get. The classic stern conductor who the world should bow down to. I watched his rehearsal of The Rite of Spring and you see a man who wants to share. Bernstein was such a powerful conductor and a great pianist. His Rhapsody in Blue sounds as jazzy as it did when Paul Whiteman conducted it.
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Same with me; I'm not big on Bernstein's music but his conducting is incredible. I love what he does with Copland and Beethoven and Mahler. Also, that little trick conducting with his face pretty much makes him the most adorable conductor in my opinion: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oU0Ubs…
ACH I shall have to check out Immortal Beloved. Oh, a great movie for Robert and Clara Schumann (and a bit of Brahms) is Song of Love, and last time I checked the whole thing can be viewed on Youtube. Yeah, I was hoping to see Hulce in more films, but his love is the stage and he does a lot of producing now, which he enjoys. He's inspiring because he wanted to be a singer but then got into acting because people said he couldn't do it. His breakout role was when he was an understudy for the main character in Peter Shaffer's Equus (lol he seems to have a run-in with Shaffer plays) and the lead couldn't make it, so it was his first Broadway performance and also his first naked performance. I was happy to hear him voice one of my favorite Disney characters though (Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame) but other than that, and a brief cameo in Stranger Than Fiction, I haven't really seen him in any films.
Really? No one cared for the 25th before Amadeus? That's an incredible dialogue between a man and his fear. I believe Shaffer and Milos Forman sat in a room rewriting the play's script and listened to Mozart constantly. I think they went through all of his work, which annoys me that out of all the songs in Le Nozze di Figaro, they pick the one moment that, without context, makes the entire opera seem boring. I remember as a kid wanting to know more about Don Giovanni (obsessively so) but not wanting to really touch Le Nozze. I finally saw it live (with Leon Williams as my first Figaro) and was shocked by how funny it was because Amadeus made it seem like it was boring.
I agree; Bernstein was such a giving soul and he absolutely adored what he did. He was such a treasure to the classical scene, and to the world, really. I've never heard his Rhapsody in Blue but I shall have to check it out! I'm already impressed by his piano playing during his lectures. He just sits down and all this amazing shit pours out like it's nothing.
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I love his 1958 recording of Rite of Spring so much, I bought it on CD and vinyl.
I don't know if people didn't care for the 25th, you just don't really see it booming in popularity. A lot of people only know a lot of classical pieces due to movie. Anytime someone mentions Wagner, it's either Apocalypse Now or "Kill the wabbit!!" I don't think I would've ever given Abduction from the Seraglio a sing listen if I hadn't heard 3 pieces from it in Amadeus, and now I love it so much. Mozart loved it enough, he composed a wind octet for many of it's highlights. He did the same for Don Giovanni. I need to give his lesser known operas a try. I liked Cosi Fan Tutte, which isn't really unknown in the opera world, you just don't really hear a lot about it outside opera houses.
Immortal Beloved is beautiful, some of the actors can be a little irritating, but Gary Oldman, Jeroen Krabbe, and Isabella Rossellini make up for it. The actors actually try for their characters respective accents. Gary does subtle German without going 40's Anti-Nazi propaganda with it. The soundtrack is nicely conducted by Sir Georg Solti.
I wish somebody would make a classical biopic using historically informed performances. I have a set of Beethoven's Symphonies with period instruments from Anima Eterna, and I thought it would cause the pieces to lose their fire, but quite the contrary, they might be a little more firey. The gut strings have more of a woody tone and the horns have more room. His 6th goes from sounding like Handel to Mahler in places. It gives a fresher look into it. Don't get me wrong, I'm still a modern instruments guy, but I'm growing to love the period instruments. I still prefer a piano to the pianoforte, but I'm not opposed to it.
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ACH the Bernstein 1958 Rite of Spring is INCREDIBLE.
Cosi Fan Tutte is probably medium popular. Something like La Finta Giardiniera is harder to come by and not performed nearly as often.
Ah, Solti! And Isabella Rossellini! I'll definitely give it a watch.
Wow! I've never heard Beethoven in the period instruments. Are they actually 200-year-old instruments? I know they take Mozart's violin out every year to play it in order to keep it functioning. Is this something similar in nature?
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Really with period instruments I doubt the instruments used are 100% from the time period, some may well be replicas, but they are tuned as they were years ago, and the strings are gut like was common. Common pitch was also an issue, while it's not always 100% what standard pitch the compositions were in. Performances today with modern instruments just read the notes as if they are standard pitch. The period instruments attempts at restoring the pieces to their original pieces, but even that is usually a good approximation. The stringed instruments of the time couldn't handle being tuned as high as today, so that was often a consideration that was made. As strings got better, long after Beethoven, violins were either made or modified to accommodate their new strings and new tunings, other instruments followed this path. Some churches also banned certain notes "I kid you not", so many times musicians had to re-tune as to avoid said notes.
Tempo is another thing that is considered. Some composers, such as Beethoven, were alive when the metronome was invented. Many works were marked with what speeds the composer intended. Beethoven went back and marked all his previous Symphonies with his intended tempi.
Further back with Mozart, Haydn, Bach, and Vivaldi, things are more open to interpretation. Though, a bigger change occurs when one listens to baroque and early classical period performances. Many of Beethoven and Mozart's piano compositions were on the pianoforte, which at first will take you by surprise, but if the pianist isn't souless, actually sounds great. Further back, even in Mozart's earlier years, everything is more on harpsichord. It makes sense though, his piano works didn't begin until he was 18, tough the fortepiano was invented much earlier. Vivaldi and Bach sound amazing on period instruments.
For Beethoven on period instruments I recommend Jos Van Immerseel's symphony cylce, samples are on Youtube. I recommend Trevor Pinnock for anything Baroque. Both conductors actually bother to conduct with feeling, which is rare in historically informed performances. I'm still in love with modern performances, but they period instruments have their own sound.
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I must admit that I seriously have hand-envy on this one. I mean how?? they are hands?? I want those too??
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Thank you very much! I must admit, I'm envious of people with wiry hands as well.
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huh I'm not the only one thank god XDDD
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No! Haha I've been envious for a couple years. I used to have people model for me.
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I totally understand you. my brother has extremely large and slim hands, and they look really beautiful but I could never get him model for me ):
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LOL! It's because you're related. XD
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