SDSO & Toni Braxton Opened 2010 Summer Pops

There is a couple of hurricane off the western Mexico coast that is sending thick clouds over San Diego this weekend. It makes for a great outdoor weather for sun-sensitive me (I have SLE that loves to flare up when that big ball of helium gets to shine without any cover in the summer months). All the same, I was expecting a warmer weather while walking around the Marina District yesterday afternoon looking for a good photo shot to send to my Aussie friend.

Where do you go in the Marina District of downtown San Diego for a good photo shot? The Top of the Hyatt Lounge on the 40th floor of the Manchester Grand Hyatt's Harbor Tower, of course...


I looked down on the Embarcadero Marina Park - South (there are two of them enclosing the Marriott Marina) and spotted the tent stage and grandstand they had erected for the San Diego Symphony's Summer Pops season and couldn't resist dropping in to see if there was still any cheap ticket left available (the symphony itself rarely sells out, but this weekend they are teaming up with pop's soulful queen Toni Braxton to open the season... that makes for a different ballgame!). To my surprise, the place was only a quarter full and there were plenty of seats available so I grabbed on in the Cabaret section on the lawn in front of the stand...

One new feature for the summer pops this year.... They actually force-check your camera. Not that that prevented photo-taking inside the concert aria since most cellphones these days come equipped with a camera. Most people are good about not taking photo of the performers during the show... They mainly just take photos of themselves (and most didn't use flash, thanks goodness!).

The concert opened with a virtual battle of the brass with two different brass sections (the scaled down SDSO was joining forces with the Civic Youth Orchestra, East County Youth Orchestra, and San Diego State University Young Artists Symphony) flanking the stage with Giovanni Gabrieli's 1597 Canzon septimi toni #2, a rarely heard number that, while quite obviously fun for Matthew Garbutt to conduct, gave plenty of evidence of the reasons for its neglect (the thing even ended on a hanging note without any resolution).

They SDSO' string section then took over the stage for the first movements from Mozart's 1st Symphony (in E flat major) and the famous serenade, Eine kleine Nachtmusik. As much as I love the SDSO, I must confess that their violin section is the most soulless bunch of technical perfectionists of the symphonies I've heard yet... They can make technically demanding pieces sound easy, but for all their virtuoso proficiency I fail to hear any point to the strings of notes they play. It is actually more frustrating than hearing someone trying to muddle through a piece of music that is beyond their ability to technically cope with. It reminds me of a much conjectured line that goes; 'God gave me the talent to sing, and so I sing'. To which I wish a question is added; 'But aren't you interested in the 'Why?' of it? Why did 'god' give you the ability to sing... if not to actually communicate something to those who may hear your sound?'

The sound amplification system was also rather ill-balanced for the orchestra with the brass and double basses getting too much unneeded help while the lighter strings were often nearly drowned out. I guess having to share the playbill with a pop band didn't help the set up.

The most objectionable thing about this night at the symphony, though, was this 50 minutes long intermission that came with an awkward rich-section-only donation auction. While most people in the audience were impressed by the promotional video that both depict the ritual handing off the baton from Jahja Ling to Matthew Garbut via a bunch of enthusiastic-kids-in-relay and the Bridgepoint Education music reach out program to young kids, the pandering-to-the-rich-in-total-oblivious-to-the-rest-of-the-audience donation auction that followed it was especially TASTELESS considering today's sociopolitical climate.
                                                     

   
The majority of the audience was forced to sit and watch as partly tuxedoed CEO's held the stage while asking their chums in the rich 'Champagne' seating section to pledge anywhere from $250 - $5,000 donations via a paddle that no other seating sections had (the good folks in front of me in the Cabaret were seriously considering donating when they realized that they weren't equipped with any auction paddle or other goodies the auctioneer was talking about). I realize that the symphonies and the operas in the USA are mostly subsidized by their wealthier patrons rather than by ticket sales, but all the same... Couldn't this sort of thing have been done in a more private setting before the performance? Why should the general and less well cashed audience have to sit through this money-flaunting business for 50 minutes while waiting to hear the concert they had paid to attend?

The crowd had thinned to about a fifth of total capacity when Toni Braxton - now sporting a very sexy short blond hairdo - and her familiar band arrived on the stage, thankfully, with a more inclusive attitude and a greater ability to inject fun into even a cold and cloudy evening gathering of symphony goers. Her seductively dark and husky voice seems still recovering from a recent illness and I was rather alarmed to almost mistake her voice for that of the late Michael Jackson (a lot of 'Uh!..Uh! with not very audible something in between) and her diction was pretty indecipherable at first. She warmed up after a while, though, and sounded quite good in the not so heavily accompanied selections of old hits (Unbreak My Heart, Man Enough, etc) and new songs from the recently released CD, Pulse.



The lass has a star presence and easy-to-love down-to-earth personality that managed to get the mostly symphony-going crowd swaying and waving and even attempting to sing along (not as loudly as she'd like, I'm afraid. Most of us didn't know the lyrics even to her mega hit 'Unbreak My Heart'.... That's how pathetically unhip we classical music heads are!). Her little black dress was feeling the night chill, however, and kept trying to slip off as she tried to dance. I dare say that most of the men in the audience wouldn't mind it if she had let the thing drop, but it was a rather drafty and cold night so that would have been quite unpleasant, temperature-wise, for the first lady of the show...

By the final number the lackluster opening symphonic act was largely forgotten, overshadowed by the Braxton bomb that could still rock the park even when not firing on all cylinders. Vocally she was far from perfect, but she connected fully even with an unfamiliar crowd and communicated loud and clear that her first tour after a long absence is something to look forward to.

Another day in various parts of San Diego

Your smorginess is unfortunately being unexpectedly visited yet again by the imposing Mr. Flu. I would kick him out in the middle of our ongoing argument, but I'm too lazy to go out and pass him on to another victim at the moment.


I did go out for more than a bit a while ago, though. The camera was working alright (though the lens can really use some cleaning... I'm just too scared to touch it at the moment) so I put a bunch of little clips I shot through out the day together into this little home video. The day started in bustling Little Italy (where I laid claim on a beautiful Italian sausage and sauteed onion on hot bun at Pete's Quality Meat for lunch) before venturing off to Estudillo Museum at Historic Old Town San Diego... A bit of a neighborhood walk in North Park before returning to downtown area to catch pianist Kevin Cole jazzing up Copley Symphony Hall with Marvin Hamlisch and the San Diego Orchestra (the latter not being in the clip since no photography is allowed during performance).

The visual is on the boring side, to be sure, but at least there is musical siren Vesselina Kasarova singing a soulful rendition of Mozart's Abendempfindung (to the piano accompaniment by Charles Spencer) from her concert at Konzerthaus Wien in 2006 to listen to in the background. And while old Smorg can bore the pants off the unnaturally attired sloth on a regular basis, boring is not one of the large array of fitting descriptive adjectives applicable to La Kasarova!

Strauss, Mozart, and Debussy' La Mer At San Diego Symphony

Well, what do you know it actually rains in San Diego, California! Actually, it has been raining a bit more than usual here this winter courtesy of El Nino. Your smorginess was out all day and much of last night roaming around downtown area. Having somehow managed to complete the crossword puzzle in this week's issue of the San Diego Reader, I swung by Little Italy (via the trolley) to drop off my bid for a free t-shirt (if you complete the week's puzzle before the Monday after, they'll put you in for a draw for a free t-shirt) at their office on India Street.

This being a Saturday, the Mercanto (Farmers' Market) was on along Date Street. Naturally I dropped in to inhale the atmosphere and was rewarded when I ran into this stall-ful of happy Thai cooks watching over a mouth watering pan of hot kanom krok!

They were selling them at 5 pieces for $1. A superb steal since Thai restaurants don't make these. I've been looking for them for years (had them for breakfast almost every morning when I visited Thailand in the mid 90's. They are positively addictive in a most purr-ific way!). Unfortunately this vendor isn't from any local restaurant but from Chef Woods, which only does farmers' market and catering.

Having indulged myself on the rare find of Thai street sweet, I felt like a spoiled brat walking past homeless folks squeezing themselves under the few roofed sidewalk areas in downtown they could park themselves at without getting shooed away for blocking local business. There simply isn't enough shelter space available and many have to brave the elements out on the streets in plain sight of others.

It is especially frustrating walking by those shivering and wet folks into the cavernous space of the Central Post Office... with all the indoor space that isn't in use (it closes at noon on Saturday and isn't open again until Monday morning). The place looks half empty even during weekday business hours. Being a historic building, though, they can't modify it to allow a more efficient use of its space. I wonder how bad could it really be to allow the homeless folks to take shelter there from the rain during the weekend (and providing them with the equipments to clean up after themselves)... That isn't going to happen though.

Anyhow, after coming home to dry off a bit I went out into the rain again and caught the bus downtown for the San Diego Symphony concert of Strauss, Mozart, and Debussy at Copley Hall. They advertised the evening on Debussy's La Mer, but the first half of the performance actually featured Richard Strauss' Don Juan and WA Mozart's beloved C minor concerto for flute and harp.

Maestro Nuvi Mehta, the "Voice of the San Diego Symphony", gave his customary witty and engaging pre-concert lecture complete with listening tips on Strauss' erotically suggestive tone poem (not quite as detailed and explicit as the first part of his overture to Der Rosenkavalier, but no less enthusiastic) and the ideas behind Debussy's famous impressionistically watery orchestral sketches.

After a brief delay Maestro Philip Mann took the podium and drove the San Diego Symphony into a frenzy and steamy reading of Strauss' romantically disillusioned musical portrayal of Don Juan, literature's most prowess womanizer. This is not as romantic a portrayal of this character as you'd find in the opera of Gluck or Mozart but a Faust-like philosopher who burns out his short life in pursuit of the perfect woman (who naturally doesn't exist). The energetic horn section practically blew dry all the wet and damp suits in the auditorium with its enthusiasm. By the final thrust of Don Pedro's sword our clothes were practically steaming.

After a short intermission we were treated to Mozart's beloved C minor concerto for flute and harp, featuring Demarre McGill (flute) and Julie Ann Smith (harp). Both are the principal player of their instrumental section of the San Diego Symphony. I don't think they matched up all that well as concert soloists, though. Mr. McGill was into smooth legato phrasing (a lot easier to do on a wind instrument than on plucked strings like the harp) and delivered his solos in a super fluid flow while Ms. Smith plucked every note she played so clear and cleanly that they sort of got in the way of the melody. It was a good thing that the briskly paced orchestra was somewhere in the middle and the supportive string section proved an apt moderator for the pair.

The final part of the concert was Debussy's three part symphonic sketches, La mer, depicting the senses you get during a day spent by the ever-changing ocean. I don't know how accomplished Maestro Mann and the San Diego Symphony are at painting, but in music making their brass and percussion sections hammered the barometer so far to the ground that my ears popped from the acoustic low pressure system that developed from it. With the windy strings keeping the tempest finale so well fed it was a surprised to learn at the end of the concert that the tsunami from the Chile earthquake had actually missed our coast.

Maestro Mann (who was quite into tsunami warning jokes this evening) then demonstrated how it does pay to keep clapping after a good orchestral performance by indulging the audience with a Bloch number for an encore. The added few minutes ensured that I missed the 10PM bus back home, but it was quite worth the extra 30 wet minutes waiting for the next one!

On another note, the SDSO is into having three of its instrumentalists out in the lobby handing out their fun photocards to symphony-goers before the show. One of the players out last night caught my attention when I read his card and noticed that his hometown is Stara Zagora, Bulgaria! Naturally I had a smorg moment and blurted out to the poor man, bassoonist Valentin Martchev, who was stuck in his line of duty and couldn't very well have ran away from the opera-crazed me, that my favorite singer, Vesselina Kasarova, came from the same town he does. To my delight, Mr. Martchev told me that he knows her quite well (they attended the same music academy) and is very pleased that her artistry is appreciated.

Honestly... there is something special about that Bulgarian town. It produces disproportional number of wonderful musicians!

Vesselina Kasarova: Mozart Arias (Mozart-Arien)

Among many opera singers and classical musicians, the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is regarded as the ultimate test. One just can't claim to have mastered one's musical ability until one has successfully mastered his music. But the rub is... most of it is so understatedly graceful and dramatically perfect that when you are successful at performing a Mozart aria well, well, you'll end up blending right into the story so that the audience may be excused for not being appropriately aware of all the vocalizing skills and control that you had put into the performance in order to achieve this easy-sounding music. To love Mozart is to never say 'look at me!', I guess... at least not when you are on the stage.

With old Wolfie demanding the highest level of technique and control in the performance of his cruelly exposed music (it is so lightly orchestrated that the audience can notice even the slightest bit of any wavering in the voice... among the many other things that keep singers awake at night), most singers have all they can handle just to sing his music - hitting all the right notes in the right sequence at the right tempo. And that is often good enough for many (after all, Mozart's music is nothing if not easy on the ears).

RCA Red Seal CD: Vesselina Kasarova - Mozart Arias

Once in a long while, though, we are lucky enough to encounter a singer who can not only recreate what Mozart had written on the score, but who can actually bring vividly to life the characters that Mozart's musical notations are meant to try to describe. The dark-voiced Bulgarian-Swiss mezzo soprano Vesselina Kasarova is one such artist... The voice is very alluringly plumb (with that ever present Slavic sad/mellow tinge to its basic clarinet-like timbre) and intriguingly androgenic... being equally compelling in male roles as in female ones. It is a very distinctly recognizable voice - if not conventional in its beauty. And one that is astoundingly adept at expressing emotion, able to shift into many different colors with endless shades of chromatic and dynamic nuances. Kasarova can bewitch you with a smooth-as-silk legato line, cause you to purr contentedly with her caressingly breath-taking soft singing, chill you from inside out when she takes away that warm vibrato in the voice, and then blow you right off the continent with her tornadic rage of her blasted fortissimo.



This CD of 12 Mozart opera arias and 2 orchestral interludes captures musical story-telling of the sort that leaves one with the impression of having been with Dorabella, Cherubino, Idamante, Farnace, Zerlina, Donna Elvira, Cecilio, Sesto, and Vitellia as they live through the events of the opera where the arias occur - so vividly that one nearly compulsively duck as the frenzy Dorabella flies about the room flinging her arms and tossing things she knows she wouldn't break about in a show of temper that is as exasperatingly fake as it is adorable (#1, Ah, scostasi/ Smanie implacabili). We all know she hasn't a prayer at not cheating on poor Ferrando at the first chance she gets, but we are compelled to admire her effort to convince herself that she wouldn't anyhow.

Perhaps her assumption of young Cherubino (#2, Non so piu cosa son) is a little ..er.. assertively hormone-driven (ahem!) than many opera lovers would be familiar with, but this is just the Cherubino that could grow into the tragic hero of Beaumarchaise's third part of the Figaro trilogy (The Guilty Mother) rather than the much assumed 'Don Juan in the making' mold. The profuse passion produced in this rendition is too sincere for me, at least, to foresee a cynical womanizing cad as the young lad's future incarnation.


Of another sort of character altogether is Kasarova's portrayal of the adamantly chivalric and noble (if youthfully sensitive) hearted Idamante (#3. Non ho colpa & #5. il padre adorato). The tessitura (average pitch) of this part is quite high for Kasarova and there is a biting edge to her high notes that somehow works to enhance Idamante’s indignation even more. It isn’t a malicious indignation, but there’s quite a bit of royal anger in it, too. The voice retains its richness very well even in higher passage (quite unusual for this role since he is usually sung by more light-voiced high mezzo or a soprano... unless the tenor version is use).

Especially revealing to me is her incarnation of Farnace from Mitridate (#6. Venga pur, minacci e frema and #8. Gia dagli occhi il velo e tolto), an opera seria that Mozart wrote when he was only 14 yrs old. Somehow this epitome of murderous prodigal son is nearly always sung by a male countertenor now, even though the alto castrato who originated the part obviously lived on his lower register (Mozart, unlike the modern composers, wrote his music to fit specific singers rather than voice types). As politically incorrect as this may sound... Kasarova sounds like she has enough testosterone in her voice to turn any countertenor into a basso profundo. But that isn't even the best part about these two tracks!

Her laughing passages in 'Venga pur' are disturbingly deliciously deranged... and my blood freezes when her second pass on ‘l’ira sua mi rendera’ in the slow middle section of the piece just dissolves into blood-chilling coldness that convinces me that I wouldn’t want to be within a mile of this lass when she’s having a fit. This makes Farnace's turn around in the brilliant long aria of repentance, 'Gia dagli occhi', even more touching as a contrast. It is taken at a rather slow tempo, and it is a credit to Kasarova’s exemplary breath-control that no strain shows in her long drawn out really low passages... or even in those jumpy coloratura passages.

Zerlina the peasant girl may be a minor role in Don Giovanni, but Kasarova's Zerlina (#7. Vedrai, carino) carries a big stick when it comes to showering her man with some loving tender (disguise as bruise remedy). Many a Zerlina have made me smile with her rendition of this slick little sexually suggestive aria, but none had managed to make me blush beet red and steam up my glasses the way this Zerlina does... with just her voice! There is something seriously sensual about her use of vibrato and the rubato she employs that gets the message across even if you don't understand the Italian lyrics being sung. If one can ever successfully intone a quaking bout of sensual desires while delivering a melody... I'll just say that it is always a good idea to have some smelling salt handy when you listen to this CD... and leave it at that.

As far as I know Kasarova has never sung the batty Donna Elvira (#9. Mi tradi, quell' alma ingrata) on the stage. Listening to the hurricane force of this vocal tempest of a track, I wonder why not... She obviously wants to (has said so in interviews), and, by Jove, what Don Giovanni would have a prayer at dodging this insistent a stalker? I've heard many fittingly loony Donna Elvira, but Kasarova's Elvira comes with a twist... She is willfully loony. The Commendatore Statue really ought to leave Giovanni to this gal. She'd be a sorer punishment for him than any flame of hell would, I reckon (totally meaning this as a compliment, by the way).

Cecilio in Lucio Silla isn't one of my favorite opera characters by a long shot. He is usually not much more than a dream boat character who spends the opera being overshadowed by just about everyone else (the high tessitura of the role and its coloratura demand often reduce its singer to just singing the music). It is so refreshing to finally hear a Cecilio who doesn't sound like he is singing a set of written notes during the coloratura part of this aria, but that the coloratura is just his way of expressing his near delirium - of voicing his exuberant happiness. And, boy, do we all need to hear it before we get to the final two opera characters to appear on this CD.


Vitellia (#11, Non piu di fiori), the impetuous princess who longs for the imperial throne, is perhaps the juiciest role Mozart ever had the pleasure to musically characterize in his operas. Her final rondo carries the weight of the entire opera about love, lust, betrayal, and clemency, and it is one that requires a great singing actress to really carry out its dramatic potency. With an absurdly simple melodic line, Mozart endows his soprano with a chance to convince the audience that the vicious character who had spent the entire opera up to these final minutes of it scheming to murder and riot all for her own gain actually has a real conscience... and that she actually listens to it. Kasarova's deep and dark sound and her willingness to explore the ugly places in Vitellia's self-inspection along with her interplay with the bassett-horn obbligato create such a compellingly humane scene of how deciding to do the right thing can be such a trial to one who isn't accustom to self-sacrifice that suddenly you find yourself requiring Tito to be just as merciful as he would need to be to forgive such a wreck of a woman... rather than the usual contempt for the emperor's absurd obsession with clemency.

And to go from that Vitellia to this Sesto (#13. Deh, per questo istante solo), the model of a walking sorrow whose life would be willingly sacrificed in the name of love... One has to amaze at how such drastically different psyches can be so convincingly portrayed by the same soul. Here, more so than in the other arias on this CD, is where one really gets a good glimpse of the famously soul-shattering Kasarova pianissimo... the sort of softly sung phrases that float on the breath so that one can almost reach out and wave one's hand through Sesto's broken spirit. His self-loathing (totally justified, by the way) is so sincerely rendered that one feels barbarous to have to agree with his guilty verdict. The death penalty might just be more merciful for him than a pardon would be indeed.

And so, we come to the final track (#14), the concert aria Io ti lascio, oh cara, addio, originally written for a bass, and are asked by this serenely melancholic voice singing in perfectly silk-like legato to "Pensa che a te non lice, il ricordarsi di me, (Remember that you are not allowed to remember me)" ... Yeah, uh-huh, good luck with that... Listening to a CD like this you can either love or hate this singer, but to not remember her forever afterward is simply a non-starter! Utterly impossible!

Vesselina Kasarova is truly one of the most exciting opera singers around. She takes risks and her daring keeps you interested. Most of the times she pulls it off, and sometimes she doesn't but if there is one thing she isn't, it's being boring. And the most wonderful thing is she never sounds like Vesselina Kasarova is showing off her technical brilliance, but always like the character she is portraying expressing some thoughts or emotions. It also helps that she is wonderfully accompanied by the magnificent Staatskapelle Dresden under Sir Colin Davis. They are so in sync with each other that they make you forget that you are listening to choreographed music rather than being caught in a real conversation between composer and characters for the last hour or so it takes to play the entire disc.

There are lots of Mozart arias CDs out there, but there are only a handful that are sung with such distinct personality as to worth remembering above the rest. This is one of those few. Kasarova is not stuff of background music, so if you're looking for relaxing singing, you've better look elsewhere. This singer commands attention.
 

Tracks:
*1. Cosi fan tutte: Ah, scostasi/ Smanie implacabili (Dorabella)
2. Le nozze di Figaro: Non so piu cosa son (Cherubino)
3. Idomeneo: Non ho colpa (Idamante)
4. Idomeneo: March of the Priests ( instrumental)
*5. Idomeneo: Ah, qual gelido orror/ Il padre adorato (Idamante)
6. Mitridate: Venga pur, minacci e frema (Farnace)
7. Don Giovanni: Vedrai, carino (Zerlina)
8. Mitridate: Gia dagli occhi il velo e tolto (Farnace)
*9. Don Giovanni: In qual eccessi, o Numi/ Mi tradi, quell' alma ingrata (Donna Elvira)
10. Lucio Silla: Il tenero momento (Cecilio)
*11. La Clemenza di Tito: Ecco il punto/ non piu di fiori (Vitellia)
12. La clemenza di Tito: March: Maestoso (instrumental)
13. La clemenza di Tito: Deh, per questo istante solo (Sesto)
14. Concert Aria for bass: Io ti lascio, oh cara, addio
Tracks 4 and 12 are orchestral pieces. I'd rather there being 2 more arias instead, but they fit well with the rest of the program.

1 CD. Sung in Italian. Booklet contains track list and printed libretto in Italian and English.

Stylistic Samplers for Opera Newbies

For those who are new to opera and are curious about how differently the operas from different periods and countries sound, here are links to a few sample clips from the different sub-genres of opera. As you'll see, this is such a huge musical-theater genre that it really has something for everyone.
Renaissance Opera: (1400-1600) The earliest operas are from the late Renaissance period... with minimal instrumentation accompanying the voice. It is as much 'singing' as it is 'sung declamation': speech lifted to a higher emotional content in melody. Until Monteverdi's last opera, L'incoronazione di Poppea (The Coronation of Poppea) came along, operas from this period usually dealt with mythical figures and stories (Poppea in the opera is, of course, based on the 2nd wife of Nero, Rome's favorite bad boy emperor).
- Di misera regina from Monteverdi's il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria (The Return of Ullyses to His Homeland)
- Pur ti miro from Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea

Baroque Opera: The Baroque period (1600-1760) saw the transformation of singing-theater into theater of singing extravaganza and spectacular stage spectacles. On the musical front, this was the age of the castrati, virtuoso vocal acrobats who, willingly or not, had traded their virility for the preservation of their boy soprano vocal range. The story of the operas from this period reverted back to the fantastic rather than the realistic, with magical fireworks, dragons, and griffins, and enchantress and exceedingly amorous leading ladies facing off prodigious knights. Baroque operas tend to be really long and overfilled with spectacular arias that show off the star singers' assets (opera was a socializing event back then and the audience were up and about eating and catching up with friends in the open amphitheater rather than condemned to silence and confined to fixed seat like we are nowadays). 

The Baroque singers really could sing anything from the most heart-breaking of melancholic ballads to feverishly furious rage arias that would rival any of today's heavy metal rock idols. The practice of castrating young men to preserve their singing voice is now (thankfully) illegal, so nowadays opera from this period feature either female mezzo-sopranos or male counter-tenors in the main male roles that the castrati used to sing (their voice range was too high for the tenor. Mezzo-soprani are preferred in heroic ex-castrato male roles because they have a more imposing lower range than most counter-tenors do).
- When I am Laid in Earth from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas
- Lascia ch'io pianga from Händel's Rinaldo
- Qual guerriero in campo amato from Broschi's Idaspe

And here is 'Con ali di constanza' from Händel's Ariodante

Classical Opera (1760-1820): Even spectacular music gets old on you after a while if the collection of it doesn't keep you involved in the main story, so Christoph Willibald Gluck came along to reform opera - turning away from showy music to one that is there to serve the function of telling a compelling story instead. The music of operas from the Classical period is more restraint and less tolerant of the showy improvisation (ornamentation) that was the bloom of the previous period. With Mozart, this period also sees the proliferation of beautiful and drama-oriented ensemble numbers (duets, trios, etc) and orchestration, as the opera story became more relatable to real life (at least the comic operas were, if not the seria ones).

Also in this period the tenor and baritone emerged as the male leads in the opera (castration was beginning to be discouraged then), though many leading male roles were still sung by castrati.
 - Orphée - Eurydice duet from Gluck's Orphée et Eurydice
- Ach, ich fühl from Mozart's Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute)
- Der Hölle Rache from Mozart's Die Zauberflöte
- Soave sia il vento from Mozart's Cosi fan tutte
- Se al volto mai ti senti from Mozart's La clemenza di Tito
- Act IV finale from Mozart's Le nozze di FigaroBel Canto opera: (Italian opera from 1810-1835) What Mozart left off, the bel canto composers (Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti) developed into a brief period of vocal wonder at the opera. Bel canto operas were composed by voice-loving composers to the voice-worshiping audience... it pushed to the limit what singers could do with their vocal cords and lung capacity. Long and spun out melodic line both subtly and supply navigated, with fiery virtuoso ending cadenza that reminds of the glory of the Baroque period (but it has to also fit with the story now, and not just done for show).

Castration of singers was banned in the early 1800's, but the audience of those days were still very used to hearing the male soprano voice from the heroic male lead role, so the composers assigned some prominent male roles to the coloratura contraltos/soprano sfogatos instead (these were the equivalent of today's coloratura mezzo-sopranos). Male roles composed for the female voice are what we call 'trouser roles'. Toward the end of the bel canto period, the focus shifted toward making high tenors the romantic lead in the opera.
- Una voce poco fa from Rossini's il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville)
- Oh patria/ di tanti palpiti from Rossini's Tancredi
- Spargi d'amaro pianto from Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor
- Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi (The Capulets and the Montagues)
 
French Grand Opera (1820's - 1880's): The 1800's was also known as the Romantic period in classical music for good reasons. Gone is the formal restraint of the Baroque and the Classical eras. We are now in for a colorful exploration of emotion and melodrama. Add to that a French flair for the exaggerated (and the fetish for the ballet), and you end up with a really long evening at the opera house (at least 3 hrs a piece... sometimes closer to 5 hrs). So, the music has got to be good enough to keep you in your seat. Also, the orchestra has emerged as a singing force all its own and not just background music accompanying the voice.
- Ah, leve toi soleil from Gounod's Romeo et Juliet
- D'amour, l'ardente flamme from Berlioz's la damnation de Faust
- O ma lyre immortelle from Gounod's Sapho
- Seguedilla from Bizet's Carmen
And here is the Bell Song from Delibes' Lakmé

German Opera (1800's-1920): French grand opera without the ballets (well, mostly without the ballets) and with the Teutonic sense of forboding rather than the French flamboyance... German opera, starting with Richard Wagner, uses the orchestra a lot in their story telling. Listen for 'Leitmotiv', or recurring themes when you listen. These theme represent certain characters or certain motivations or ideas, and the composer liked to wove them in specific sequences to get specific points across, sometimes developing them as the story moves along. Also, there no longer is any 'recitative' or clear cut 'songs'. The music is through-composed, flowing from start to finish to focus on maintaining the drama of the story rather than to allow soloists to show off.
- Liebestod from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde
- Hab'mir's gelobt from Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier
- Gluck, das mir verblieb from Korngold's die tote Stadt 
Verismo Italian opera (1875-1920): This was a really brief musical period where people flocked to the theater not to escape from everyday life but to get an overdose of it in an ultra condensed hour and a bit of musical blood and gore.
- Voi lo sapete from Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana
- Vesti la giubba from Leoncavallo's il pagliacci

Italian opera (1860-): This is something of a bridge from the death of bel canto opera to the searing theatrical operas of Puccini. It's love, lust, and death... in music so beautifully emotive that you keep coming back just to see the soprano dies over and over again...
- Va, pensiero sulli dorate from Verdi's Nabucco
- Celeste Aida from Verdi's Aida
- Brindisi from Verdi's La traviata
- O soave fanciulla from Puccini's La boheme
- Quando m'en vo (Musetta's waltz) from Puccini's La boheme

Slavic Opera: This.. is romantic musical theater for the melancholic among us...
- Moon song from Dvorak's Rusalka
- Excerpt from Janacek's Jenufa
- Yeletsky's aria from Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spade
- Letter scene from Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin

Operetta: The lighter side of musical theater. Finally! This sub-genre of comic satire with sublimely spunky music is for those who would like to be able to walk out of the auditorium at the end of an opera performance without blood spatters on their coat.
- Olympia's doll song from Offenbach's les contes d'Hoffmann
- Barcarolle from Offenbach's les contes d'Hoffmann
- Schenkt man sich Rosen in Tirol from Zeller's Der Vogelhändler



And this is from Offenbach's La belle Helene.

Modern opera: (1920 - ) Ever since Richard Strauss showed the world how effectively an opera story can be conveyed with minimal tonality, many of the modern composers have been afflicted with the distaste for melody. Granted, there are some who still allow songs into their work, but most have opted for atonality and abstract sounds and patterns. It's interesting stuff if you can understand it. If not... ughhh.
- Excerpt from Berg's Lulu
- Excerpt from Fortner's Bluthochzeit (Blood Wedding)
- Excerpt from Britten's Billy Budd
- Excerpt from Glass' Satyagraha
- Excerpt from Picker's Emmeline


Though, there are always exceptions like this melodic tune, Surabaja, Johnny, from Weill's Happy Ends.

So, hopefully after having sampled a few clips from these different sub-genres of opera you would now have a better idea of the sort of opera you would or would not enjoy. I should caution against having too fixed an opinion on what opera to avoid, though. Our musical taste can change over time. Some works do grow on you after a while... so, keep trying the operas you don't now like. You never know, maybe some will become one of your favorites many years from now.

Other opera-related essays you might find of interest: A Few Words To Opera Newbies, Commandments for the Operafans, 10 Beginners-Friendly Opera, Bel Canto Is NOT About Sounding Beautiful!, Do Today's Opera Singers Measure Up to Past Legends? -

Interviews: Juliette Galstian (mezzo-soprano), Christiane Karg (soprano), Elizabeth Tryon (soprano),

Operatic musing: Vitellia, Mozart's Petulently Fascinating Spoiled Princess

A friend of mine got me thinking about Vitellia in Mozart's opera, La clemenza di Tito (the Clemency of Titus), this morning. This is truly one of the most morally repulsive operatic characters around... I'd think that she is topped only by Elettra/Elektra, Salome, and perhaps Katarina Izmailova in terms of unabated nastiness (at least Abigaille in Verdi's Nabucco and Puccini's Turandot do have a real change of heart at the end).

The story of La clemenza di Tito concerns the Roman emperor Tito (Titus Vespasianus)'s relentless display of clemency even when betrayed by his childhood best friend, Sesto (Sextus), who is coerced by Vitellia (the daughter of the late emperor Vitellius) into leading a conspiracy to assassinate Tito. The opera was commissioned for the coronation of Leopold II of Bohemia, and so Mozart's hands were tied when it comes to how Tito would be portrayed (he is practically the stand-in for Leopold, and so must come out spotlessly merciful at all cost). To compensate, old Wolfie bestowed upon Sesto and Vitellia some of the most beautiful and dramatically fascinating music he had ever penned.

On the music score, Vitellia is a downright hideous role... She has to be either a lirico-spinto soprano with really great low notes, or a true mezzo-soprano with really good top (the role covers well over 2 full octaves; peaking with a D6 during the Act I trio, Vengo! Aspettate!, and bottoming out with a G3 toward the end of her final rondo, Non piu di fiori).... and is able to cope with a tessitura (average pitch) that is just about as stable as one would expect from a flea-infested yelp-a-delic chihuahua. Having made the role darn near impossible to sing beautifully, Mozart had practically ensured that she is not a role for a beautiful vocalist, but for a dramatically apt singing actress.

How deliciously mean is Vitellia? Check out her two full arias from a 2003 performance of the opera at the Salzburg Festival... performed by the viciously captivating Dorothea Röschmann (Sesto, played here by Vesselina Kasarova, was written for a soprano castrato and is now usually sung by a mezzo-soprano).

The text goes:
"Deh, se piacer mi vuoi, lascia i sospetti tuoi/ Ah, if you want to please me, don't be so suspicious;
Non mi stancar con questo molesto dubitar./ Don't weary me with tiresome doubts.
Chi ciecamente crede, impegna a serbar fede;/ He who believes doubtlessly inspires faith in others;
Chi sempre inganni aspetta, alletta ad ingannar./ He whose faith wavers invites others' betrayal!"

Listen to how Mozart contrasts the two sections of the aria... The woman is a femme fatale from Hades! She sweet-talks him, knowing that he finds her irresistible... and then taunts him when she sees that he has capitulated to her will. It takes some really great acting both theatrically and vocally to pull this thing off without making the woman so thoroughly repulsive as to make it impossible for the audience to sympathize with how Sesto can be so attracted to such a person (after all, she's ordering him to kill his loyal childhood best bud and emperor!). Vitellia has to be both venomous and yet erotically desirable at the same time.

Alas for the conspirators, Tito, having been turned down by both Berenice (the Jewish princess he was smitten with) and Servilia (Sesto's sister, whom he doesn't really love, but wanted to marry in order to elevate his friend's status at court), decided to ask Vitellia to marry him after all. Frantic, Vitellia tried to rescind her order for Tito's assassination, but was too late. Rome is burned and Sesto, in the confusion of the scene, had stabbed someone resembling Tito, but isn't. Now that order has been restored and his conspirators had given him up, Sesto resolves to confess his part in the plot without revealing Vitellia's hand in it. Realizing that her boyfriend is more loyal to her than she had ever meant to return the favor, Vitellia finds herself in a moral dilemma.

Her second aria, 'Non piu di fiori' (which constitutes the climax of the opera), is actually explained in the recitative that leads into it. The aria itself only amplifies the sense of distress Vitellia is in as described by the recitative, which goes:

"Ecco il punto, o Vitellia, d'esaminar la tua costanza: avrai valor che basti a rimirar esangue il Sesto tuo fedel? Sesto, che t'ama più della vita sua? Che per tua colpa divenne reo? Che t'ubbidì crudele? Che ingiusta t'adorò? Che in faccia a morte sì gran fede ti serba, e tu frattanto non ignota a te stessa, andrai tranquilla al talamo d'Augusto? Ah, mi vedrei sempre Sesto d'intorno; e l'aure, e i sassi temerei che loquaci mi scoprissero a Tito. A' piedi suoi vadasi il tutto a palesar. Si scemi il delitto di Sesto, se scusar non si può, col fallo mio. D'impero e d'imenei, speranze, addio."

(Now is the moment, O Vitellia, to test your constancy: will you have enough courage to see your faithful Sesto dead? Sesto, who loves you more than his own life, who you talked into committing a crime, who obeyed you, cruel one, and adored you, unjust as you are; who in the face of death remains true to you, while you, with all these knowledge, calmly go to Caesar's bridal bed? Ah, I would always be haunted by Sesto and the fear that the breezes and the stones might betray me to Titus. Let me go and confess all at his feet. Let Sesto's crime, If it cannot be forgiven, be lessened through my guilt. Ah farewell, hopes of dominion and marriage!)

So, Vitellia sort of has a conscience after all. Though her 'repentance' is caused by her own fear of future betrayal (perhaps by other conspirators who had eluded captivity) and that the death of Sesto would haunt her conscience.... and not from any love she has for him or because it is the right thing to do. And if there is any trace of remorse about having masterminded a plot to kill a (supposedly) benevolent ruler, I have yet to detect it... This woman is really a piece of work! She is so self-centered through and through that even when she does the right thing, it is still done for a selfish reason.

Though I have to give her credit since she is aware of what Sesto had sacrificed in his love for her (so she isn't quite a sociopath... just supremely spoiled and self-centered). And that she realizes what the mortal consequences of her confession would be and still does it is a plus... There are many people who wouldn't go through with it.

The actual aria:

"Non più di fiori vaghe catene/ No longer shall Hymen descend
Discenda Imene ad intrecciar./ to weave fair garlands of flowers.
Stretta fra barbare aspre ritorte/ Bound in harsh, cruel chains,
Veggo la morte ver me avanzar./ I see death advances on me.
Infelice! qual orrore! Ah, di me che si dirà?/ Wretched me! How horrible! What will be said of me?
Chi vedesse il mio dolore, pur avria di me pietà./ But my distress may move him to mercy."

That's really just her reiterating what she thinks the outcome of her confession would be. Hymen is the Greek god of wedding, so the first phrase says that she knows that her wedding (with Tito) would be called off. The second extrapolates further that she might even be executed for her part in the conspiracy. Then she airs some hope for mercy... though the music indicates that she realizes that mercy isn't a hopeful prospect now even when it concerns Tito.

The more she thinks about it, the more hysterical she gets. The obbligato bassett-horn (that really low tuned woodwind playing its own solo along with the soprano's voice) is her thought of Sesto. It coaxes her to do the right thing even as she becomes more and more horrified with the prospect that Tito's mercy had ran out.... And that is one big reason why I don't like it when some singing geniuses come along and manage to sing this beast of an aria beautifully. Vitellia's soul is anything but beautiful. It's a great big moral struggle for her to perform her first decent act in the entire opera. It has to sound ugly (or at the very least distressful) in parts .... especially when repeating the 'I'm done for, I'm hoping for mercy (but I ain't gonna get it)' motif where her vocal line dips deep into the mezzo-soprano range, going as low as a G3 toward the end of it.

It is such a cool thing that Mozart doesn't pause his music after this tour de force semi-mad-scene, but connects it right to the march to the arena (where Sesto is to become lion food), I think. That makes it easier for the soprano to stay in her quivering distressed mode in the final scene. It is just as well made it easier for Vitellia to confess, too..... She doesn't have much time to re-think it after the hysterical ending of her rondo to when the beaten up Sesto is brought in.

I'm not sure how significant 'Non piu di fiori' is in the overall scheme of the opera, but it is the place where a really good singing actress playing Vitellia can earn her very morally off-putting character some sympathy from the audience. It makes the character more intriguing... There is some hope that the Vitellia at the end of the opera has emerged a chastised and more predisposed to morality than the one at the beginning of the work (it takes quite a b*tch to sing that first aria! This character is manipulative as hell!).

Some hope, but not a lot...