Met opera asks day 1
Late of course :) thank you so much @opera-my-beloved and @revedebeatrice for putting these together, I love being able to read everyone else’s responses and look back over this year!
What’s a production you’ve seen that changed your whole opinion of an opera? I would say the Met 2011 Il trovatore, since when I saw the 2015 version during the first week of streams, while I couldn’t tear myself away from the unfolding horror and orchestral angst, I basically came away from that stream in a shock and needed to lie down (figuratively speaking) and recover...I was just so MAD? (And I’d seen Rigoletto before, so I know what mad feels like re: plots and such but... yeah I was Not Happy and completely screwed up over the plot because I was definitely using too many braincells to fully enjoy Trovatore)
but then I watched Un Ballo in Maschera and noticed the 2011 version had the same principal cast members and so I was willing to give Trovatore another try and... whether it was familiarity with the singers, or not taking the plot so seriously, or the brilliant way Sondra Radvanovsky portrayed Leonora (vocally as well as dramatically)... I actually really loved it. Maybe I was actually listening to the music the second time :) although that’s usually how it goes when watching productions more than once.
What is an opera composer you’re trying to explore more? Wagner. I have seen and hear zero Wagner and if only for the sake of my German and also Opera History that I better get on this. Also I really need to know what Nietzsche is talking about (I read Zarathustra earlier this year and let’s just say he references Wagner, or so says the editor who wrote all the notes in the version on Gutenberg hehe)
Did you discover any new favorite singers? All of them! I really wasn’t “into” opera until that first Met stream week, although I had listened to Rigoletto nonstop after seeing it in person in 2018 (the first opera I got to see live!). I’ll list the artist I had to add to my music library thanks to the streams though: Renée Fleming, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Sondra Radvanovsky, Roberto Alagna, Shirley Verrett, Bryn Terfel, Angela Gheorghiu...
Also... can I just say...all the Mezzos? (especially trouser roles <3) (okay technically Shirley Verrett is singing mezzo in my recording of Ballo but then I saw her singing Tosca in a Met stream so...)
What’s an opera (or production) that you wish you could watch again for the first time? This is such a hard question! I agree with people who have responded by saying operas are usually more enjoyable when they are returned to vs. seeing for the first time. And I think the way I saw That Lifechanging Onegin (2007) was perfect and almost spiritual just the way it was, so not that... Okay, not to be THAT predictable but now that I think about it, it’s Le Nozze di Figaro. I had not been exposed to the concept of trouser role before and between Cherubino and that rollercoaster plot (WAY back when I didn’t know it yet!) - yes.
