Opera meme

[chickenfeet2003]

day 19 - your favorite opera of all time

This is a bit like picking a favourite composer. It all depends on mood and situation. I still have abiding affection for Die Zauberflöte, Das Rheingold and Peter Grimes which were some of the first operas I saw live. I also have great affection for Dido and Aeneas, Le Nozze di Figaro and Iphigenie en

Comments

[shezan]

Lohengrin and Cosi. Cosi because it was the first opera I saw live, at Salzburg, when I was 14 - and I didn't even know it existed; I only knew about Don Giovanni, Figaro and The Magic Flute at the time; my mother says my back never once touched the backrest of my seat. Lohengrin because once I got into Wagner (and it took time), it's the one that seemed the most enjoyable, luscious, heroic - truly Wagnerian (as opposed to the Flying Dutchman, which I liked but saw as a kind of sub species of Verdi, i.e. Wagner for dummies). Also, knights! Princesses! Middle Ages!

I still would like to see a staging of Cosi in which the partnerships aren't dissolved at the end - Fiordeligi stays with Ferrando, etc. which makes by far the best musical sense. There's nothing in the libretto that makes it impossible; and of course the music showed us where the real depth of sentiments was.

(I'm told it's been done, but not where or by whom.)