A friend in Scotland mentioned on the phone last night that she was going to see Massenet's opera Werther at Glasgow's Theatre Royal. I couldn't recall ever listening to it. Odd as I discovered that I have the CD and it's on my iPod. So now I have listened to it (again?). The opera is based on the German epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe. I found it powerful but not really memorable (with apologies to any opera or Massenet aficionados reading). This is rather odd given that it is still, and has been for over a century, regularly performed around the world.
I followed the Massenet by Puccini's La Boheme which, as I type, is being played at full volume to suit my mood brought on by reading a blog post which brought too many memories and a morning spent taking a friend who has suffered a very severe stroke out for coffee and a drive.
So what have Massenet and Puccini got in common? They both wrote operas based on the the 1731 novel L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost. Nor were they were alone in writing operas or ballets on that work. I have the Puccini but not the Massenet. Guess what I'll be obtaining soon (besides the novel which I now have -for free - on my Kindle).
Posts
Six years of ballet may not have made me the famous ballet dancer that I dreamed of as a child, but it certainly made me appreciate all the opera ballet music that we danced to. I began to love all the music that my dad loved, which I referred to before as "old time boring music." So much so, that he bought me a beautiful jewelry box with a ballerina dancing to "Fur Elise" every time it was opened.
ReplyDeleteHope you find the entire collection that you are seeking....enjoy.
Thanks Virginia. Hopefully I'll manage to borrow it from the library first to see if I want to buy it. If not I'll just bite the bullet. I think it's good to be able to appreciate all kinds of music.
DeleteOpera has never really been my favourite kind of music. I have read Die Leiden des jungen Werthers, though. In German. Moreover, I read at least part of it close to where Goethe is supposed to have written it; when on holiday in a village by the river Lahn 30 years ago.
ReplyDeleteI don't have a favourite kind of music Monica. I listen to music to suit my mood. I wish I had your language skills!
DeleteGraham, by "not my favourite" I really meant that I don't have a single opera among my CDs and I think I've only once been to see a proper one "live". (There is no opera house in the town where I live.) I think it was The Barber of Seville. If not, it was The Marriage of Figaro...
DeleteGraham..... I'll take Pink Floyd off and now.
ReplyDeleteWho want's to listen to big fat divas singing in foreign talks?....Well you do and you is generally fine.....I can't help thinking that Bat Out of Hell would have done the job. It's a really good record and long....Hey Jude is long too and local.
If one still haves access and control over pub music, I'd go for PINK FLOYD. Brick in the Wall, not as good as the previous suggestions but good value. If you don't have to put money in the machine. No worries. I'm sorry to put music back a decade or century or two but opera is mostly awful. No beat to strangle the cat to.
You obviously haven't seen some of the modern opera singers Adrian. There are some exceptionally attractive ladies out there. I play what suits my mood. I have enough Meatloaf, Bonny Tyler, Pink Floyd, Procol Harem and even the Smashing Pumpkins to sink a battleship. Yesterday happened to be an opera mood day. There is lots of opera I will never bother listening to again and there is lots of other music I'll never waste my time with either. My musical tastes are very catholic.
DeleteI haven't Graham.....Last one I saw was an heehaw in La Bohemia or sum such crap that was forty years ago and shortly after I saw ELO. Restored my faith in music. Whilst talking of faith I'll pop Faith Hill on....The pearl harbour sound track....Good for a weep is that.
DeletePS. At my age all ladies are attractive......Just as long as they have had a wash in the last week or so. It could be longer but I would try and ascertain where they had been.
I can enjoy and appreciate opera from time to time but I am not knowledgeable about opera in any way.
ReplyDeleteRed I'm not very knowledgeable about anything. In fact I'm not sure I ever was and the older I get the more I realise the less I know.
DeleteI had a friend who got into "Werther" after his dad died and he was almost suicidal. I am never sure if it made him better or worse.
ReplyDeleteJenny Werther certainly is not one of the happiest of tales but then neither is La Boheme nor, if one thinks about it, are a great many operas. Opera is often pure emotion - usually heavy emotions. If one wants light and 'happy' then one turns to Abba!
Delete