Classical Music Forum banner

Tragical / sad operas

32K views 45 replies 27 participants last post by  nina foresti 
#1 ·
Hello, looking for some tragical and sad operas. And maybe some furious aswell (i'm a fan of depressing music hah:D ) thx!

-jenn
 
#3 ·
The finale of 'Rigoletto' is heart-breaking. As is the 'Der Rosenkavalier' trio (at least i think so!). 'La Boheme' and 'Otello' are tragic and 'La Traviata' is, too! Ah, the list goes on and on... how many do you need? haha
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dim7 and Dr Johnson
#5 ·
Hi Jenn!

So, you are a fan of depressing music? :eek:

Well, you are going to love Shostakovich! :)

Especially his quartets! :)

It's very sad music, penned by a poor chap who lived his life in a Communist Police State, and came pretty close to being shot or sent to a labor camp for his music.

A sad Opera? Hummm..... let's see, take your pick. I can't think of one with a happy ending. :p

Although "La Boheme" has already been mentioned, I'll second the motion, and add that not only is the story sad, but the music that supports the singing, is also very sad and moving. If you don't cry while listening to La Boheme, then your tear ducts are not working. :rolleyes:
 
#7 ·
You will have a lot of fun with Puccini (well... it's not really diversion what you will get, but it will certainly keep you busy)

La boheme.
Turandot. The composer died before completing it, and it was initially completed by Alfano; for a much intimate finale, I suggest you to get Berio's conclusion (which is available in DVD in a magnificent fururistic set, including Zefirelli and Gergiev)
Tosca.
Madama Butterfly

For some reason, Puccini tends to recurently kill the prima donna, I warn you.

Verdi's Aida is also a must. The last scene is musically one of the most pure writtings you will find out there. No big choruses, no heavy orchestration; just two imprisoned lovers.

But the most tragic ever is, IMO, Andrea Chenier, by Umberto Giordano. There's a very good DVD of this one with Domingo and Tomowa-Sintow, from the Royal Opera House. Two tear sections in this opera are the duet at the end of the 2nd act (Ora soave, sublime ora d'amore"; and the end of the 4th act, "La nostra morte è il trionfo dell'amore"
 
#8 ·
Let's backup my selections with a few mp3.

Andrea Chenier
October 15, 1955 - RAI

Mario Del Monaco
Antonietta Stella
Giuseppe Taddei
Luisa Mandelli
Ortensia Beggiato
Fraco Calabrese

Angelo Questa

with cue sheets

http://rapidshare.com/files/22606769/55ChenMDM1.rar.html
http://rapidshare.com/files/22604477/55ChenMDM2.rar.html

*********
La boheme
Rodolfo: Rolando Villazón
Mimi: Anna Netrebko
Marcello: Boaz Daniel
Schaunard: Thomas Laske
Parpignol: Kevin Conners
Sergente: Gerhard Häusler
Kinderchor des Staatstheaters am Gärtnerplatz
Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks; Einstudierung: Udo Mehrpohl
Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Dirigent: Bertrand De Billy
München, Philharmonie am Gasteig, 14.04.2007

http://rapidshare.com/files/26047665/01_-_ATTO_I.mp3
http://rapidshare.com/files/26048619/02_-_ATTO_II.mp3
http://rapidshare.com/files/26049927/03_-_ATTO_III.mp3
http://rapidshare.com/files/26051526/04_-_ATTO_IV.mp3
http://rapidshare.com/files/26051584/05_-_End_Credits.mp3
 
G
#11 ·
Daffodylls, apologies in advance for offering a contrary opinion.

Finding a decent Lucia who sings Bel Canto is gonna be difficult. Callas is no coloratura so if you happen also to like coloratura, Jenn, then avoid her and Sutherland. Great singers in their own way but not specially good for pre-Verdi operas.
I just spoke about emotions.

As far as Lucia is concerned, i am agree with you that Coloraturas are indeed more suitable for the role. I have already listened such refined performances, but, they didn't make me shiver a lot. I prefer a singer like Maria Callas, who sang with all her heart and soul. - Nevertheless, I admit that her interpretation was very personal.
 
#12 ·
I'd like to request something in this same post as well...

Tragic operas, etc...

But preferably male vocals, with melodies atop backing that, through it's structure, and vocal power, can just make you actually cry...

Not that I do not like female singers, but I find the sadness through the voice of a man can be much, much more saddening and poweful...For me, anyway.

Any songs to recommend?
 
#13 ·
Well, talking of songs literally, then I'd recommend Schubert's and Schumann's, sung by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau or Wolfgang Holzmair. Consider especially the Dichterliebe, op.48 and Liederkreis, op.24 as goes for Schumann, and for Schubert get the Winterreise and some independent songs like D553, D565, D771, D799, D800, D832, D933... much more.

As for opera airs, try 'Che faro senza Euridice' from Gluck's 'Orpheus and Euridica' (that here is in fact a countertenor, so often the air is sung by mezzosopranos), 'Far away, Palmyra' from Delius' 'Koanga' (sung by Eugene Holmes - a deep, afroamerican voice), 'E lucevan le stelle' from Puccini's 'Tosca, to name but a few.
 
#14 ·
From Handel:
Saul
Belshazzar
Jeptha
Acis and Galatea
Hercules
etc
etc
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dr Johnson
#16 ·
I invited a girl to attend with me a performance of Tosca back in April this year. As soon as Tosca jumped from the rooftops of S'Antangelo my friend was so moved that she shouted "Oh no! ! !, she jumped! ! ! ! ". "Dear, performance is in progress, please keep it low" was my severe response.
 
#21 ·
It seems odd replying to a post more than 18 months old, but here goes. The curious aspect of the 'tragedy' of Suor Angelica is that it may not be tragic; or at least, it's possible to see its tragedy from a different perspective that leaves the opera hovering on an edge between tragedy and redemption. It isn't clear at the end of the opera whether the miracle of the vision of the child and the Virgin is 'really' happening. We don't know whether it's an hallucination that Angelica experiences in her dying moments, or whether there really is a divine intervention taking place - one is free to 'read' the opera either way. However, whichever way it's read, Angelica dies at peace, believing herself to be forgiven at last, and reunited with her son. To us, outside the situation, it is tragic; I'm not sure that it's tragic for Angelica, even if she is hallucinating.

I think the great power of the opera lies here - it straddles that "is it/isn't it?" question (as does the emotional impact of the music), so that anguish and beauty are brought together in an extremely poignant way that defies description.
 
#26 ·
Alban Berg's Wozzeck is the most tragic, sad and depressing opera I can think of. It's actually my favourite opera.
The Berg is very interesting, in the sense that the large orchestral section after the murder and suicide is a kind of author's commentary on what has gone before. At least, that is how I see it. It seems to represent the composer's compassion for his characters. We step out of the immediate events of the opera and the arena widens to include not only Wozzeck and Marie but all of us in this world. And then after the emotional climax the music subsides, and we are then plunged back into the final scene of the opera, where the the thumbscrews are tightened one more time. I think if it were not for this orchestral interlude the opera would be much more claustrophobic and depressing than it actually is.
 
#27 ·
A very tragic, powerful, and short opera is Puccini's "Il Tabarro" (the cloak) which is set on a lowly river barge in Paris about the year 1910. There's an excellent DVD of the Metropolitan performance that also has "Pagliacci" on it too.

As was said previous, the finale of "Rigoletto" is maybe the strongest and most tragic of any opera, ever. The entire opera is full of revenge, curses, and nastiness.
 
#28 ·
Not exactly on topic, but not only do I love many tragic operas, but sometimes find
villains to be at least as interesting as the heros/heroines-- & at times MORE interesting, even sometimes sympathetic in some ways: & not just Don Giovanni who's more a damnable if fascinating rake, but Scarpia, Queen of the Night, Amneris, Eboli (well, semi-villainess), even Alberich the Dwarf !!:) & others. I should say I like plenty of comic/happy ending operas too-- all of Mozart's 'comic' operas, Don Pasquale, Sonnambula, Fidelio,
Rosenkavalier & many others.

Ed
 
#29 ·
I think that maybe the most tragic opera ever is Peter Grimes.
Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District is another one.
Lulu and Wozzeck of course are also very bleak.
Kata Kabanová also comes to mind.
L'Amour de Loin is a tragic recent one.

Someone above said Der Rosenkavalier is tragic. Not at all, in my opinion. There are things in life that are way more tragic than getting a little older and figuring out that it's best to pass your teenage lover on to someone his age. I'm sure the Marshallin didn't stop having lovers after Octavian; just, she must have picked someone a little older than Octavian.
 
#30 · (Edited)
Someone above said Der Rosenkavalier is tragic. Not at all, in my opinion.
I agree (not tragic). In my opinion, poignant would be a much better word for the Marschallin parts of the story. Of course, the overwhelming effect the opera makes owes a good deal to the fact that it's exactly the right kind of mixture of many things, from slapstick to very touching. I also love how it ends (Mohammed picking up the handkerchief to his merry theme), this gives the whole thing such a wonderfully light, fairy tale type touch.
 
#31 ·
In this league of operas, Verdi's La Traviata is for me an absolute killer! It manages to be both sad and tragic in about equal measures. I know full well that many consider it to be only an example of extreme melodrama. Somehow Violetta's personal sacrifice rings a bell in me, even lying to the person you love, if you think it's better for everyone (except yourself).
 
#35 ·
Traviata is hilarious. LOL.

It's so OLD FASHION!
Yes I spend all my time when I watch Traviata laughing like a drain. Let me see:

1. The position of women in the 19C when employment options were incredibly limited, so that you can either sew hats for a pittance like Mimi or sell your body, if you are lucky in the demi-monde, where you get to spend your time with creeps like Baron Douphol.

2. The rigid morals of a society where a man would refuse to marry a girl because her brother is having an affair. Don't forget point one if she doesn't manage to get married.

3. The hilarity of tuberculosis with no prospect of cure. It's a blast.
 
#34 ·
Compared to Verdi's other operas, it was almost contemporary in its subject! Dumas Jr. had his La Dame aux Camélias published in 1848 and the opera had its premiere in 1853 at La Fenice, although the management insisted that the setting should be changed to the eighteenth century.
 
#37 ·
2. The rigid morals of a society where a man would refuse to marry a girl because her brother is having an affair.
That's pretty preconceived way to put it. He (can't remember his name, not sure if it was even revealed in opera) would have to refuse not because "her brother is having an affair" but because he is in relationship with whore, not even some common streetwalker but one that is pretty well known among people. It dishonors whole family, family which he would enter by getting married, as long as there was possibility of Alfredo and Violetta also getting married there was a strong risk for him to become relative of this whore.

Considering that both families were old and big households it would affect not only this young man interested in taking Alfredo's sister for wife but whole house. That's risk he apparently didn't want to take and there is nothing silly about it.
 
#39 ·
I take your point that it is stronger than just having an affair. However I strongly object to the word whore, with all its patriarchal baggage and connotations. Do you have an equivalent word for the men who exploit her, who are happy to use her body until it wears out, when they will drop her and go off in search of fresh young meat?

In fact it makes the whole hypocrisy stronger too, you give women the choice of marriage into a repressive social system, penurious labour, being a servant (but only if they have references) or selling their bodies, and then condemn them for for choosing the option that briefly offers the most freedom and is best paid. And woe betide the women if they get sick, or when they get old.

I'd like to add that there are other aspects of Traviata that I find very moving. Violetta is longing for somewhere to belong, to escape her loneliness, to get out of the dog-eat-dog world that she moves in, and for a few months she finds peace, only to lose it to the hypocritical mores of society. You hear her longing for a family also in her interactions with Germont - I mean, where is her own father to protect her interests?

So, going back to the original post, where is the LOL in all that? Is Lulu hilarious too (after all they are two sides of the same coin)?
 
#38 ·
That's pretty preconceived way to put it. He (can't remember his name, not sure if it was even revealed in opera) would have to refuse not because "her brother is having an affair" but because he is in relationship with whore, not even some common streetwalker but one that is pretty well known among people. It dishonors whole family, family which he would enter by getting married, as long as there was possibility of Alfredo and Violetta also getting married there was a strong risk for him to become relative of this whore.

In other words, its OK if my future brother-in-law f**ks a well-known courtesan... its expected of men of his position, but if God forbid he actually thinks to marry her because he actually loves her... well that will certainly not do. It would bring shame upon the both families.:confused:
 
#40 ·
In other words, its OK if my future brother-in-law f**ks a well-known courtesan... its expected of men of his position, but if God forbid he actually thinks to marry her because he actually loves her... well that will certainly not do. It would bring shame upon the both families.:confused:
We posted simultaneously. You put it much more economically than me:tiphat:.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top