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Operas you love every note of!

14K views 112 replies 49 participants last post by  Taplow 
#1 · (Edited)
Which operas do you love in their entirety? That is to say there is not a moment that you would excise from the whole. That's it.

I'll start. Die Meistersinger, La Boheme, Der Rosenkavalier. I have more but I'll wait to see everyone else's thoughts.
 
#2 · (Edited)
Fore me it is these six operas that I love every note of:
Fidelio,
La Cenerentola,
Der fliegende Hollander,
L'elisir d'amore,
La Fille du Regiment,
Martha.

I really would not want to cut any opera, but could see an easier time of Meistersinger if it were shorter. And Strauss' Capriccio should be cut to about half the time. Great story, but no action equals boring. I like La Sonnambula a lot but it has its slow parts that make it a tad tedious.
 
#3 · (Edited)
Capriccio, really? A wonderfully composed look at the merits of opera and the eternal debate over which is more important, the words or the music with a fantastically witty libretto. Couldn't lose a word or note of this one either. I could see a good chunk of Sonnambula deleted with little loss to my appreciation of it though! I'm afraid I find pretty well everything Rossini wrote a bit tedious. Some nice overtures but that's about it really. :)
 
#5 ·
Berg's Wozzeck - its proportions seem ideal to me. Similar story with Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress, Britten's The Turn of the Screw, Orff's Der Mond and Zemlinsky's Der Zwerg.
 
#12 ·
In addition to William Tell............
Tales of Hoffman
Faust
Lucia di Lammermoor
Lohengrin
The Ring
L'Elisir D'Amore
L'Italiana in Algeri
Un Giorno di Regno
Mefistofele
 
#21 ·
ditto Les Troyens .... even the ballets have an important role to play within the overall development of the themes within this opera

Now .... let's see if we can keep the thread on the topic of 'Operas we love every note of' without drifting into "but I don't like 'x'!"
 
#31 ·
As of now, Parsifal, Tristan und Isolde, Fidelio, and Pelléas et Mélisande. As soon as I finish the Ring cycle, I'll most likely be able to update my list. :)
 
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