Hello. It's been 4 years since this forum last agreeded on a top 100 Operatic works and voted on polls to choose their favourite and most reccomended recordings. On the ocassion of the 5 year anniversary in 2020, we could reopen a new process and poll.
There haven't been many audio operatic releases during this time, but members have changed significantly and many of the opera fans online weren't part of this forum by 2014 when it all started (2nd edition o be more precise). Although controversial things like Opera Depot and Youtube have helped to raise the concern about historical performances, the most significant change in the operatic market apart from composition has been the load of Opera DVDs and Blu-Rays that have been released. I think it's in order to make a new poll about our favourite recordings but I would also like that we all discuss our favourite compositions, sharing room with all our biases for composition eras.
I don't know how we should organise to choose the Top 100 opera. I'm in favour of opening a Game thread. I would love members like Art Rock, Bulldog and science to share their reccomendations for a process like this. I do remember that for the last poll of recordings, once we all had the top 100 compositions, we opened a thread where a moderator presented a work and members had like 5 days to post (not vote in a poll) their favourite recordings on CD and DVD (if they had an opinion, as they could pass). We could repeat that.
I want to open now that discussion, especially focused on the choice of the Top 100 Opera compositions. And to express a couple of points from my own opinion.
I volunteer myself to design, code and post the results of the Recordings poll, with wide pictures, harmonic typography, just limited by the Bulletin features. Most of the posts of the 2015 TC Winners have broken links.
I don't think we should do a rank of 100 operas from best to "worst", but rather just come up a list of the 100 TC favourite operas. The Order of voting and also results would only be conditioned by the date of premiere, from older to newer (we could also open a thread to clear any doubt about the dates and running order anyway).
I think we have more than enough with 12 months to get our new Winners thread. I would make the effort to include the ASINs of all the products or just warn that the winners are OOP.
Wow, even more? Ok... I now have the time to count the nominations of the Top 100+ while I listen to the ultra-expanded Don Carlos conducted by Bertrand de Billy in Vienna. Worth it for the orchestra alone.
Well, after so many weeks of polls, I was so relieved to stop counting. I still need to untie a few operas but you know there will be a lot of ties.
Wildthing, it's not about you, but the reason for this Opera poll was to update the survey of tastes that members had in this forum. It could have been made a point about asking for musical reasons instead of "favourites", but oh, in one month before starting, none of those people cared, and when they want to complain about the Falstaff scandal it's too late and there's a lot of work done. This time the Recordings poll will use the new 150 list and should be published (rather than voted) by order of premiere.
You know I'm too ignorant to take part in any poll about works or composers. I simply don't know enough, but I think I have known enough different Operas to set a list of "favourites" and confront it with others.
I believe the reason for the 2015 remake list was to offer an oppurtunity for a broader spectrum and larger pool of voters, since the original list was compiled by about a dozen users in the opera forum. For whatever reason, this latest attempt just didn't gain much attention or interest, and the participation was quite low, especially towards the end where the list is basically reflecting the tastes of...5, 6 users?
The results have certainly been interesting to say the least, but I don't see any reason why it should replace either of the other lists as a stickied "recommendation" list. The first two lists are far more diverse and inclusive, especially in regards to baroque and 20th/21st century works.
I'm not suggesting the list be stickied as a recommendation list (and it is a shame that it wasn't more popular), however the results should still be published and more people may take part when we get to the favourite recordings part of the exercise.
There's another element here and that is the next stage where favourite recordings are choosen. How many recordings of Le grand macabre, L'amour de loin or Nixon in China are there to choose from?
Hey Granate--did you send the results to a mod to create a thread to pin the results? looks like that's what happened for the 2015, yeah? and do you have any thoughts about when to start the recordings voting? Do you want any help with any part of that?
I think I'd lean to 2 days over 3 come to think of it--200 days is a little over 6 months, which seems like a better timeframe than 300 days, about 10 months, to get through the voting for the first 100.
I need to save time to manage this: send the Opera list to the mods and begin to prepare the threads and start the poll soon. Don't sign off that I may fall ill from corona soon. I'm almost 25 and very healthy, so I'm not in danger.
Hello. I've been thinking for a while of just kicking off the Recordings poll. I still need to send to the mod the 200+ list. You know how I ended mentally about this. Yesterday and today it's like I'm having an argument with a "friend" and reflecting about my life again.
I would need to send all the boards and results to the new laptop since I'm using it more than the old one. I'm particularly not in a mood for Opera listening although from time to time I'm listening to my CD recordings. Today's Knappertsbusch Bayreuth 1955 Höllander.
Since we are mostly all in lockdown, should we think again about a faster pace since there are less posibilities we miss out? Also, it's like when it ends the quarantine, the last thing we want to do is to keep logging in and voting every day... What do you think?
I should combine this with Home-working and my final masters project which has kicked off too.
I'm definetely about 1 opera every two days, but I don't know if you think we should do 2.
About the first post, in which we would start voting for Wagner's Ring, we would we voting for two days for the entire Ring on CD and DVD, and then two for each of the single operas included on CD. That makes 10 days in which everyone would be welcome to enjoy and could place their votes within those ten days... Is it a good idea?
I'm not working at the moment (although I do have some personal admin to do), but I still have time to vote as I'm not going out in the evenings. There may be others, however, who are having to work at the moment, so perhaps a two day time frame would be best?
I do like pictures, but it certainly can clog up the thread, and some years out many of them may be gone. However, I would recommend that when we post the performance, we can link it to a picture for those (like me) who love to look at pictures, and it may be that a particular release has better sound.
Feels a little excessive to give the same amount of time for each of the operas in a cycle, like I could understand one voting round for the Ring, and then one more voting round for all the individual 4. But it's your party!
If you mean the results of the Recording poll, I'll try to look myself or talk with the mods for a shared image account that holds all the covers of the recordings, uploaded by me. That way they shouldn't get down by the years.
Ah, good point. Rather than linking in the voting thread, we would only like pictures in the results thread. There it would be a good thing to include images in the posts. Often I visit those old results threads to see what is listed before buying a recording. It is nice to see images and not just text.
It's a good question, but I would inlude anything that has been marketed on CD or DVD. Maybe you mean about Live productions that we have attended. If there isn't anything taped on that that is DVD, Bluray or even video on demand and streamable, it shouldn't count.
Probably I should be more specific on that.
For example, I'm going to give either 4 or 5 points to this rarity. It is a live performance, but it has been released on CD and can be listened nowadays by anyone willing to pay the price or just stream by Spotify, Youtube or Tidal if it were.
I think it should be anything that has been released commercially on CD or DVD. I know there are some niche 'private' labels with a huge variety of live recordings available on CD-R for online order, but none of my top six choices of any opera would include any of those. Assuming others agree, of course.
I like the idea of restricting it to commercial recordings. I guess they can be out of print, as long as some are on the used market. I have gotten some of the niche 'private' label recordings, but typically don't keep them in my regular listening rotations.
David Poleri -- a name from the past. How terrible that this handsome young tenor with a spectacular spinto voice had his life tragically cut short when his plane hit a mountain.
That explains something. I think Walburga Wegner had some bad fame after other live performances in the 50s, but I wondered why didn't Poleri go further.
If Conte is right, then I didn't get the point of the SixFootScowl post, so anything that has been released on cd would count (for example that Davis Philips Troyens that is still unissued after a very long time).
I dunno, Operadepot seems like fair game--we certainly spend enough time talking about them. There are a couple of operas where I'd pick Operadepot recordings first, and those recordings are even more easily accessible for people reading the recommendations than some of the rarer out of print stuff I may also be recommending.
I am fine with it. I don't want to rock any boats. The main thing is we do the voting and make a final list. There could be some great recordings in the Operadepot et.al. category, and it may be especially useful where there are precious few commercial recordings of a work available.
This seems to have fallen under the radar. When are we going to start voting for our favourite recording of each of the top operas we voted on earlier this year?
I've been getting busy with many things outside of this, especially my instagram. Also work. It's my fault. I've compromised myself to too many things. I need to find out the time to create the thread and let the voting begin. That means to put another schedule on myself since I'm designing templates to recommend a music album every day. Not to mention to start a new fitness life with a jump rope and make a change in my life.
I'm now trying to space out from things related to design and video. I'm not in an opera mood at all. A friend has even told me off about my compulsive buying of music. But probably it is time to start developing the Recordings Poll based on the Top 150 list. Because of being busy, I won't really count the results in a post inmediately but I must make sure all the votes are correct.
Tomorrow I'll put myself to create the excel files for counting the votes, plus my own list of votes based on my notes and writing the opening post and instructions for the poll.
Will you join me? First week should be dedicated to the Ring. 2 days for the Entire ring, and 2 days for each opera from it. Is it right? I need to check the conclusions we reached again haha.
Starting next monday.
Sorry, family is safe but I've had better times myself.
Ok. I made my voting list for Operas 1-20. It's been demanding.
The List of rules for the thread is also written down based on the discussion that happened here. Instead of 5 days for the ring and 2 for each Ring Opera, we should do 5 days for the 4 Ring Operas and 2 days for the Ring.
We haven't had many votes for individual Ring operas, are much longer is the poll open, anymore takers?
N.
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