[jegreenwood]

It depends on the opera , and the person of course. Many of Wagner's operas are much too long for me, but Verdi's full length Don Carlo is almost as long, and I don't mind that at all.

When it comes to actually seeing opera live in the theatre, I decry this habit of playng one or more acts without a break. Don't they know that men over a certain age will probably need the loo (sorry, bathroom) after about an hour? Even La Boheme can seem too long when they just have an interval between Acts II and III.

Surgery can help with that. (Seriously, prostate surgery saved my life.)

As for La Boheme, that was the first opera I ever saw. It was at the Met, and I recall being bemused by the fact that the 20 minute second act was surrounded by two 25 minute intermissions.

 

[Tsaraslondon]

Surgery can help with that. (Seriously, prostate surgery saved my life.)

As for La Boheme, that was the first opera I ever saw. It was at the Met, and I recall being bemused by the fact that the 20 minute second act was surrounded by two 25 minute intermissions.

That I do find ridiculous, and actually, as none of the acts lasts much more than 30 minutes, only one interval between Acts II & III isn't really a problem unless it's not a good production. The last time I saw it the interval couldn't have come quickly enough. We left after Act II.

Seriously, though, I don't think I'm at the surgery stage yet, and I'm checked regularly for cancer. During an eight hour sleep, I rarely get up more than once, and sometimes not at all.

 

[ewilkros]

I love Meistersinger dearly but have never understood why it has apparently never been broken into two operas, the break coming between the perfect Act Two finale and the perfect Act Three prelude, and performed on two dates; or, failing that, at a normal matinee time for the first half and a normal evening time for the second. Easier on the audience and the musicians and no overtime for Management. Plus the chance to sell two tickets rather than one.

Berlioz eventually took, if under protest, steps to accommodate le bon sitzfleisch of his audience by breaking Les Troyens into Les Troyens à Carthage and La prise de Troie, with a purpose-made new overture to the second. I take it that there have been some modern performances like this.

As for the long duration of many of the operas in standard repertory: wouldn't a perfectly HIP hipster completely duck the first act or two and make an authentic fashionably late entrance for the Good Stuff in the middle, as was standard 19th Century practice?

 

[BBSVK]

As for the long duration of many of the operas in standard repertory: wouldn't a perfectly HIP hipster completely duck the first act or two and make an authentic fashionably late entrance for the Good Stuff in the middle, as was standard 19th Century practice?

I'll think about it. It requires a foresight to find out the length of the opera in advance. Don Carlo and Boris Godunov were just unpleasant surprises. Also, it would be helpful to know the timing of the intermission. In the internet era, it could be found out in advance.

 

[ColdGenius]

I love Meistersinger dearly but have never understood why it has apparently never been broken into two operas, the break coming between the perfect Act Two finale and the perfect Act Three prelude, and performed on two dates; or, failing that, at a normal matinee time for the first half and a normal evening time for the second. Easier on the audience and the musicians and no overtime for Management. Plus the chance to sell two tickets rather than one.

Berlioz eventually took, if under protest, steps to accommodate le bon sitzfleisch of his audience by breaking Les Troyens into Les Troyens à Carthage and La prise de Troie, with a purpose-made new overture to the second. I take it that there have been some modern performances like this.

As for the long duration of many of the operas in standard repertory: wouldn't a perfectly HIP hipster completely duck the first act or two and make an authentic fashionably late entrance for the Good Stuff in the middle, as was standard 19th Century practice?

I read that Les Troyens were conceived as a dilogy. It's logical, as a pivotal character of first part dies. But since Mariinsky began to divide them, I feel that something is in short after Troyan part. And it becomes more difficult to clear my schedule for two events when a weird theater management suddenly decides to play it. (Though I've got used to changes when I'm planning Der Ring).
I wish Berlioz would write a sequel. We discussed it in a thread about literally sources. Aeneid is full of stuff for a couple of operas. Aeneas's meeting with a Sybil and descent to Hades (and an encounter with Dido's shadow), as well as his adventures in Latium. Turnus, Lavinia and especially her mother are screaming to become opera characters.

 

[ewilkros]

As for the long duration of many of the operas in standard repertory: wouldn't a perfectly HIP hipster completely duck the first act or two and make an authentic fashionably late entrance for the Good Stuff in the middle, as was standard 19th Century practice?

In the 1930's, in spite of the Depression, each year's Opening Night was a big social event at the Met: débutantes (the kind in the audience) would get squired around; the men would wear Fred Astaire drag, the women would be dressed with ostentatious expense, and many people skipped the first hour or 90 minutes to dine lavishly elsewhere. For the start of the 1936/1937 season, director Edward Johnson, knowing his Wagnerian wing had the company's best singers, hoped to go with the Wagner craze that had really gotten going with Flagstad's debut a season and a half before, and having a new improved orchestra (35 new players) to show off and a débutante of his own in Kerstin Thorborg, put on a Wagner opera for Opening Night, the first time that had been done since 1902. Here's what he settled on:

Metropolitan Opera House
December 21, 1936
Opening Night {52}

Edward Johnson, General Manager


DIE WALKÜRE
Wagner

Brünnhilde..............Kirsten Flagstad
Siegmund................Lauritz Melchior
Sieglinde...............Elisabeth Rethberg
Wotan...................Friedrich Schorr
Fricka..................Kerstin Thorborg [Debut]
Hunding.................Emanuel List
Gerhilde................Thelma Votipka
Grimgerde...............Irra Petina
Helmwige................Dorothee Manski
Ortlinde................Irene Jessner [Debut]
Rossweisse..............Lucielle Browning
Schwertleite............Anna Kaskas
Siegrune................Helen Olheim
Waltraute...............Doris Doe

Conductor...............Artur Bodanzky

--and sure enough, lots of the Best People blew off Act One to done out. After all, it was "only" Elisabeth Rethberg doing the Sieglinde.

 

[Steatopygous]

It is only a weasel word if its meaning in context is unclear. San Antone's meaning is not unclear.



No one here - not San Antone, not I - is claiming that all opinions are equally good. You're arguing with a strawman, or perhaps with some person who isn't present. When you respond to someone's statement, it is not valid to misstate their position or to argue with someone else's position as if it were theirs.



Large numbers of posts on any forum are by people who think their opinions are better than the opinions they're addressing. That is, in large part, what a forum is for.



I'm sorry you are unable to respect the musical judgment of many, many people of considerable musical knowledge and accomplishment who happen not to enjoy what you think a person of sound musical judgment should enjoy. But the fact that you can't shows that you've failed to grasp the most important point of this discussion. It shows that you don't understand the difference between musical judgment and personal taste. It shows that you don't see how a person could lack a taste for something they judged to have inherent excellence. Perhaps you are unable to make this distinction in your own experience of music. Are there no musical works which you recognize as fine, but which you don't care for?

Unlike you, I am quite capable of respecting the artistic judgment of people who don't happen to like the art I like. To claim that I had no respect for the musical judgment of anyone who found Parsifal boring would be absurd. It would put my own musical judgment profoundly in question, since having good artistic judgment means, in part, being able to understand and appreciate qualities in a work of art that people of different values and temperaments might respond to in ways that I don't. To refuse to respect others' judgment or capacity for judgment solely because they don't enjoy what you think is good music suggests, not judgment on your part, but prejudice. It would not be their judgment that would be questionable, but yours.

Well you are entitled to your opinion too. I'm sorry you seem to think there is no criterion by which to judge musical excellence except personal taste. Which renders any discussion superfluous, because the only thing that can be said isI like this, or I don't. And if you don't think opinions are equal, what are you arguing about? I personally think it's an absurd position, one you definitely don't take in your other posts, and you are simply being argumentative, or motivated by dislike, or whatever the case may be.

I'm also sorry you can't grasp why valid is an unsuitable term for an opinion, which is where I came in. English is a rich language which, more than almost any other, provides opportunities for a variety of ways of saying something. Language is my profession, so I naturally think it matters. It aids clarity in communication. Some terms are better than others simply because they are more accurate. I don't agree with Merl, who says she doesn't like opera (by that I mean I disagree with her opinion, not her assertion that she doesn't like opera). But I do not therefore lack respect for her, and explicitly praised her excellent and authoritative survey of Mozart's K516 quintet. Everything is not merely either/or.

Further, you've smuggled in the word "solely" to bolster your argument, because I didn't use it. I don't blame a rap lover who has never heard opera if his first experience is Figaro and he doesn't like it - he probably wouldn't like any opera. I am certainly entitled to consider him ignorant because he absolutely is, as I am of rap. As above on Merle, I do not dismiss everyone's entire range of opinions because I disagree about Figaro. We may agree, for example, on politics, justice, social trends, bringing up children, various cuisines, other musical works - or they may know more or understand better than I do. So, again, you have tendentiously and illegitimately accused me of refusing to respect others' capacity for judgment.

 

[BBSVK]

Well you are entitled to your opinion too. I'm sorry you seem to think there is no criterion by which to judge musical excellence except personal taste. Which renders any discussion superfluous, because the only thing that can be said isI like this, or I don't. I personally think it's an absurd position, one you definitely don't take in your other posts, and you are simply being argumentative, or motivated by dislike, or whatever the case may be.

I'm also sorry you can't grasp why valid is an unsuitable term for an opinion, which is where I came in. English is a rich language which, more than almost any other, provides opportunities for a variety of ways of saying something. Language is my profession, so I naturally think it matters. Some terms are better than others simply because they are more accurate. I don't agree with Merl, who says she doesn't like opera (by that I mean I disagree with her opinion, not her assertion that she doesn't like opera). But I do not therefore lack respect for her, and explicitly praised her excellent and authoritative survey of Mozart's K516 quintet. Everything is not merely either/or.

Further, you've smuggled in the word "solely" to bolster your argument, because I didn't use it. I don't blame a rap lover who has never heard opera if his first experience is Figaro and he doesn't like it - he probably wouldn't like any opera. I am certainly entitled to consider him ignorant because he absolutely is, as I am of rap. As above on Merle, I do not dismiss everyone's entire range of opinions because I disagree about Figaro. We may agree, for example, on politics, justice, social trends, bringing up children, various cuisines, other musical works - or they may know more or understand better than I do. So, again, you have tendentiously and illegitimately accused me of refusing to respect others' capacity for judgment. It's not a good faith way of arguing.

@Art Rock, the moderator, gave a gentle recommendation to stop the objective - subjective debate here. I agree from the depth of my heart and soul.
If it was I who trigered it, I already suffered enough, so be kind to me.
( @Steatopygous @Woodduck @tsquare07 )

 

[Woodduck]

Well you are entitled to your opinion too. I'm sorry you seem to think there is no criterion by which to judge musical excellence except personal taste.

That is exactly NOT what I've clearly said. I've said the opposite; I've said clearly that personal taste is to be DISTINGUISHED from musical judgment - which is also the implication of San Antone's remark - and that, therefore, taste is not subject to criticism.

Look. You seem unable to get past your preoccupations to understand what people actually say, and you aren't contributing anything on this subject but merely complaining about other people's word choices. I have no taste for this stuff. Please stop. May I suggest that you do some reading and thinking on aesthetics? Take the advice of @Art Rock, the moderator, in post #75 above.

 

[Art Rock]

Oh well, apparently I have to roll out the red font.

@Steatopygous
This discussion stops now in this thread.

 

[hammeredklavier]

Nozze can be deadly in the theater; with recordings, I can skip the tedious secco recitatives and go on to the music. Recitatives help explain the story, but if you’ve hear them once, basta!

the plot is thick and there is lots of recitatives and I got bored and left early, but I enjoyed watching it on TV where I can take breaks. Most of Mozart is just too long for my taste, but I love listening to the arias in the car. I would rather sit through a long Wagner opera to a long Mozart opera.

But that's hardly a trait specific to Mozart, is it? Also, I feel the topic of this thread is turning into "What kind of opera I cannot stand" (with people divided over the same old issue of 'secco recitative-number opera vs. continuous Romantic grand opera, music drama (ie. the ones by Wagner)'). I doubt it's what really intended by the OP. Is there an optimal length for an opera such as Le Nozze di Figaro, for you?

 

[ColdGenius]

But that's hardly a trait specific to Mozart, isn't it? Also, I feel the topic of this thread is turning into "what kind of opera I cannot stand" (with people divided over the same old issue of 'secco recitative-number opera vs. continuous Romantic grand opera (ie. the ones by Wagner)'). I doubt it's what really intended by the OP. Is there an optimal length for an opera such as Le Nozze di Figaro, for you?

I think if you enjoy the performance and the cast is effective, the opera should last as long as a composer had decided.

 

[Kreisler jr]

Opera was never meant for recordings. And one is supposed to both see stage action and to understand what's going on in the recitative/dialogue. They are actually funny and witty in e.g. the Da Ponte operas (I cannot speak for 200 years of opera including secco rec. and I'll grant there is some square dialogue in e.g. Freischütz or Fidelio, there might be often reasons to cut it to essentials).
Secco/Dialogue have do be delivered properly and to an audience understanding them in real time (supertitles are not always a solution because they can lag or spoil a point if a line is displayed too early).

 

[Tsaraslondon]

I read that Les Troyens were conceived as a dilogy. It's logical, as a pivotal character of first part dies. But since Mariinsky began to divide them, I feel that something is in short after Troyan part. And it becomes more difficult to clear my schedule for two events when a weird theater management suddenly decides to play it. (Though I've got used to changes when I'm planning Der Ring).
I wish Berlioz would write a sequel. We discussed it in a thread about literally sources. Aeneid is full of stuff for a couple of operas. Aeneas's meeting with a Sybil and descent to Hades (and an encounter with Dido's shadow), as well as his adventures in Latium. Turnus, Lavinia and especially her mother are screaming to become opera characters.

As Berlioz never got to see the whole of his opera performed before he died, I doubt he'd have had the time (or the inclination) to write a sequel.

I've never quite understood the need to break it into two parts, though. It's not as long as some Wagner operas, and personally I find it far more interesting.

 

[ColdGenius]

As Berlioz never got to see the whole of his opera performed before he died, I doubt he'd have had the time (or the inclination) to write a sequel.

I've never quite understood the need to break it into two parts, though. It's not as long as some Wagner operas, and personally I find it far more interesting.

Everyone who took this plot stopped when Dido died.

 

[Johne1]

Now back to your regular scheduled program. Ah, Rossini, thank you!

P.S. Gotta love a Classical Music Forum Moderator who is bold enough to have “Rock” in his name. Love it! LOL

 

[Woodduck]

As Berlioz never got to see the whole of his opera performed before he died, I doubt he'd have had the time (or the inclination) to write a sequel.

I've never quite understood the need to break it into two parts, though. It's not as long as some Wagner operas, and personally I find it far more interesting.

When I was a chorister in Sarah Caldwell's production of Les Troyens in Boston in the 1970s the opera was done in one go. I'm not aware of anyone complaining that it was too long.

 

[Steatopygous]

Oh well, apparently I have to roll out the red font.

@Steatopygous
This discussion stops now in this thread.

Fair enough. But why is it not directed also at Woodduck, whom you gave the last word? Over and out.

 

[ewilkros]

When I was a chorister in Sarah Caldwell's production of Les Troyens in Boston in the 1970s the opera was done in one go. I'm not aware of anyone complaining that it was too long.

I guess I'm still affected by my youthful conditioning--anything that takes up 5 LPs is long. And that's without intermissions.

 

[Woodduck]

I guess I'm still affected by my youthful conditioning--anything that takes up 5 LPs is long. And that's without intermissions.

Hahaha. My youthful conditioning was quite different. I was doing the whole Ring in a day at 15. Couldn't do it now, I'll admit.