# The OPERA Thread



## Swordsman of Mana (Jan 7, 2011)

I made a similar thread to this, but it kinda failed, so let's try again. share some clips of your favorite arias, art songs, lieder, classical choral solos, etc. ethnic/folk songs sung in a classical style are also welcome. 

optional questions
1) who are some of your favorite singers?
2) who are some of your favorite composers?
3) what are a few of your favorite operas?
4) what drew you to opera/classical singing initially?
5) what sort of voices do you like?


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## Swordsman of Mana (Jan 7, 2011)

let's start things off with a few of my favorites =)


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## Hollow Man (Aug 12, 2011)

Been kind of curious to get into music like this. Somewhat influenced by JRPG soundtracks....


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## Cosmic Hobo (Feb 7, 2013)

Fantastic idea!

* 1) who are some of your favorite singers?*

Joan Sutherland
Marilyn Horne
Nicolai Gedda
Boris Christoff
Placido Domingo


* 2) who are some of your favorite composers?*

Verdi, Meyerbeer, Rossini, Offenbach
(plus Gounod, Massenet, Donizetti, Berlioz)
I've successfully recovered from Wagner.


* 3) what are a few of your favorite operas?
*
Meyerbeer: _Les Huguenots _(plus _Le prophète, Vasco da Gama_)
Berlioz: _Benvenuto Cellini_

Rossini: Hard to say... EVERYTHING! I think of Rossini in terms of music, rather than drama. The music is less integrated with the characterisation and drama than in, say, Verdi - so it's hard to choose one opera, rather than moments from operas. He also borrowed extensively from himself...

Verdi: _Don Carlos (_plus _Rigoletto, Stiffelio, Luisa Miller, Macbeth, Trov, Trav, Ballo in Maschera, Forza del Destino, Masnadieri, Due Foscari...)_

Donizetti: _Lucrezia Borgia, La favorite, Lucia di Lammermoor, Maria Stuarda, Imelda de' Lambertazzi, Don Pasquale, L'elisir d'amore
_
Bellini: _I puritani_

Wagner: _Lohengrin_ & _Meistersinger_

Beethoven: _Fidelio_

Mussorgsky: _Boris Godunov
_
Borodin: _Prince Igor
_
Gounod: _Faust, Roméo et Juliette_

Massenet: _Esclarmonde_

Halévy: _La Juive_

Moniuszko: _Straszny dwór
_
Puccini: _Turandot_

Britten: _Billy Budd_ & _A Midsummer Night's Dream_

Glass: _Satyagraha_ & _Akhnaten_




*4) what drew you to opera/classical singing initially?*

I like opera because it’s exhilarating; it has great stories and great music. It appeals to my imagination; it’s larger than life, full of colour and action and vitality and passion and crowd scenes and history and the supernatural. It’s a wealth of strong dramatic situations, with characters swept up in personal, familial and historical conflicts—star-crossed lovers, bloodthirsty villains and bloody battles, curses, family feuds, adultery, revenge, and love betrayed. History is driven by individuals’ desires and motivations, not by economics and impersonal social forces.

It’s a wholehearted celebration of life. 
* *




Except when certain composers write operas on the theme of death being better than life, and the need to renounce the world. “Laß den Tag dem Tode weichen!” my eye.


 It’s what life _ought_ to be - and I love opera, in all its full-blooded, flamboyant, emotionally expressive, melodramatic glory_._ 

It can also tell a wide range of stories, from the philosophical myth-dramas of Wagner (about love, death, Grails, swans and blood) to the naturalism of Puccini (about love, death and blood), from Meyerbeer's five act historical operas to Offenbach's half hour caprices.

I grew up in a house where opera, drama, history, and books were normal, so I’d heard a few operas growing up. (And tried to listen to _Der Ring des Nibelungen _when I was seven, because I was into mythology.) The first opera I ever saw was Gounod’s _Faust_—the perfect introduction for an imaginative 15 year old. It had everything: Diabolic pacts! The electrifying “Veau d’or”! Wine flowing out of goat’s heads! The Jewel Song (which I knew from _Tintin_), with slaves carrying the casket of jewels to Marguerite in the gazebo. Mephistopheles playing the organ, summoning spirits and a circle of fire to torment Marguerite in the cathedral! The Soldiers' Chorus! Sword fights! The final scene in the asylum, with ragged madmen clambering down the walls.

Discovered Rossini in high school, but didn't really get into opera properly until my last year of university.


* 5) what sort of voices do you like?*
Not a voice type, but how the voices are used: I like ensembles - trios, quartets, quintets...nonets - and the finales in Rossini and Meyerbeer.


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## Cosmic Hobo (Feb 7, 2013)

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Berlioz - Benvenuto Cellini - Choeur des ciseleurs: 




Berlioz - Les Troyens - Ottetto et double choeur: 




Borodin - Prince Igor - aria: 




Wagner - Lohengrin - In fernem Land: 




Gounod - Sapho: O ma lyre immortelle:


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## Cosmic Hobo (Feb 7, 2013)

Posting some more (will only have mobile phone access to the net for the next few days, which makes pasting links tricky)


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Moniuszko: _Straszny dwór_: 




Mussorgsky – _Boris Godunov_:


Coronation Scene: 




Forest of Kromy: 





Massenet — _Esclarmonde - _"Esprits de l'air, esprits de l'onde!": 




Strauss: _Salome_ — End:


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## Cosmic Hobo (Feb 7, 2013)

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Berlioz – _La damnation de Faust : _Villes entourées / Jam nox stellata : 




Gluck - Divinites du Styx: 




Glass - _Akhnaten_: "Attack & Fall": 





And, if you like Donizetti:





Rosmonda d'Inghilterra Overture:


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## Dangerose (Sep 30, 2014)

1) who are some of your favorite singers?
Anna Netrebko
Leontyne Price
Dimitra Theodoussiou
Gwyneth Jones
Placido Domingo
Jonas Kaufmann
...there's so many others I like but those are the ones I really perk up at when I see a production has them in it
2) who are some of your favorite composers?
Wagner, Verdi, Donizetti, all the usual fellows
3) what are a few of your favorite operas?
Lucia di Lammermoor
Tosca
Der Ring des Nibelungen (especially das Rheingold though -- the overture is simply magic)
La Traviata
Carmen (who doesn't love Carmen?)
Don Giovanni
4) what drew you to opera/classical singing initially?
Just hearing it around. It was always playing in my house, often we'd watch operas on tape or whatever, so I naturally developed an appreciation.
5) what sort of voices do you like?
Depends on what part they are playing 

Vissi d'arte has got to be the best aria...in the world. I've lately been liking this version; there's something very raw and touching about Nilsson's singing here:









 Another favorite (and I absolutely love Netrebko as Violetta ). Always get chills at 'Ah, del_la traviata_ sorridi al desio'


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## Swordsman of Mana (Jan 7, 2011)

> 1) who are some of your favorite singers?


*favorite soprano:* Dame Joan Sutherland
*favorite mezzo:* Elena Obraztsova
*favorite contralto:* Ewa Podles
*favorite tenor:* Anatolii Solovyanenko
*favorite baritone:* Dmytro Hnatyuk
*favorite bass:* Samuel Ramey

honorable mention:
*sopranos:* Marisa Galvany, Annick Massis, Leontyne Price, Martina Arroyo, Kirsten Flagstad, Kiri, Maria Callas, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Aprille Millo, Frieda Lieder
*mezzos/contraltos:* Joyce Didonato, Shirley Verrett, Milla Edelman, Viorica Cortez, Eula Beal, Brigitte Fassbaender
*tenors:* Jonas Kaufmann, John Alexander, Franco Corelli, Giuseppe Giacomini, Nicolae Gedda, Alfredo Kraus
*baritones:* Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Robert Merrill, Sherrill Milnes, Richard Fredericks, Leonard Warren, Nicolai Herlea
*basses:* Boris Shtokolov, Willard White, Nicolai Ghiaurov, Paul Robeson, Georgio Tozzi



> 2) who are some of your favorite composers?


Verdi. Rossini comes in second and third is a tie between Donizetti and Bellini



> 3) what are a few of your favorite operas?


1) Attila
2) Norma
3) Semiramide
4) Il Trovatore
5) Beatrice di Tenda



> 4) what drew you to opera/classical singing initially?


I starting singing Freshman year of highschool and classical music just kinda worked for me. I've always had a large, dark voice (started as a bass, now I'm more of a weightier baritone), and most of the popular, adolescent-y music that everyone else liked fit neither my voice nor my personality (both of which are better suited for more _intense_, _dramatic_ music). the more I sung it, classical music just felt right on so many levels, able to convey aforementioned drama and intensity, but always with a relaxed, natural technique. "singing from your heart" is overrated, comes across as whiny and offers _zero_ control (frankly, most modern singers sound, at least on some level, kinda pathetic to me). classical singers sing from the *gut*. they sing with power, control, _authority_ and elegance, even when singing the most emotional of pieces. classical singing, imo, represents a perfect balance of the masculine and the feminine



> 5) what sort of voices do you like?


I'm less picky about female voices, I like all kinds (except for those girly lil coloratura sopranos who remind me of the opera version of teenage celebrities >.> ), though if I had to narrow it down by fach, I probably like dramatic coloratura sopranos, spinto sopranos and dramatic mezzos the best. for males, I typically like dark, elegant voices with solid top notes and a dense lower range. I don't often like tenors (they tend to sound thin, lack richness and give the impression that someone is grabbing them by the testicles), but when I do, I like manly, dark spinto tenors (dramatic tenors usually sound like they are barking rather than singing lmao). come to think of it, I probably prefer spinto voices in general, with enough weight to sing formidable, dramatic phrases, but not so much that they are unable to sing lyrically and elegantly.


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## Swordsman of Mana (Jan 7, 2011)

apart from opera, I have fallen in love with traditional Eastern European music over the last few years. here are some of my favorites

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## Amaryllis (Mar 14, 2014)

Great idea!

2) who are some of your favorite composers?

I really love Puccini

3) what are a few of your favorite operas?

La Tosca, Madama Butterfly (Puccini)

4) what drew you to opera/classical singing initially?

My mother bought me a Carmen reading book for children with pictures and music associated to each of them, and then a film called Opera Imaginaire made for children to discover opera. I loved both and I've tried to discover what I could since then.


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## Amaryllis (Mar 14, 2014)

Posting some more links too (since no more than five are allowed by post)


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## Cosmic Hobo (Feb 7, 2013)




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## Cosmic Hobo (Feb 7, 2013)

This is one of the most electrifying moments in all opera:


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## Dangerose (Sep 30, 2014)

I love this aria as well; in fact, I feel like Il Trittico is too often overlooked...





This isn't strictly opera but it is Netrebko (with one of Russia's most famous pop singers) and the video makes me laugh as well as the song being quite pretty 




(The chorus which Anna sings translates like: Fly, my love, I can hear your voice...fly, and my life will fly with you. There is no such music anywhere in the universe...fly, my love, I hear your voice...) or something like that I guess)


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## Cosmic Hobo (Feb 7, 2013)

Oswin said:


> I love this aria as well; in fact, I feel like Il Trittico is too often overlooked...


_Gianni Schicchi_ is brilliant - probably the best thing Puccini ever wrote; it's fast-moving and genuinely funny ("Povero Buoso!"). I'm not so keen on _Suor Angelica_ - nice music, but very schmaltzy: a nun kills herself, and the Virgin Mary appears, golden-haired child in tow. _Il tabarro_ is gripping, edge of the seat stuff; and it has a very lovely passage.


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## Cosmic Hobo (Feb 7, 2013)

Four videos that I put up on Youtube yesterday:


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## Cosmic Hobo (Feb 7, 2013)

Rossini!


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## Cosmic Hobo (Feb 7, 2013)

Watched Donizetti's _Favorite _(Toulouse, this year) last night - one of his better ones: it's dramatically cogent, and the music is inspired. It's also bigger picture than usual with Donizetti; it's "about" the conflict between church and crown, and the pull between the spiritual and the worldly life. This is the Act II finale, in which a monk curses the king's mistress ("la favorite").


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## Cosmic Hobo (Feb 7, 2013)

The Act III finale from Halévy's _Juive_:






The scene is 15th century Constance (Switzerland) - Rachel (the Jewish woman of the title) recognises the Gentile prince Léopold as her lover; the couple and Rachel's father Eléazar are publicly excommunicated and condemned to death.

After a conventional chorus (the first 1'50"), this turns into one of the great climaxes in French opera. The sextet, anathema and ensemble are all magnificent. Mahler in particular admired the anathema and ensemble (the "ray of death"), while Wagner got the idea for the Magic Fire music from 5'45".


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## Cosmic Hobo (Feb 7, 2013)




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## Dangerose (Sep 30, 2014)

Cosmic Hobo said:


> Four videos that I put up on Youtube yesterday:


So I have to admit I haven't really listened to that much Meyerbeer in the past but that may have to change in the very near future! I'm loving the links you've posted of his.


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## Cosmic Hobo (Feb 7, 2013)

@Oswin: Thank you!

I love Meyerbeer.

He's one of the most IMAGINATIVE opera composers. His music always seems fresh and original: the instrumentation, the ligne brisé, the texture and colour. Each work has its own tone and feeling (the first composer to really do this). 

His operas are both tremendous entertainments and serious. Like Dickens or Shakespeare, the characters are vivid types (rather than Verdi's specific individuals in specific circumstances), and he uses historical drama to talk about the meaning of history, and social issues that are still relevant today: religion, politics, power, bigotry, intolerance, versus cosmopolitanism and common humanity. His operas are bold and colourful; there's a love of the exotic: a fascination with other cultures and customs, with local colour and other times and places (but also WHY these are important, what they mean).

Basically, Meyerbeer is great.

Which was an eccentric opinion for much of the 20th century.

In the middle of the nineteenth century (1830s - 1860s), though, he was thought of as _*THE*_ Opera Composer: a cosmopolitan universal composer, who transcended national boundaries and united the approaches of different countries into one style; an innovator and reformer; a master of harmony and instrumentation; and a master of drama - the creator of unified art works (historical operas of ideas). He fell out of favour because of anti-Semitism, nationalism (as a German-born Jew whose early operas were written in Italy and his later operas in France, performed all over the world, he didn't fit easily into national categories) and the rise of Wagnerism.

I came across references to Meyerbeer in opera books - generally negative. He was the epitome of the (morally and aesthetically)"bad" composer that Wagner saved opera from.

I decided to try him for myself - and was blown away by how good he was. I was expecting something old-fashioned and bombastic - a cross between _Rienzi _and Donizetti. By the end of the first act of _Les Huguenots_, I was wondering why it was supposed to be bad; by the end of the second act, I thought it was excellent; and by the end of the fifth act, I'd ranked him with Verdi - and decided to track down everything I could by him.

Here is the overture to _Dinorah_ - a warm and inventive piece, full of imaginative orchestration:





Fidès's arioso from _Le prophète_: 














And I've just put up the second half of Act III of Les Huguenots:





In the score, it's made up of several numbers:
No. 17: Couvre-feu: "Rentrez, habitants de Paris"
No. 18: Scène & Duo: "O terreur! je tressaille au seul bruit de leurs pas"
No. 19: Septuor du Duel: "En mon bon droit j'ai confiance"
No. 20: Choeur de la Dispute: "Nous voilà! félons, arrière!"
No. 21: Final: "Ma fille! Quelle audace!"
No. 21 (continued): Le Cortège de Noce: "Au banquet"

-- but in practice, it seems like a continuous sweep of music.


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## Cosmic Hobo (Feb 7, 2013)

Posted by me on Youtube:_











_Not posted by me:_
Étoile du nord_: 




Prelude to _L'africaine (Vasco da Gama)_: 




The Ice-Skating Ballet from _Le prophète_: 



(but I love the Bruegel: excellent taste!)


Finally (!), some links to articles on why Meyerbeer was great:

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‘His operas … are tremendous rebuttals against ethnic, religious, and racial bigotry. They champion history over myth, cosmopolitanism over nationalism, tolerance over bigotry, and balance individuality with community.
…
‘Meyerbeer’s operas stress the virtues of tradition, excellence, thought, and individuality. They warn us about succumbing to unrestrained, unthinking impulses in either personal love or politics. Only an “Other”, a cosmopolitan Jewish outsider to the forces which shaped much of nineteenth-century European history and much of its operatic scene, could point out so forcefully how the destruction of decency, love, and beauty were the underlying premises of the world praised by his critics. By situating the fate of his characters amid the moral atrocities of history rather than encouraging his audience to identify with the epic excesses of patriotic and romantic fervour as in early Verdi and much of Wagner, Meyerbeer provided the model for an operatic—and greater—world which we still desperately need.’
-- William Pencak, “Why we must listen to Meyerbeer” (1999)

Quote from http://www.meyerbeer.com./Brzoska_040914_Prophete.htm

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> *I. * *Meyerbeer's operatic reform: Philosophical ideas*
> By the time Meyerbeer died suddenly in 1864, the character of opera itself as a work of art had radically changed. The style of Meyerbeerian grand opera was the recognized international model for music drama for almost a century. There were many consequences of this aesthetic reassessment: the setting of a libretto, which at the age of Rossini used to take a few weeks, became an intellectual collaboration between composers and librettists that might last years, even decades. New technical methods of composition were devised anew for each work and suited to each opera's individual dramatic concept. In through-composed scenic complexes, musical forms became individualized to a very high degree. Premières were staged after intensive historical and technical research by a whole staff of specialists, and the results of their work were documented in a _livret de mise_ _en scène_.
> But most important of all, opera became a platform for the expression of metaphysical and philosophical ideas. Meyerbeer's four main works may be seen as phases in a conceptual operatic discourse: _Robert le diable _shows the human being torn between entanglement in evil and metaphysical redemption. _Les Huguenots _sets the modern historical viewpoint of history as a collective social process following the philosophical ideas of his time. But certainly _Le Prophète _should be considered as the most important expression of the ideas of the so called "prophetist" movement of contemporary philosophy: The work shows the individual involved in the historical emergence of the modern European world. Finally, _L'Africaine _relates the same theme to the history of colonization, this time on a global scale. Meyerbeer's attitude is basically conservative and founded in his deep sense of religion. His historical operas are not operas on historical subjects, but operas taking the historical process itself as their subject.
> 
> ...







Sieghart Döhring, "Giacomo Meyerbeer and the Opera of the Nineteenth Century": http://www.meyerbeer.com./sieghart.htm

Robert Ignatius Letellier, "The Nexus of Religion, Power, Politics and Love in the Operas of Giacomo Meyerbeer": 
http://www.meyerbeer.com./nexus.htm


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## Cosmic Hobo (Feb 7, 2013)




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## Cosmic Hobo (Feb 7, 2013)

Hugely exciting. Just ignore the dodgy lyrics:

"Exterminate the black army! Exterminate! Exterminate!"


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## Cosmic Hobo (Feb 7, 2013)

Ambroise Thomas's _Songe d'une nuit d'été _really is something special. Despite the title, it's not based on "A Midsummer Night's Dream", but is a lyrical fantasy in which Shakespeare is saved from a life of debauchery by Elizabeth I. The music is absolutely lovely, and raises the question of why Thomas isn't done more often, why French opera in general isn't done, and why Ghyslaine Raphanel never achieved worldwide stardom.





















There's a terrific production from Compiègne available on DVD - with costumes by the RSC.


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## Cosmic Hobo (Feb 7, 2013)

Glinka - Ruslan & Lyudmila:


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## Cosmic Hobo (Feb 7, 2013)

Berlioz - Benvenuto Cellini:


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## Cosmic Hobo (Feb 7, 2013)

Hector Berlioz - La damnation de Faust:






This is one of my favourite moments in Berlioz - the double chorus of soldiers and students. It's where my current quotation comes from: "Nunc, nunc bibendum et amandum est!"





This is ravishing - which she has been, by Faust.











This is what hell sounds like, according to Berlioz.


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## Cosmic Hobo (Feb 7, 2013)

La donna del lager (Rossini):
From the people who brought you _Iphigénie en Champagne: _a very static opera about a woman who lives on a lake made of ale. Has some good music, though.


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## Cosmic Hobo (Feb 7, 2013)

Ernest Reyer's SIGURD (1884): 
A French grand opéra based on the Nibelungenlied. Definitely a Top Ten work, and the best opera nobody's ever heard of.


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## Swordsman of Mana (Jan 7, 2011)

Cosmic Hobo said:


>


wow, nice high D she through in there! I didn't know this thread was still alive. you've been taking good care of it :tongue:


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## Cosmic Hobo (Feb 7, 2013)

My pleasure! It was a great idea of yours to set up the thread in the first place, and it gave me the impetus to set up a Youtube channel.

_Maria Stuarda_'s a good work, definitely one of the better Donizettis. It's (in?)famous for the Meeting of the Two Queens, where Mary and Elizabeth I catfight; "figlia impura di Bolena" & "vil bastarda". As D. said, they're both whores, and so were the original singers.

Listening to _Faust _at the moment - it's Easter Friday, and I'm not in the mood for five hours of lugubrious, glutinous _Parsifal_.


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## Tezcatlipoca (Jun 6, 2014)

Thank you for starting this thread


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## Dangerose (Sep 30, 2014)

Thanks thirded, this is great. I've already been introduced to some new works -- sorry I don't post more links though)


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## Amaryllis (Mar 14, 2014)

Ha the thread lives once more!


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## Hiraeth (Jan 2, 2015)




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## Cosmic Hobo (Feb 7, 2013)

THIS is what opera is for:







And also from _Boris_:

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(the bells! the bells!):














 - 

(I'm listening to Christoff singing a quartet with himself. Joy.)


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## 0+n*1 (Sep 20, 2013)

I know almost nothing about opera, but I'm interested in getting into it. So this is a good start. I'm posting this to subscribe to this thread.


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