Five Favorite Classical vocals

[naughty]

SInce we had such fun with the Orchestral works, let's look at classical vocal masterpieces... Doc,this is for you, baby. Let 'er rip!

 

[rubberwilli]

Soloists or Solos

• Dmitri Hvorostovsky singing anything (so sexy vocally and visually!)
• Deliebes: Ah! Ou va la jeune Indoue (aka:The Bell Song) from the opera Lakme as sung by Joan Sutherland
• Gerald Finzi: Earth and Air and Rain (Song cycle) as sung by Stepen Varcoe
• Schumann: Dicterliebe as sung by Dietrich Fischer Dieskau
• Ravel: Don Quichotte a Dulcinee as sung by Gerard Souzay
• Bizet: Au Fond du temple saint - from the opera The Pearl Fishers as sung by Jussi Bjoerling and Robbert Merril

Choral

• The Bulgarian State Television Women's Chorus - Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares
• Honegger: Le Roi David (King David)
• The Swingle Singers - Back Hits Back or A Capella Amadeus
• Faure: Cantique de Jean Racine
• Poulenc: Stabat Mater
• Sir Charles Villiers Stanford: Three Motets Op.38
• Brahms: Neue Liebeslieder Waltzes
• Verdi: Requiem

 

[chicagosam]

Rubberwilli has the best lists. I am in awe.

 

[B_big dirigible]

"The Jewel Song" from Gounod's Faust, sung by Bianca Castafiore. Not easy to find.

 

[tripod]

I don't normally dig vocal works, but I DO have a few that I absolutely LOVE!!!!!

Orff's Carmina Burana and Der Wozzeck by Alban Berg... and you can't go wrong with Elektra or Salome by Richard Strauss. Any of the chant or polyphony that Anonymous4 does is BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!

 

[naughty]

I am really loving you guys more and more with every post! :biggrin1:

 

[surferboy]

Carmen's "Habanera"

Don't understand what's goin on, but i love the vocals coupled with the actual music


OMG, nixxy's actually cultured!

 

[naughty]

Carmen's "Habanera"

Don't understand what's goin on, but i love the vocals coupled with the actual music


OMG, nixxy's actually cultured!

Its ok.That is always a good thing. Yes, Habenara is quite seductive but then that is what Carmen is all about pure seduction....:biggrin1:

 

[rubberwilli]

Rubberwilli has the best lists. I am in awe.

Well gee thanks! :biggrin1:

 

[naughty]

Soloists or Solos

• Dmitri Hvorostovsky singing anything (so sexy vocally and visually!)
• Deliebes: Ah! Ou va la jeune Indoue (aka:The Bell Song) from the opera Lakme as sung by Joan Sutherland
• Gerald Finzi: Earth and Air and Rain (Song cycle) as sung by Stepen Varcoe
• Schumann: Dicterliebe as sung by Dietrich Fischer Dieskau
• Ravel: Don Quichotte a Dulcinee as sung by Gerard Souzay
• Bizet: Au Fond du temple saint - from the opera The Pearl Fishers as sung by Jussi Bjoerling and Robbert Merril

Choral

• The Bulgarian State Television Women's Chorus - Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares
• Honegger: Le Roi David (King David)
• The Swingle Singers - Back Hits Back or A Capella Amadeus
• Faure: Cantique de Jean Racine
• Poulenc: Stabat Mater
• Sir Charles Villiers Stanford: Three Motets Op.38
• Brahms: Neue Liebeslieder Waltzes
• Verdi: Requiem

Rubberwilli,

This list is amazing. I love it!

 

[rubberwilli]

I don't normally dig vocal works, but I DO have a few that I absolutely LOVE!!!!!

Orff's Carmina Burana and Der Wozzeck by Alban Berg... and you can't go wrong with Elektra or Salome by Richard Strauss. Any of the chant or polyphony that Anonymous4 does is BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!

Elektra is my fave opera, and it's not performed nearly enough. Best performance on video a Kultur studio production made with Astrid Varnay, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Karl Bohm.

Of course you know the old joke that Berg's other opera, Lulu, is just Wozzeck played backwards and/or upside down. Wozzeck is an amazing piece of expressionist and atonal opera that is so emotionally gripping. The thing that amazes me is that some 82 years later people still walk out because it's "too harsh to listen too" or "not enjoyable". It is a classic, but not an easy classic of opera to be certain.

Other great operas/oratorios you might like:

• Stravinsky: The Rake's Progress
• Stravinsky: Oedipus Rex (great video performance created by Julie Taymor in Japan with Jessye Norman and Phillip Langridge)
• Puccini: Il Tabbaro (my fave of the Il Trittico threesome)
• Bartok: Bluebeard's Castle (which is playing in Chicago this May in a double bill with Schoenberg's Erwartung...my first live performance of both...very exciting and can't wait!)
• Busoni: Turandot (just for a different perspective on a very popular opera by Puccini)

 

[rubberwilli]

Rubberwilli,
This list is amazing. I love it!

Thanks. I've sung most of it (not the bell song...well not publicly...grin) so it's not just a listening thing it's also a love of performing these works as well.

 

[prepstudinsc]

Soloists or Solos

• Gerald Finzi: Earth and Air and Rain (Song cycle) as sung by Stepen Varcoe

I love Finzi's music.

I have a CD of his choral/organ works sung by the Finzi Singers.
Entitled "Finzi: Choral Works", it is one that needs to be on your iPod.

Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman: Spirituals in Concert

Choir of Grace Church, Charleston: Rejoice and Be Glad, Great Anthems of the Anglican Tradition

Kansas City Chorale: Alleluia, an American Hymnal

The Tudor Choir: Gentle Words (Shaker Songs arranged by Kevin Siegfried

 

[chicagosam]

Some operas you might like:

• Samuel Barber—Vanessa
• Richard Strauss—Der Rosenkavalier
• Puccini—La Rondine
• Mark Blitzstein—Regina
• George Frederic Handel—Giulio Cesare
• Douglas Moore—The Ballad of Baby Doe
• Kurt Weill—Silverlake (Der Silbersee)
• Claude Debussy—[SIZE=-1]Pelléas et Mélisande[/SIZE]
• [SIZE=-1]P.D.Q. Bach—The Abduction of Figaro[/SIZE]
• [SIZE=-1]John Corigliano—Phantasmagoria based on The Ghosts of Versailles
  [/SIZE]

 

[rubberwilli]

Some operas you might like:

• Samuel Barber—Vanessa
• Richard Strauss—Der Rosenkavalier
• Puccini—La Rondine
• Mark Blitzstein—Regina
• George Frederic Handel—Giulio Cesare
• Douglas Moore—The Ballad of Baby Doe
• Kurt Weill—Silverlake (Der Silbersee)
• Claude Debussy—[SIZE=-1]Pelléas et Mélisande[/SIZE]
• [SIZE=-1]P.D.Q. Bach—The Abduction of Figaro[/SIZE]
• [SIZE=-1]John Corigliano—Phantasmagoria based on The Ghosts of Versailles
  [/SIZE]

Pelleas et Melisande - absolutely stunning...symbolist opera...divine!

The Ghosts of Versaille - When are they going to release a sound recording of this?!? And the video is out of production now. Wikipedia indicates it will be revived at the Met in 2010 with Kristin Chenoweth!

Marilyn Horne's performace of Samira's aria is a showstopper, but I believe it was written for her only and has been cut from subsequent performances. Figaros Aria - "They wish they could kill me" is another amazing part of this show.

 

[chicagosam]

The Ghosts of Versaille - When are they going to release a sound recording of this?!? And the video is out of production now. Wikipedia indicates it will be revived at the Met in 2010 with Kristin Chenoweth!

Thanks for the news about that. I saw Ghosts on PBS when it premiered but have always searched for it on VHS and DVD along with a sound recording. I found it fascinating. Chenoweth should be wonderful. You know that Lyric Opera did it, right?

Marilyn Horne's performace of Samira's aria is a showstopper, but I believe it was written for her only and has been cut from subsequent performances. Figaro's Aria - "They wish they could kill me" is another amazing part of this show.

Marilyn Horne was just magnificent. Love that woman!

I am amazed at all you have done, RW, and the great knowledge you have shared and posess. Now, if 5000 Post Doc would get in here, this could be a dangerous trinity.

 

[rubberwilli]

You know that Lyric Opera did it, right?

Yes, Lyric was the co-owner of that production I believe. They did it a year or two after the Met. I also got to see it at Indiana University (my alma mater) in the first collegiate production. Corgliano came to the tech week and opening night, it was an amazing experience. He was trying some revisions of the piece if I remember correctly. I worked on sets in the paint shop for that production and sat in the upper balcony during every dress rehearsal. Amazing experience. It's a very hard production to do. It's very technically involved and complex, as should be excpected for a show commissioned to celebrate the Met's 100th Anniversary.

I am amazed at all you have done, RW, and the great knowledge you have shared and posess. Now, if 5000 Post Doc would get in here, this could be a dangerous trinity.

Well thanks again! I love my music! Yes, I look forward to reading Doc's posts as well.

I need to not post in this thread for a bit and see what others are saying....don't want to be a thread killer again!

PS. Anybody know the quote in my signature...it's operatic...just curious if anyone can figure it out.

 

[chicagosam]

PS. Anybody know the quote in my signature...it's operatic...just curious if anyone can figure it out.

Tosca.

 

[rubberwilli]

Tosca.

You're good! I love that she has the last word in all three acts!

 

[tripod]

Elektra is my fave opera, and it's not performed nearly enough. Best performance on video a Kultur studio production made with Astrid Varnay, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Karl Bohm.

Of course you know the old joke that Berg's other opera, Lulu, is just Wozzeck played backwards and/or upside down. Wozzeck is an amazing piece of expressionist and atonal opera that is so emotionally gripping. The thing that amazes me is that some 82 years later people still walk out because it's "too harsh to listen too" or "not enjoyable". It is a classic, but not an easy classic of opera to be certain.

Other great operas/oratorios you might like:

• Stravinsky: The Rake's Progress
• Stravinsky: Oedipus Rex (great video performance created by Julie Taymor in Japan with Jessye Norman and Phillip Langridge)
• Puccini: Il Tabbaro (my fave of the Il Trittico threesome)
• Bartok: Bluebeard's Castle (which is playing in Chicago this May in a double bill with Schoenberg's Erwartung...my first live performance of both...very exciting and can't wait!)
• Busoni: Turandot (just for a different perspective on a very popular opera by Puccini)

Rubberwilli... you are simply AMAZING!!!!! I have NEVER had a recomendation like this... your knowledge of classical music is UNREAL!!!! You hit it on the head with your picks that I should check out! My mother was a Madame Butterfly nut and played it all the time when I was a little boy. Bela is right up my alley too... that concert you are going to would be INCREDIBLE... why can't I live back in Chicago??? i am such a huge Shoenberg fan... the 12 tone system is the SHIT!!!!! Stravinsky? Man... are you talkin' straight to my heart... it's sooo hard to go back to the classical period after you hear Stravinsky...

You are a classical music GOD and your knowledge is WAY better than the Penguin guide... YOU ROCK Rubberwilli!!!!!!!! :biggrin1: