[Magdalen] Fw: [Anglican-Music] Opera Platform

[Joseph Cirou]

-----Forwarded Message-----
>From: Joseph Cirou <romanos at mindspring.com>
>Sent: May 22, 2016 6:32 PM
>To: anglican-music <anglican-music at stsams.org>, "Cantor03 at aol.com" <Cantor03 at aol.com>, J Michael Thompson <chantermt at yahoo.com>
>Subject: [Anglican-Music] Opera Platform
>
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>I imagine many of you are already familiar with Opera Platform and its parent ARTE
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>It  is FREE
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>I have spent many an evening watching first class performances and productions and recommend the service with great enthusiasm
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>The service has encouraged me to be more selective and not merely watch an opera because it is available.
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>Last night I watched Rigoletto from Opera Stuttgart. It was more or less modern dress but located in an older Italian City.
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>They have had updated productions that I enjoyed (La Boheme--which places Mimi in a cancer ward and goes back an forth from a traditional venue to the modern day situation--Opera Norway had this production.
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>I have watch new and or unfamiliar works, such as Strasny Dvor by Moniusko (sp) Did not know it was his major work. All I knew of previously was HALKA (Thanks to Discount Records in Chicago which used to stock EVERYTHING available. Halka was always on my to buy list, but never did. Then they had a Latvian opera, a production of a choral tone poem by Sibelius (closes thing Sibelius ever came to writing an opera)
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>I watch Thomas Ades Powder her Face, This opera actually made it into the latest edition of The New Kobbés OPera Book (1997) Lord Harewood died in 2011 (didn't know he was the oldest grandchild of George V and Queen Mary) I didn't care for it, but I found it musically interesting--which gave me the ammunition NOT to watch a recent opera composed  on the occasion of the composer's 80th birthday (Forgot his name.) I didn't like the subject matter.
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>I didn't watch Manon Lescaut because I so enjoyed the Massenet version live here in Atlanta some years back.
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>Don't blame Opera Platform or ARTe.  I hated the new production of Les Troyens, I think from
>Hamburg. As far as I am concerned it was Berlioz and HOme at Filene's basement ugh. 
>I still watch my vhs from the Met with Placido Domingo and Jesse NOrman
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>Loved Die Walkure, Siegfried, and Goetterdaemerung. I don't think they were all from OPera Nederlands but very enjoyable. I saw Siefried at the Lyric years ago and came to understand why Siegfried is considered the Scherzo of the Ring Cycle
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>I saw the previews for Parsifal and did not opt to watch, first of all for technical reasons (with the stream) but watched the 1981 version from Bayreuth on you tube instead.
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>In any case take advantage of the opportunity if you enjoy opera.
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>I tried Opera on Demand from the Met and it was very frustrating to download. I did get to see Techaikovsky's Ioalanta and Bartok's Blue Bears Castle and actually bought The Tempest by Ades.
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>I am amazed the richness of contemporary opera and appreciate the frequency of new productions
>and new works.  Opera News is no longer the stodgy company rag it once was.
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>I use either the English or French subtitles. French if the opera is in French, I need more practice in getting the dialogue. I had masterd French TV by the time I left St Pierre et MIquelon where I had attended the French Summer School from the University of Toronto, but during that time I may have spoken 2 hours of English the whole month. I need another immersion experience for that and now Spanish. I can read all the tenses in either language, but the subjunctive and passé simple need lots of work in my writing either language. The subjunctive in those languages is not going to disappear.
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