Hi all,

I'm looking for rep recommendations for a tenor and a mezzo -- slightly trickier than you'd think to find! A lot of duets are for sop/tenor or mezzo/bari. I'm a light lyric mezzo (most at home with Dorabella, Cherubino, Siebel, Annio etc), I'm currently studying postgrad singing. The tenor is 19 and in his second year of undergrad. He has a good high range, but a light voice that wouldn't suit anything big and heavy. We're performing for an event and just need a fun duet that will please a mainly non-operatic crowd. Open to pretty much anything, would just love to hear some thoughts!

Hello. I’m wondering if anyone knows of any non pay to sing summer programs with open applications for undergrad students. I wasn’t really aware that pay to sings were bad (I was accepted to a few) and I’m worried. I didn’t know much about the opera scene (I go to a non conservatory) before late fall 2024 and even then my knowledge is limited to my vocal coach.

bonus if you know where to watch! thank you :)

Hello! I was wondering if y’all had any suggestions for a piece that my friends I to perform for our college Opera Showcase. We’re 2 Sopranos, 1 Mezzo, and 1 Baritone. Thank you!

Good evening everyone. I have been taking an informal poll at school about who the most punchable male opera character would be. So far there has been a top answer in real life, and I’m wondering if Reddit will reflect that. While asking around, I gathered 14 total punchable characters.

Vote for the character whose face you would absolutely slam into with your fist. Who is the most deserving of a vengeful knuckle sandwich?

Unfortunately Reddit will only allow 6 options, so I will write the rest here. Comment these names to vote them:

7. Tarquinius (The Rape of Lucretia)
8. Count Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro)
9. Iago (Otello)
10. Scarpia (Tosca)
11. Ford (Falstaff)
12. Siegfried (Siegfried)
13. Duke (Rigoletto)
14. Police man (The Consul)

Maybe there was a better way to do this, I’m not sure. But I’m curious about what you think.

View Poll

Hello everyone!

My wife and I have tickets to Friday night’s performance of La Traviata. We are arriving in Sydney on Thursday via cruise ship and staying at the Marriott Circular Quay.

Any recommendations to make our experience more memorable would be greatly appreciated! Dining, what to expect, arrival time, etc.

[for reference we’ve attended operas at La Scala, Tokyo, Kennedy Center, Santa Barbara and other venues.]

TIA

What is your favorite single act of a Wagner opera?

Here's the context, for those who want it. My five-year-old just read about Wagner in a book and now wants to listen to some. But he's not going to have the attention span for an entire opera, so I want to pick one act that we can listen to while reading the story (or doing that before or after) and then watch a production. We've done this with Mozart and Handel and he's loved it. The problem for me is that I love Wagner and can't decide what to use, and I'm hoping for a little help. Plus, I think it's kind of a fun desert-island-style question. Thanks for your help.

Hello all, me again. I was thinking, this collective hive mind would know Hungarian operas, right? I know bluebeards castle, I’d like to know if there are any others ESPECIALLY if there is a mezzo aria in them. I’m Hungarian myself, but I’ve lived in another country all my life, so I don’t really know much of my own culture. I want to find something in Hungarian to sing, and it would be really cool to find an aria, although I’m not holding my breath. If you know any cool Hungarian classical songs too that would also be great (I basically know all of Kodály art songs, but not really anything else).

Thanks all!

I’ve recently been listening to older opera recordings, mostly mono recordings before 1950. There was a time in my life when I couldn’t listen to anything not in stereo, but I now get huge enjoyment from classic recordings. I especially love the Toscanini Falstaff (which might be my favorite opera recording of all time) and the 1932 Don Pasquale conducted by Sabajno with Tito Schipa. Both of these are in excellent sound.

I would love to hear some other recommendations for older opera recordings. One of the miracles of living in this streaming age is the ability to listen to virtually any recording ever made!

If you're anywhere near Toronto this is totally worth it, a co-commission with l'Opéra de Montréal, strong and evocative score by Julien Bilodeau, fascinating if sometimes odd libretto by Michel Marc Bouchard, lovely to watch as well as to hear and in today's cast a terrific Queen Christina from Kirsten MacKinnon. All the cast was excellent. (Full details at https://www.coc.ca/tickets/2425-season/la-reine-garcon) If we lived in the GTA we'd go again. It's great to hear a contemporary piece that is neither rebarbative nor pandering.

Hello! I'm new to listening to opera, although I've listened to most of Gilbert and Sullivanms repertoire. I decided to plunge in and try listening to a non comedic opera, and was disappointed to find that the big names people say you should know are all in other languages. I know a little Spanish and I'm currently learning German, but frankly, I'm impatient. How do you guys (if you don't speak German, for example) enjoy something like The Ring without knowing what's being said? Do parts of the songs get stuck in your head the same way they would in a language you know? Or is this just the kind of thing where you need to know the language going in to enjoy it?

Hey everyone! So I’m a undergrad freshman student who isn’t majoring in voice performance at my school or opera, but I am taking voice lessons with a voice teacher. We haven’t really talked range yet but I am still curious even though it’s my first time taking voice lessons. I’ve been in choirs all my life and I’ve sang every traditionally male voice part from tenor 1 - bass 2. Right now my lowest comfortable note is a A2 but I can get down to a G as well. At my first voice lesson (this was the first time I ever took a lessonI got up to a F#4. Several lessons later I got up to a Ab4 and have sat there as my highest note for the time being. I classify myself as a baritone or baritenor but I’m curious as to what others might say in terms of my growth.

I'm singing Things Change, Jo right now and would love to watch the whole opera somewhere, or even listen to it in full, but because it is contemporary, it is harder to find. Anyone have recommendations of where to look?

I’ve decided I want to create a playlist of Youtube videos from either concert or staged performances of opera (not just a video with audio only). Not full operas.

Was hoping people could share some of their faves—the ones that you watch and hear and say…that is superlative.

Thanks!

The only hints that I can give you are:

• They might not be famous.
• They were performing in an event from a hotel in Barcelona (yesterday 1st February 2025).

I want to test if you guys are really into the topic...

Good luck 🤞

I'm looking to sink my teeth into a good opera-related read. My top pick would be a juicy biography of opera singers or a particular composer but I'm also all ears regarding books about the history of opera generally, the specific history of one opera over time, the history of a certain company, etc.

I saw the premiere of this in Berlin last summer. It was so, so, good. It's streaming all month on mezzo.tv if you have access to that. Sadly I am in the US with no way to watch it; I'd love to see again. https://www.mezzo.tv/en/Opera/Dalbavie-M%C3%A9lancolie-de-la-r%C3%A9sistance-Staatsoper-Berlin-15439.

If opera singers happen to be in a rehearsal/performance space and they want to reference Verdi's Macbeth, do they have to say "The Scottish Opera" or something like that? Do opera singers share the superstition that saying Macbeth in a theater is bad luck and anyone who says it must run around the building three times and spit to undo the curse? Or is that just total nonsense to the opera community

Hi there, I'd love to watch Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, but unfortunately I missed my local opera's showing of it last year. Are there any good performances which are able to be streamed online that people would recommend? I'm also open to a Blu-ray, etc, as long as it isn't super rare/expensive!

I'm part of a trivia group (Learned League - recommend you check them out if you like trivia). In addition to a bimonthly trivia contest there are also one-day trivia games on specific topics. A few days ago Puccini was one of the topics.

Here are some of the questions! All credit goes to Learned League for them.

Puccini's life did not lack for drama. On one occasion his family was rocked by a scandal that was operatic in scale. His wife was convinced that he was having an affair with a young woman who worked as a servant in the Puccini household. She loudly denounced the girl as a whore and agitated to have her driven out of town. After months of harassment the young woman committed suicide, and an autopsy indicated that she had not had sex with anyone. Her family then sued the Puccinis for public defamation, leading to a highly publicized trial resulting in a prison sentence for Mrs Puccini. Name either the wrongly accused servant (first name or last name) OR her accuser (first name required).

La Fanciulla del West is set at a mining camp in California during the Gold Rush. Early in the opera, a minor character is caught cheating at cards. Among other epithets, he is called "Australiano d'inferno" ("damned Australian!"). In the play that the opera is based on, this character has a longer name, which more clearly telegraphs his connection to an immigrant criminal gang that dominated San Francisco in 1850, but in the opera he goes by a shortened version of the name. In either short or long form, what is that character's name?

In the first act of La Bohème, the poet Rodolfo impresses Mimì with his witty and eloquent way with words, while she herself is often tongue-tied and awkward. By the end of the opera, the tables have turned: At her deathbed, when Rodolfo tells Mimì that she is still "as beautiful as a [BLANK]", she gently corrects him and says the better simile would be "beautiful as a [BLANK]". What two nouns fill the two blanks? (If you're looking for a clue from Broadway, Fiddler on the Roof may be more helpful than Rent.)

While he was hardly the first Romantic composer to flout the Baroque rules of counterpoint, Puccini was chastised by conservative critics for his frequent use of what musical no-no explicitly banned on the first page of Fux's "Gradus ad Parnassus"? The audio clip provides three examples.

Apologies if there's a First Visit Megathread I've missed, but I'm going to my first Opera next month and I'd like to know a bit more about what I'm in for.

Going to an Opera North production in Nottingham, so not expecting to be around the house of Lords but also think it's probably a different crowd than a Jason Statham film at Cineworld.

So what should I wear, would you take a beer to your seat, can I pop for a wee outside of the interval?

Should I listen to it first (my wife almost certainly won't) or should it be a surprise?

Anything else?

I hope everyone is doing well. I am taking a printmaking art class semester and have it in my mind to center it around opera (naturally! :P). I was wondering if people have any special opera-centric memories that they would like to share? and not even on stage, but fun moments with the people around you + at intermission. There is so much about going to the opera beyond the performance itself that makes it special, and I would love to hear people's experiences and thoughts in that vein.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Baal%20Zebul

For those unaware the link is the song. I've always enjoyed more high energy singing like this.

Here’s something I find very annoying and that is increasingly happening when I go to the opera. When the audience start applauding at the end of the act before the last note has been played. I cannot understand why people would like to cover what is often a very powerful and meaningful part of the show. It happens almost every time at La Scala in Milan. It is the same everywhere?

Hi, i’m new in This world, and want to know how can i learn and enjoy more This, i see some or love to listen a few ones, but i want to become a expert in This area, i really love it, so if you can help me please , to make a guide or a Path to follow, thanks