Few men can reach the notes, and few women have the lung capacity to manipulate them. Most of these arias have not been heard since the deaths of the castrati for whom they were written. Mezzosoprano Cecilia Bartoli has released an album entitled Sacrificium. The album is a compilation of 17th-century arias written for castrati--male singers who were castrated in order to sing in a higher register. Commentaries on the work are favorable; commentaries on the history of castrati and Bartoli herself are just as interesting.
posted by jefficator on Nov 9, 2009 - 44 comments

A big, blunt woman with a wicked sense of humor, Ms. Nilsson brooked no interference from Wagner's powerful and eventful orchestra writing. When she sang Isolde or Brünnhilde, her voice pierced through and climbed above it. [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese on Nov 3, 2009 - 11 comments

Enrico Caruso Remastered. Aside from his musical skill and his tempestuous character, he was also known in the English-speaking world as a gentlemanly public figure, and patriot.
posted by StrikeTheViol on Oct 18, 2009 - 18 comments

One day ago, Neil Gaiman wrote the beginning of a story, which was retweeted by BBC Audiobooks America as the first of a thousand or so tweets that would compiled and edited to become an audiobook. People are still contributing, and BBCAA's blog has four scenes compiled (1, 2, 3, summary of scenes 1-3, and 4), for a total of 175 tweets. When 1,000 or so tweets are logged, they'll be edited into a script, and produced in a studio to make the final audiobook, which will be released for free on BBCAA's website. This isn't the first game of exquisite corpse played via twitter that made a piece to be refined and presented in some way. The first Twitter opera was one of a few recent "gimmicks" to garner attention for the Royal Opera House (twitter opera feed, ROH twitter feed, ROH blog). The result, Twitterdammerung, was given a decent review by opera critic Igor Toronyi-Lalic.
posted by filthy light thief on Oct 14, 2009 - 32 comments

In Hypermusic Prologue, physicist Lisa Randall re-imagines her extradimensional theories of the universe as opera, with a score by Hèctor Parra. Some more about this on YouTube (the last three are in french, but you can hear some of the music): Episode 1 (Randall speaks), Episode 2 (scenery), Episode 3 (the music), and Episode 4 (more scenery).
posted by twoleftfeet on Aug 21, 2009 - 20 comments

Le Wrath Di Khan. This is too much of a geekgasm not to share. [more inside]
posted by WCityMike on Jul 28, 2009 - 34 comments

All the Great Operas in 10 minutes (1992) is a very quick overview of La Traviata, Carmen, Don Giovanni, Aida, Tosca, Tristan and Isolde, Madame Butterfly, Ring of the Nibelung (a four-parter), resulting 26 dead, plus all the gods of Valhalla, which brings the grand total to 38 dead. 10 More Operas in 10 Minutes is a tribute to the original, created by the students of the Tulsa School of Arts and Sciences, covering The Merry Widow (technically an operetta), The Force of Destiny, Lucia di Lammermoore, The Magic Flute, Falstaff, The Damnation of Faust, Rigoletto, Romeo and Juliet, La Bohème, and William Tell. Only 14 deaths tallied (not counting armies fighting).
posted by filthy light thief on Jun 17, 2009 - 13 comments

Opera, the inventor of tabbed browsing who just won't quit, today released a trial version of Unite, a dramatic attempt to reverse the centralization of the web as well as Opera's own decreasing relevance in a market dominated by far larger companies [more inside]
posted by crayz on Jun 16, 2009 - 78 comments

Three years after the failure of his recklessly ambitious Marxist epic 1900, Bernardo Bertolucci returned to directing with La Luna - a story of opera and incest featuring a Golden Globe-nominated performance by Jill Clayburgh, then at the height of her late 70s fame. [Also appearing in small roles were Fred Gwynne and an up-and-coming Roberto Benigni.] Writing in The New York Times, Vincent Canby described it as "one of the most sublimely foolish movies ever made by a director of Mr. Bertolucci's acknowledged talents." Roger Ebert wrote, "Bertolucci has sprung his gourd this time." [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese on May 30, 2009 - 4 comments

If you're in a hurry or just don't care much for opera, here's Richard Wagner's "Ring der Nibelungen" in 45 seconds (SYTL). Also a good chance to brush up on your German.
posted by jim in austin on May 23, 2009 - 16 comments

If you, like me, find it sometimes difficult to parse the intricacies of great opera, this modernized and localized translation of O Fortuna might be of use. Some men, apparently, like cheese.
posted by Shepherd on Feb 12, 2009 - 20 comments

Leave Me Alone! a jazz opera by Harvey Pekar (libretto) and Dan Plonsey (music) will have its world premiere on January 31, 2009 at Oberlin College, presented in cooperation with Real Time Opera. The performance will also be streamed live. [more inside]
posted by Herodios on Jan 25, 2009 - 10 comments

No Bailout for the Arts? Many organizations could use the help.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero on Dec 30, 2008 - 21 comments

BBC: Users of the world's most common web browser (good old IE!) have been advised to switch to a rival until a serious security flaw has been fixed. Microsoft Security Advisory 961051. [more inside]
posted by chuckdarwin on Dec 16, 2008 - 116 comments

Only 4.3% of the web validates. Opera have finished a scan and validation check of the net using their new MAMA spider and have got an extremely interesting dataset. Did you check your website today?
posted by jaduncan on Oct 16, 2008 - 81 comments

Damon Albarn’s career reads like a roadmap to some musical no-man's land: start a pop band, turn into an indie/hip-hop/dub “virtual” group, followed by a supergroup featuring Tony Allen and Paul Simonon, and throw in an album of Malian guitar music for good measure. [more inside]
posted by mannequito on Sep 23, 2008 - 25 comments

History of the browser user-agent string
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 on Sep 9, 2008 - 29 comments

I know what you're thinking. What could be better than a below-low-budget sci-fi/horror hypersexualized movie based off of a musical, with a playwright who also decided to star in both stage and screen adaptations? Well, then, what if we up the ante! It's also a socially-conscious cyberpunk movie musical, written, directed, scored and costumed by people in 2008 who have decided that 1996 is as far as the future goes, thanks... so it's also a goth/raver socially conscious cyberpunk movie musical, complete with blue-streaked hair, muppet-fur and clunky vinyl boots! No? We need to aim higher to do better? Well, here comes the kicker, the one element that will immortalize this film: Starring Paris Hilton. Singing. In S&M gear. And a wig. Doing drugs. Lo, I bring you REPO! The Genetic Opera! (The film.) NSFW or self respect.
posted by Slap*Happy on Sep 5, 2008 - 53 comments

The Fly: The Opera. [more inside]
posted by waraw on Jun 25, 2008 - 16 comments

Sure, it's old news when Britney lip-synchs, but I reckon nobody really expected Pavarotti to lip-synch his his very last performance.
posted by flapjax at midnite on Apr 7, 2008 - 33 comments

WebKit, the rendering engine of Apple's increasingly popular Safari web browser becomes the first "publicly available rendering engine to achieve 100/100" on the Acid3 web standards test. The Opera browser is expected to have an experimental build that passes soon, as well.
posted by aletheia on Mar 26, 2008 - 72 comments

You'll rarely see it staged, so might as well enjoy Bartók's lone opera, Duke Bluebeard's Castle in a beautifully filmed version on YouTube. Libretto in Hungarian, English. And a little introduction and analysis, with a particular eye toward the cryptic prologue.
posted by Wolfdog on Mar 25, 2008 - 10 comments

Oh, mighty warrior 'twill be quite a task...Greg Allen reminds us what the mid-century phrase "kill the rabbit" is really all about.
posted by ericbop on Mar 18, 2008 - 14 comments

On December 24th, 1951, NBC aired television's first annual Christmas tradition and the first opera created specifically for TV, Amahl and the Night Visitors, composed by Gian Carlo Menotti (1911 – 2007). Maybe the cast recording, the children's book or one of the hundreds of local performances staged each year have been a staple of one or more of your holiday seasons. If so, you might be pleased to know that a kinescope of the original 1951 broadcast, long assumed lost, has in fact been found, restored, added to the Museum of Television and Radio and (most importantly) put on YouTube. [more inside]
posted by 2or3whiskeysodas on Dec 14, 2007 - 18 comments

In Philip Roth's latest novel, Exit Ghost, his literary alter-ego, Nathan Zuckerman, exclaims after hearing Richard Strauss's "Four Last Songs" that "the composer drops all masks and, at the age of 82, stands before you naked. And you dissolve." Renee Fleming performs Im Abendrot, September, Beim Schlafengehen, Fruhling. Head Butler provides some interesting background on Strauss and the different performances. [more inside]
posted by vronsky on Oct 27, 2007 - 7 comments

Damon & Jamie's Excellent Adventure is a documentary following the Gorillaz' boys - Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett - as they attempt to make an opera based on classic Chinese novel Journey to the West [or for them - the 70s television show Monkey]. The documentary follows the two year process with a decent section on Albarn's approach to learning a new form of music.
posted by meech on Oct 26, 2007 - 8 comments

Turandot will never be the same. Washington Post is reporting that Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti has died at his home in Modena.
posted by Cranberry on Sep 5, 2007 - 86 comments

Kurt Weill's Opera by and for Beggars. Charlie Haden and Kurt Weill, Teresa Stratas accordions, William S Burroughs, Betty Carter, PJ Harvey, Lou Reed, Stan Ridgeway, The Persuasions, Ghettoriginal Dance Company,Teresa Stratas, David Johansen
posted by hortense on Jul 15, 2007 - 19 comments

What's Opera, Doc? (YouTube, approx. 7 mins.) The opera-parodying Merrie Melodies cartoon, which some consider to be Chuck Jones' career masterpiece, turned 50 years old this week. The short is also known as "Kill The Wabbit" in reference to the line sung by Elmer Fudd to the tune of "Ride Of The Valkyries," which is just one of many Wagner references in the piece.
posted by amyms on Jul 8, 2007 - 43 comments

Lisa Simpson and Kermit weep tonight. Opera star Beverly Sills has slipped this mortal coil. Her final performance in which she sang the portuguese folk song: "Tell Me Why" that Estelle Liebling her only voice teacher, gave her when she was ten.
posted by ericb on Jul 2, 2007 - 33 comments

Nessun Dorma : Potts vs. Pavarotti - While Pavarotti's version is generally thought to be one of the best (though some might claim that honor for Corelli) this unassuming mobile phone salesman from South Wales pulls off an amazing performance.
posted by Liosliath on Jun 12, 2007 - 74 comments

WagnerFilter: Tomorrow, Monday May 21st, CBC 2 broadcasts the Canadian Opera Company's performance of The Ring in its entirety, starting at 8 a.m (in all time zones) and running until midnight. Grand opera at its grandest; tune in for one of Western music's greatest achievements.
posted by jokeefe on May 20, 2007 - 34 comments

Giants of Soviet opera are little known in the West. But Victor Han has taken it upon himself to keep their memory alive....my personal favorite is Mark Reizen, a deeply nuanced bass, who was powerful enough to carry on singing into his ninth decade. If you'd care to follow along with some of the songs, you can use Emily Ezust's massive archive of lyrics, to which Victor contributes. Or, try listening in English first. Too much music? Here's some reading.
posted by StrikeTheViol on May 13, 2007 - 9 comments

Gian Carlo Menotti was, until his death at 95, the most often-performed contemporary opera composer. Among his works is the first opera composed for radio, the most popular Christmas opera, possibly the first opera in which a telephone plays a principal role (Poulenc's came more than a decade later), an opera about aliens, and a masterpiece about life under totalitarian rule (which was also the first time that suicide by gas oven made it to the stage). He ignored the fashion of atonality that held academia in thrall, and never veered from his lyrical style. He wrote his own libretti, which showed a mastery and love of language as deep as his musical talents. Some of his works were Broadway successes. And he created one of the finest music festivals [includes embedded music video]. He will be remembered.
posted by QuietDesperation on Feb 2, 2007 - 4 comments

Mozilla Bug 97284: Allow page to make arbitrary elements user-editable in browser (contentEditable attribute) With a wee pinch of javascript that you paste into your address bar, you can edit this -- or any -- page:
javascript:document.body.contentEditable='true'; document.designMode='on'; void 0

Make the Metafilter you always wanted by flipping your browser into design mode with document.body.contentEditable='true' or document.designMode='on'.
posted by ph00dz on Jan 25, 2007 - 29 comments

Castrati were the superstars of centuries gone by! (bonus link: Countertenor jokes)
posted by furtive on Dec 8, 2006 - 13 comments

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson mezzo-soprano, voice, human, wife, died on Monday at the age of 52. (more inside)
posted by bobot on Jul 5, 2006 - 9 comments

OperaTube: a large collection of opera videos on YouTube and part of the OperaMP3 weblog.
posted by turbodog on Jun 23, 2006 - 10 comments

Opera version 9 - "The browser that everyone forgets about .. " has just been released - and it's good. Why should you care? Two suggested reasons [+ inside]
posted by grahamwell on Jun 22, 2006 - 79 comments

The Aria Database is a diverse collection of information on over 1000 operatic arias.
posted by Gyan on May 4, 2006 - 6 comments

It's not over until the fat lady sings, and she's not due up till midnight. BBC Radio 3 has devoted its schedule to a week of Beethoven and a month of Bach. Now it's going for the endurance record: devoting a day to a complete performance of Wagner's Ring cycle: a rare thing for a work and composer more often discussed than listened to, and more often excerpted or parodied than heard in full. The website offers even more lavish augmentation this time, including live libretto translation and commentary.
posted by holgate on Apr 17, 2006 - 12 comments

Dinner? No, a show. "For most of her adult life, Erika Sunnegardh was the epitome of a frustrated performer in New York City. Her artistic vocation was singing, but to make ends meet she endured the usual drudgery - waiting on tables in the Bronx where she lives and working as a tour guide...If Ms Sunnegardh, who is 40, awoke yesterday wondering if she was in the middle of a wonderful dream, who could blame her? On Saturday, the unimaginable had happened: she had sung the starring role in Beethoven's Fidelio at the Metropolitan Opera." (via Waiter Rant)
posted by melissa may on Apr 12, 2006 - 15 comments

Panda's Thumb reports elementary music teacher Tresa Wagonner was put on paid administrative leave by the superintendent of schools in Bennett, Colorado. Her offense? Playing a 12-minute clip from the thirty-year-old children's series "Who's Afraid of Opera?" for her classroom. The series features legendary soprano Joan Sutherland and some cute little hand-puppets who alternate elementary explanations of the libretti with vocal performances of selections from the operas featured. Apparently, Ms. Wagonner's selected episode, Gounod’s Faust, angered fundamentalist Bennettians, already on the warpath over Waggoner's musical choices for last year's Christmas pageant.
posted by VMC on Mar 22, 2006 - 38 comments

Can a young kid sing the Queen of the Night's aira, stay in tune and hit the notes? This one should probably steer clear of opera fans carrying sharp knives until he passes puberty.
posted by BlueMetal on Mar 13, 2006 - 27 comments

For all the hoo-ha about Callas first bringing real acting to the operatic stage, one has only to view the footage of Risë Stevens legendary 1952 “Carmen” to see what kind of Method she brought to the Met. Stevens was the definitive gypsy wanton, and her performance has it all— fire, ice, and that impossible balance between elegance and sluttiness. Her technique is superb—licking her fingers before extinguishing the candles in what will be her death chamber, then flicking off the wax; flinging her unwanted lover’s ring at him, spitting out a contemptuous “Tiens!”.
The Metropolitan Opera Guild honors the Bronx-born singer, now 92. More inside.
posted by matteo on Feb 9, 2006 - 9 comments

Televised Opera and Musical Comedy Database. A comprehensive database—or a good start, anyway—cataloging performances of operas or musicals on television, from the early, experimental days of the medium to the present.
posted by bradlands on Jan 31, 2006 - 2 comments

Opera Mini is now available worldwide, for free. A quality web browser for your Java enabled cellphone.
posted by mr.marx on Jan 24, 2006 - 35 comments

Theatre History is the Theatre Museum of London's vast online collection of ephemera, containing more than 1500 objects that record the history of the performing arts in Britain since the 1600s. There's lots of goodies, but don't miss the goldmine of fabulous photos, posters, and prints.
posted by madamjujujive on Jan 15, 2006 - 5 comments

Opera Guide: the Virtual Opera House. Cast information, synopses and libretti of the main operatic repertoire.
posted by matteo on Dec 11, 2005 - 7 comments

The only bad thing I can say about the Gilbert and Sullivan Archive is that it's been on the internets for 12 years but has never been posted to Metafilter.
posted by Saucy Intruder on Dec 5, 2005 - 31 comments