opera seria and all operas not verdi or puccini

i would love to hear from fans of baroque opera, french opera, contemporary opera and opera seria who knnow them from recordings and videos. i am a fan of handel operas like rodelinda, rinaldo,agrippina, semele, andjulio cesare. Also, orlando furioso by vivaldi, acis and galatea, les troyens by berlioz, carmen and manon. I think "nuits d'ivresse" from Les Troyens is the sexiest love duet after tristan and isolde's verklarung.

I have copies of all the Handel operas you listed (three of "Giulio Cesare"), but speaking of pre-19th century, I still prefer Monteverdi over all the other earlies. Speaking of SEXY, now, in that context, I immediately flash back to a staging of "L'incoronazione di Poppea" and the long slow post-night-of-lovemaking separation of Nerone and Poppea... Ah che brividi! :)

I don't know "Les Troyens" well, but the phrase reminds me, naturally, of "belle nuit, nuit d'amour, souris a nos ivresses" from Offenbach's "Les contes d'Hoffmann"...

I sense an opera-trivia theme! :)

I'm mad for anything with a countertenor!

We're getting Giulio Cesare at Lyric next season, with David Daniels.

(Sorry, touchstones are a mess lately; that one comes back to Shakespeare, not Handel, and no "others" choice.)

The offenbach and berllioz have textual similarities, but the music of the berlioz is incredibly powerful- much more powerful than anything offenbach ever wrote as far as I can tell. the libretto of les troyens is like listening to the aeneid in french. It's the purcell dido and aeneas story all over again but the music will raise the dead. Do you have the beverly sills recording of giulio cesare where she sings 'piangero...' ? It is so so beautiful. I'm sorry I can't quote more, because most of my opera recordings are in ny and i'm in florida, and I don't remember the words correctly.I think it is 'o padre mia' . To do an opera-trivia theme do you post a topic? I'm new to this librarything game and I need to be led by the nose. by the way, I lived in NYC for twenty years and saw a great deal of opera including unusual ones done in church basements. we saw modern ones like henderson the rain king, the voice of ariadne, peter grimes, the ghost of versaille,billy budd and the rise of Mahagonny to name a few. At the time I was married to a total opera fanatic, but he loved the verdi-puccini-bellini-stuff more than I did. We agreed on Mozart, Rossini and the french stuff. He would have loved this group, but he died in '98.

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Feel free to start a new topic in the group, or just continue on in this one. We're pretty light on "rules", thank goodness!

I like a good countertenor a lot, but they are harder to come by than THEY think. Live I've heard Kowalski, Chance and Lesne--all quite satisfying.

(Incidentally, my "pet" octo-puses/-i/-podes all bear countertenor names... Klaus (Nomi), Rene (Jacobs), Alfred (Deller), Dominique (Visse) and Michael (Chance). If only they sang...)

I don't have Beverly Sills in "G. Cesare", mine are Jacobs with Larmore, Minkowski with Mijanovic and the old Gavazzeni with... someone. Brain giving out! Time for bed!

I sing with a Bach Choir and we frequently have the countertenor, Daniel Taylor, come and sing with us. One of my favorite experiences with this choir was the two weekends of one of our festivals where we always sing the Mass in B Minor. Daniel sang the first weekend and then Marietta Simpson, a brilliant mezzo-soprano sang the second. They were both amazing, but the contrast between their presentations of the "Agnus Dei"... one with this focused bright, angelic quality, and the other with this earth mother warmth.....just made it better!