Any opera or classical fans here?

[Bun in the Sun]

If I could just hear "Ride of the Valkyries" live I'd be the happiest young lady that day!

[str8.2.bbbj]

If you love Bach, you'll love this album. I pop it in twice a week at least. The harp and violin work on here are amazing.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/ba...as/id491236938

[boomvang]

Originally Posted by Red_Headed_Julie

I got the chance to sing in Carnagie Hall when I was 16... I love Opera, musicals, anytype of classical music.. There is something so powerful about not just hearing, but feeling the music!

That is incredibly cool. I saw Rigoletto with the NYC Opera, but I have never been to the Met or inside Carnegie Hall. Going to the Metropolitan Opera and seeing someone in Carnegie Hall are on my bucket list. As is a bbbj from mariel hemingwayesque inappropriately younger women during a horse drawn carriage ride in Central Park.

Originally Posted by GracePreston

I'm classically trained, and my daughter intends on minoring in Opera performance. So yes... we love opera around these parts!!!

Classically trained in what?

Originally Posted by Prolongus

Classical yes, especially when it's paired with a good movie. Like "Ride of the Valkeries" in the movie Apocalypse Now.

That is one my favorite scenes from any movie ever. 99% of the symbolism is lost unless you know the role of the Valkyries in Nordic myth. I was showing that scene on youtube to a friend in the last month and literally choked up. Pretty silly the things that can choke me up.

Originally Posted by str8.2.bbbj

If you love Bach, you'll love this album. I pop it in twice a week at least. The harp and violin work on here are amazing.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/ba...as/id491236938

This is impressive. MSOG with a composer that fathered 20 kids!!


There are moments of transition in all of our lives. I know the exact moment I knew I couldn't live without classical music. I got on a midnight train between Paris and Munich in the fall of 1980. I met a French girl. That in itself can change your life, but a few days latter she took me to hear Bach's Saint Mathew's Passion. It was performed in a tiny church in in a quiet neighborhood in Munich. The number of people in the chorus was just about the same as the number of people in the audience. Bach sung acapella, windows open, candle light, French girl. My god whats a boy to do? Things haven't been the same since.

Then again I have to admit ZZ Top is a hell of a band.

[Chainsaw Anthropologist]

Originally Posted by Prolongus

Classical yes, especially when it's paired with a good movie. Like "Ride of the Valkeries" in the movie Apocalypse Now.

"Valkyries" was also excellent as performed by Elmer Fudd and transmuted into "Kill the Wabbit!" Cartoons are a great fount of classical music because the studios didn't want to pay ASCAP or BMI clearance fees so they used fee free music.

c.a.

[boomvang]

Originally Posted by Chainsaw Anthropologist

"Valkyries" was also excellent as performed by Elmer Fudd and transmuted into "Kill the Wabbit!" Cartoons are a great fount of classical music because the studios didn't want to pay ASCAP or BMI clearance fees so they used fee free music.

c.a.

I took an Opera Appreciation course at a local university years ago. The instructor was a local music critic. He showed this cartoon during the first class. When it was over he said "that will be it for Wagner" Like I said he was a critic.

http://www.spike.com/video-clips/jw3...ill-tha-wabbit

[boomvang]

Originally Posted by Prolongus

Classical yes, especially when it's paired with a good movie. Like "Ride of the Valkeries" in the movie Apocalypse Now.

Another great example of this is Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings in Platoon.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECQeLQURNuw

[TexTushHog]

Originally Posted by boomvang

There are moments of transition in all of our lives. I know the exact moment I knew I couldn't live without classical music. I got on a midnight train between Paris and Munich in the fall of 1980. I met a French girl. That in itself can change your life, but a few days latter she took me to hear Bach's Saint Mathew's Passion. It was performed in a tiny church in in a quiet neighborhood in Munich. The number of people in the chorus was just about the same as the number of people in the audience. Bach sung acapella, windows open, candle light, French girl. My god whats a boy to do? Things haven't been the same since.

Got to watch those French girls on trains. Met mine on a train from Vienna to Nice. She was going to Salzberg. Never intended to go to there, but made a detour. An excellent decision. Hung out with her for two months, thank God not all in Salzberg. Still in contact about once a month.

[boomvang]

Originally Posted by TexTushHog

Got to watch those French girls on trains. Met mine on a train from Vienna to Nice. She was going to Salzberg. Never intended to go to there, but made a detour. An excellent decision. Hung out with her for two months, thank God not all in Salzberg. Still in contact about once a month.

What was wrong with Salzberg? Mozartaphobia? Mozart StraBe, Mozartplatz, Mozathaus, Mozartburger, Mozart Brathähnchen. I have never been a huge Mozart fan. I always struggled for an adjective to describe the way I feel about his music. Then I read a biography of Beethoven. Beethoven is my composer. A man's composer. Beethoven was influenced by Mozart of course, but he described his music as effeminate. That hit the nail on the head.

My most memorable evening in Salzburg was spent in a restaurant tavern called the Mexicanakeller. The Mexican basement. It was cold outside and I was drinking hot spiced wine. I guess the Austrian Mexicans drink it.

[TexTushHog]

I associate Salzburg with the Anschluss and Arbeitserziehungslager camps. No where were the Austrians more cooperative with the Germans than there. Perhaps I shouldn't hold that against the city since they had been passed back and forth between Bavaria and the Austro-Hungarian Empire several times, but there's just something about the stench of German collaborators about Austria generally and Salzburg in particular that I don't like.

[Luke Skywalker]

Originally Posted by boomvang

Bach sung acapella, windows open, candle light, French girl. My god whats a boy to do?

Keep her barefoot and pregnant; that is what I would do... 😁

[gladius82]

As a young teen in the school band our band director always said a true musician could appreciate any type of music. Back then I really liked jazz and the normal stuff played on the radio. It wasn't until college that I started really listening to and appreciating classical music. Now I listen to almost all music and have my car radio set on various stations......NEVER got used to heavy metal and punk though.

[boomvang]

Originally Posted by gladius82

As a young teen in the school band our band director always said a true musician could appreciate any type of music. Back then I really liked jazz and the normal stuff played on the radio. It wasn't until college that I started really listening to and appreciating classical music. Now I listen to almost all music and have my car radio set on various stations......NEVER got used to heavy metal and punk though.

I know what you mean. Metal and Punk are acquired taste; I'm not talking CBGB Punk. Honest to god punk. Its like a lot of things its best consumed live. Dallas had a bar "The Hot Club" on Maple Ave. This was before Deep Ellum became a scene and these were real punks. I saw The Lords of The New Church in there one night. It was awe inspiring. The Sex Pistols played at the Bronco Bowl I knew about and let it slip by, I wish I could say I had been there.

Metal is a little less ambiguous, When someone younger than me comes to the house and starts with his (it's always a him) head banging bullshit. I take them in the den and make them sit in the primo spot. I play one cut from Bach's 6 Suites for Unaccompanied Cello 2nd disk 13th cut. I'm not going to walk in there and figure out exactly what it is. But YoYo Ma does things in a single layer, one track, one instrument, one man, two hands and a bow that are hard to believe. I have had tickets to two YoYo Ma concerts and missed them both.

But there is a Metal band that bridges the two genre pretty well. Apocalyptica. 4 Norwegian Cellist. The first two albums were strictly Metallica covers. One of them plays a 350 year old Cello. I have seen some shows. Most of the bands from my time. I saw Apocalptica at House of Blues in Dallas about 4 years ago. That could be the best live performance of anything by anyone I have ever seen. I absolutely love this sort of thing. I can not stand Christmas music. But Apocalyptica does a version of Little Drummer Boy that doesn't make me want to climb the tower and start picking off the bell ringing Santas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH78E_xstdI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9xqO9kKqyk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPv4UWve7C0

[Scribe]

Scribe Sings!

La canta Di Scriba in italiano... tutti coloro che mi hanno incontrato lo sanno!

My favorite is when I get to do the sextet from "Lucia di Lammermoor"...

Chi mi frena in tal momento?

Here's my favorite version from when I was a child...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPVpCdvlBPY

...singing strengthens the vocal cords, the mouth, and the tongue... :P

[Guest102816-1]

Back when I worked in an office on Woodall Rodgers—and was single—I would often stop by the Meyerson Symphony Hall and stand in line (which was never for very long) for returned tickets. I always seemed to get killer orchestra seats. That was so great, when I had time to do that kind of thing.

One of the highlights of my music-going life was hearing Pinchas Zukerman play violin while he conducted the orchestra WITH the great Itzhak Perlman also playing violin. Wow.

About a year ago I took my 8 year-old daughter to hear pianist Khatia Buniatishvili in the Opera House. If you want to see a beautiful woman, look her up.

[boomvang]

Originally Posted by NorthDallas30

Back when I worked in an office on Woodall Rodgers—and was single—I would often stop by the Meyerson Symphony Hall and stand in line (which was never for very long) for returned tickets. I always seemed to get killer orchestra seats. That was so great, when I had time to do that kind of thing.

One of the highlights of my music-going life was hearing Pinchas Zukerman play violin while he conducted the orchestra WITH the great Itzhak Perlman also playing violin. Wow.

About a year ago I took my 8 year-old daughter to hear pianist Khatia Buniatishvili in the Opera House. If you want to see a beautiful woman, look her up.

Its a good thing this is an anonymous board. I'm about to commit Fort Worth blasphemy. The Morton Meyerson is a single use symphony hall. You can't stage an opera, ballet nothing. Just hear a symphony or something that doesn't require people moving around on stage. But it is world class and something Dallas should be extreemly proud of. I.M. Pei the architect that designed the Mortitorium has several buildings in Dallas. Regardless of how you feel about the Pyramid he is also the architect that was invited to design the addition to the Louvre. That's an art museum in Paris France.

In Fort Worth of course we have the multi purpose Bass Hall. It's okay, That architect what ever his name is, he is the same guy that did the ballpark in Arlington. That's a really nice ballpark, but it ain't the fucking Louvre.

Years ago when the queen mother visited Dallas they showed her the Myerson. They say that when she stepped in the auditorium she said "Oh Wow". Fortunately Bass Hall wasn't built yet. What would Fort Worth have done if she had said "get a load of this gaudy shit".

Far be it from me to say anything nice about Ross Perot. But he did build the Myerson and named it after an employee. From what I have heard everyone that ever worked for Ross Perot deserved to have a world class symphony hall named after them.

Bass Hall was built by guess who? The Bass family. They're really pretty good as far as rich people go I guess. But those angels with the trumpets, give me a break. This is just an opinion and not a popular one to have here in these parts.

NorthDallas30 I apologize for this one upmanship, but when I was serving my time in Dallas one of my friends parents had a couple of seats in a box just a few down from Ross and family. I sat in those seats quite a few times. It is better to be lucky than smart.

Fort Worth does have the Kimbell and the Museum of Modern Art. Not too shabby in the world of architecture.

I still stand under the sign that says "Life is too short to live in Dallas"