Guest Guide to Opera...

Words: John Allison

Opera is generally believed to have come into being around 1600, so there's a lot of it to get into one monthly magazine. Though widely read by opera managers, OPERA Magazine is firstly aimed at opera lovers everywhere, providing an unrivalled mix of reviews (live performances, recordings, books), features and analysis, plus monthly listings of events worldwide.

The editorial board is made up of the most distinguished opera critics from Britain's national newspapers, and we have a network of international correspondents, covering performances from every corner of the globe. With a huge amount of opera going on, we are a busy team.

Five Operas You Should See...  

1. Così fan tutte - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1790

Così fan tutte was the third opera Mozart wrote to a libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte, but unlike the previous two, Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni, it has not always enjoyed success. Until the middle of the 20th century it was regarded as immoral, but now is often admired as the most modern and enigmatic of Mozart's comments on the human condition. A sublime and perfectly constructed score notwithstanding, Così is fascinatingly ambiguous as to what the characters have indeed learned in ‘the school for lovers', and it leaves audiences with enough disquiet to make the traditional happy-ever-after ending seem false.

2. La traviata - Giuseppe Verdi, 1853

One of Verdi's most popular operas, this belongs to the composer's middle period when his works were distinguished most by their melodic richness. Its lyrical and intoxicating tunes (including the brindisi ‘Sempre libera' and ‘Parigi, o cara') are often heard out of context, but in place they help to make Traviata a great music drama. Unlike Il trovatore, which immediately preceded it, La traviata is an intimate work, dealing with the conflict between the real world of human emotion and the false world of society life: in this case, the victims are the consumptive courtesan Violetta, her devoted lover Alfredo and even Alfredo's stuffy father Germont, who finally sees the pain he has caused in trying to protect family respectability.  

3. Der Ring des Nibelungen - Richard Wagner, 1876

Not exactly four operas for the price of one – these are long and demanding, yet exert such a pull on the imagination that tickets can be scarce whenever they are staged – the four operas that add up to Wagner's Ring cycle represent the greatest achievement for a composer who probably influenced the course of music more than any other. Some would claim the Ring to be a greatest single achievement in the history of Western art, and it is certainly the most influential in the course of music. Wagner believed in the power of myth, and the Ring is timeless, about much more than the giants, gods, dwarfs and humans it portrays. Unsurprisingly, it has been interpreted in many different ways, and while on one hand it seems to be a warning against the abuse of power in which love ultimately triumphs, it has also been taken as a manifesto for unsavoury racial views. Lasting for over 14 hours in total, the Ring allows everyone to make up their own minds.

4. Eugene Onegin - Pyotr Ilyich Tcahikovsky, 1879

Eugene Onegin is Tchaikovsky's best-loved opera, and its source, Pushkin's verse novel of the same name, is the most beloved work of Russian literature. The intensity of its impact might be partly due to the autobiographical significance it carried for the composer: at the centre of the story is an impassioned letter written by Tatyana to Onegin, and it was while composing the opera that the gay Tchaikovsky received a letter in similar circumstance, and was drawn into a disastrous marriage. Not surprisingly, the characterization of Tatyana is the greatest in all Tchaikovsky's operas. But the entire subject was ideally suited to his temperament, and he responded with what is perhaps his most deeply Russian work.

5. La Bohème - Giacomo Puccini, 1896

Puccini's second mature work combines music of a special, tender glow with carefully crafted construction over its four short acts – in many ways a model work, that deserves its status as one of the most frequently-performed operas. Based on a novel by Henri Murger, it tells of young bohemians living in the Latin Quartet of Paris in the 1840s, ending with the tragic death of the seamstress Mimì. Debussy, not normally an admirer of Puccini's music, admitted that he knew of no one who had described the Paris of that time better.

We asked John a few questions...

All the operas on your list predate the 20th century. Is there an agreed upon ‘golden age' for the genre?

Not exactly, but a huge proportion of the 'standard repertoire' does come from the 19th century. The backbone of any opera house's work stretches from Mozart in the late 18th century to Puccini in the early 20th century. Although there are incredible riches outside this period for everyone to discover, when drawing up a 'top five' list such as this, it's clear that core works such as these generally make the best introduction. People coming to the art form with a taste for strong theatre rather than singable tunes might well want to explore Janacek and Britten, two of the greatest 20th-century opera composers.

Alex Ross's book on 20th-century classical music The Rest Is Noise begins with Richard Strauss's Salome (1905), and emphasises how 'new' Strauss's opera was then. In literature, it is possible to draw a rough line between 19th-century realism and 20th-century Modernism. Can such a divide be seen in opera terms?

Yes. Salome is a key early 20th-century opera, but Strauss's roots were very firmly planted in the late 19th-century musical world bequeathed to him by Wagner and others. Generally speaking, trends in music lagged a little behind the great literary and artistic movements bearing the same names, and one dominant strand of opera – the great 19th-century Italian tradition of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi – can be said to have come to an end in 1924, with the death of Puccini, or at least in 1926 with the posthumous premiere of his Turandot. By this time already, other composers were indeed beginning to write works that are unmistakably modernist. So yes, whenever they were actually composed, there is a distinct difference between operas that are 19th or 20th-century in tone and spirit.

Is there a danger that opera might be seen as inaccessible to young modern audiences, or indeed to anyone without a knowledge of the original languages in which they are written?

Yes, it is a danger, but new audiences of any age need to give opera a try and may surprise themselves by how easily they become hooked! In many places, operas are performed in translation as well as in their original languages, and some companies – ENO in London for example – devote themselves entirely to performing in the language of the audience. It's a good way in, and some will always prefer this direct communication, without the barriers of language or even surtitles projecting a translation.

Recently there seems to have been a run of new, for example Anna Nicole and Nico Muhly's Two Boys. Is there a tension between the art form's rich tradition and the need to modernise?

These two works have enjoyed high-profile premieres, but they are not isolated attempts at attracting new audiences. And nor is there any tension in the minds of genuine opera-lovers, who want to see the art form renewed. Without new works, opera would be a museum art. Where some sort of 'tension' arises is in the quality gap between some new works and the great operas of the past – but that's inevitable, and operatic history is littered with the corpses of works that have not stood the test of time. For every one opera we know and cherish today, there are hundreds of forgotten pieces, and so we must be prepared to give all new works a hearing in the hope that every now and again a new masterpiece will come along.

Is there always a strong link between an opera and its literary source?

Almost always. Opera, by definition, is a mixture of (among other things) music and words, the verbal component is absolutely central. Some great operas are based on entirely original librettos (or texts), but many librettos are adaptations of already existing literary sources. More recently, there's been a trend to 'make the opera of the film', but even then the film is itself often based on a novel or play. And in opera, both music and words are enriched by their juxtaposition. In some ways, music exists to say things words cannot express, but words can also take on deeper layers of meaning when filtered through music.

OPERA Magazine has a long and rich tradition. This is a notoriously difficult time for printed magazines. What challenges are you  facing? Are you keen to embrace the digital age?

Being a small and in some ways old-fashioned magazine, with a loyal readership who actually enjoy holding the physical product, we don't feel that we're in an either/or situation. But we're absolutely aware that new readers may come to us through digital formats, or that long-standing readers may find newer media more convenient – so we're very keen to widen our digital presence. And our A5 format fits very well on the iPad! For more information go to www.opera.co.uk/digital.

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