Vacation and... opera?

[sauergeek]

I'm on vacation this week. This is a staycation, which usually means I'm doing a mix of housecleaning and videogames. (There's also reading, cooking, and whatever else comes to mind, but those two are the big 'uns.)

This time, for reasons I'm not entirely clear on, I've thrown operas into the mix. I've so far dug up video productions of a staging of six operas and listened to them — mostly while playing games, so not with full attention — but in all cases, this is my first listen (and view) through any of them.

• Carmen, Bizet
  
• Rinaldo, Handel
  
• The Mikado, Gilbert & Sullivan
  
• Die Zauberflöte, Mozart
  
• Die Fledermaus, Strauss (conducted by Placido Domingo, with a call-out by him from the pit, and to him from the stage, in the production)
  
• The Threepenny Opera (in English) (and part 2), Weill & Brecht
  

My next one is Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, one that I've only heard (parts) of via Spike Jones' Pal-Yat-Chee.

At this point, I'm running out of operas I've even heard of, and am looking for recommendations. Restrictions: No rock operas, no other Gilbert and Sullivan (I know several, but can't handle more than one in a row...), no Philip Glass or other minimalists. Any thoughts on which operas to add to the upcoming list?

Comments

[sauergeek]

I never thought to look if Glass had done other movie scores. I'll see if I can dig them up.

My chief objection to the other Glass I've listened to is that he seems to devote each piece to a single musical what-if. He then droningly and invaryingly treats that as if it's his only musical fetish. Listening to his work feels like the equivalent of watching someone practice writing the letter F over and over again in as many variations as they can think of. That sort of exercise might be interesting to a calligrapher, and Glass's work might be of interest to a musician — which I am not! — but mostly I just want to find very nearly anything else.

The movie scores at least have some variation within them!

[xeger]

Huh. Do you like electronic music (eg: trance)?

[sauergeek]

The electronic music I'm most familiar with is ambient, primarily Klaus Schulze and the affiliated group Tangerine Dream. I also listen to some Brian Eno, which I often go to sleep by.

Having just dug up some trance, I don't think I've encountered it before. (Sounds kinda like Daft Punk without really being quite that...) I found several mixes, but I know no artists in that space. The few mixes I tried were oddly abrupt in their shifts; I don't know if that's an operation of the music or of the mixer. That said, what bits I heard started getting old from repetition rather quickly.