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May 23, 2008
Who's Wagner, Doc?
If Wagner was still alive today, he would have just celebrated his 195th (!) birthday yesterday. His influence was felt by many including Baudelaire, Freud, Joyce, Nietzsche, and any/every important contemporary of his. Some recent adaptations in mainstream media that come to mind include a terrible Tristan + Isolde movie and Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy (based off of Wagner's Ring cycle).
For me most memorable tribute to Wagner comes from a not-too-recent cartoon clip about a hunter. He sings a song "Kill the Wabbit" set to the Ride of the Valkyries (this piece also worked well in Apocalypse Now). It also includes the "Flying Dutchman Overture", “Siegfried's Horn Call” , and various excerpts from Tannhäuser (although Bugs Bunny's character Brunnhilde is from the Ring cycle). If you want to listen to more, Barnes and Noble is having a sale for classical music, buy two and get the third CD for free! Feel free to drop us a line if you want recommendations or if you want to recommend something.
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It surprises me how many people have told me their experience with opera begins with Bugs Bunny. Perhaps that's the reason opera fans are the absolutely oddest group of people I've ever dealt with. Hands down. There's no close second.
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I remember an event a while back (maybe a couple of years) that involved cartoons and opera. Wagner, Puccini, Bizet and others were featured on famous Warner Bros. cartoons. I think its a great way to get kids interested in classical music. Heck thats how I got started...
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HAHAHAHA!!! KILL THE WABBIT KILL THE WABBIT KILL THE WABBIT!!!
Spear and Magic Helmet! BWAHAHAHA!! CLASSIC!
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Vagggg-nerrrrr
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my opera experience began at the LA Opera...or it might have been at the Met when i was 7 or 8. my first experience with Wagner was playing his pieces in orchestra, and faking through every single one of them. i actually didn't see the looney toons until my teens..i grew up watching the simpsons and married with children. and i actually didn't like classical music too much then
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and im not that odd
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yeah, i don't think opera fans are really that odd. what makes you think that, db? in what capacity do you "deal" with them?
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Like Senator Clinton, I apologize for my careless used of the language. My characterization was overly broad. Many opera folk I've met are actually very normal. I remember lots of laughs as we pointed to everybody else.
Actually, I meant to say odd opera fans are the oddest fans of any group I've experienced. And rethinking my original comment, the LA punks of the 80's may be a bit closer at being number 2 than I originally said.
As for my bona fides, I was the broadcast engineer for The Sunday Opera w/ Fred Hyatt on KPFK for a dozen years or so. Fred is one of the best men I've ever known, and because of him I can regale anyone with many stories, usually in exchange for a small amount of liquor, or a large amount of food.
Please know I do use the term odd affectionately. Another description might be eccentric. I've known a woman named Traviata who's daughter was Tosca. I've met people who wear overcoats which cost $2000 in 1950, but haven't been cleaned since then. I've heard many stories about standing in line for hours just hoping to get an SRO ticket at the Met. Then there's overturning trash cans to get a better view. I can only dream of having fistfights at an LA Opera like they do in Italy. I've met guys who think recording really went downhill after cylinders were replaced by 78rpm disks.
I mean really, how many countertenors have you met? You don't think they're fun when drunk?
I love these people. They make us all richer. But really, they are just not normal.
That said, my favorite tenors might be Miguel Fleta, Joseph Schmidt, and Jussi Bjorling. I think Bidu Sayao was hot, as was Dorthy Kirsten with her crystal voice. Donizetti wins me over for the shear number of classics. Mozart's perfect melodies ultimately leave me unsatisfied, while Wagner leaves me filled, but troubled about his own eccentricities. Oh, and let's not forget Gilbert and Sullivan who, uh, rock.
In the end, there is Verdi. And when I think of Verdi, I think of Toscanini. And when I think of Toscanini and Verdi I think not of an opera, but of a requiem. The end.