2024, Gatherings, Health, Music, Uncategorized

In Poor Taste

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Last weekend our local Opera group held a gala evening of a lovely meal and selections from various operas.

We have a surprisingly active opera group here, and they host a summer youth musical camp, as well as operas and recitals during the rest of the year. Our church choir director and her husband are very active in the group.

We didn’t attend the Gala, but heard plenty of comments about it the next day. An acquaintance of ours and her husband attended the Gala. She is a former piano instructor at the college. She and her husband also attend our church. Just before the end of the evening, our acquaintance’s husband collapsed and had to be resuscitated with CPR. He was taken to the hospital. There were several medical professionals in the audience who saved his life.

The final selection to be performed at the Gala was from one of the last acts of Carmen, in which Carmen is stabbed to death by Jose’. Our church choir director was to sing the part of Carmen. They decided that Carmen being stabbed to death just after Larry, the piano teacher’s husband, was hauled out on a stretcher would be in pretty poor taste, so they quickly ended the show.

I am happy to report that Larry survived and the Carmen selection will be performed at the next recital in the fall. This is just too much drama for our small community!

What are your favorite and least favorite endings to operas and musicals

37 thoughts on “In Poor Taste”

  2. You’re right, Renee! What a lot of drama for one evening – was it heart attack?

    I never liked at least the movie version ending of My Fair Lady – something like “Eliza, bring me my slippers.” Really?? If that had been made in the 70s…

    I don’t know the plot lines to many operas, just the occasional aria that my mother would have practiced. But if we were to include books… I didn’t like how Charlotte Bronte’s Villette ended – I didn’t think he had to die.

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  3. I didn’t love the ending to West Side Story (Romeo & Juliet) but it made the most sense. I loved the ending to “Grease.” So much fun, and Olivia Newton John in slinky black latex???Whooooo boyyyyyyy! 🙂

    Not an opera buff, so no opera endings come to mind.

    Other musicals w/ good endings:

    Singin’ in the Rain; The Sound of Music (always fun when the Nazis lose!); White Christmas; The Music Man; Guys and Dolls;.

    So much for the old guy who hasn’t seen many musicals in the past score of years. 😉

    Chris in Owatonna

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  4. I saw Aida years ago in Rome at an outdoor setting in actual Roman ruins. It was the first live opera I ever saw. They had live camels.and elephants on stage. It always amazes me that composers have their protagonists singing their lungs out as they lay dying or are suffocating like Aida and her boyfriend.

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    1. What a setting to see an opera. Wow. I think you have to suspend reality to get into an opera, which is my problem. I am such a pragmatist.

      JacAnon

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  5. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    (JacAnon)

    I have always had difficulty with the roles of women in the 50-60s musicals:

    Sound of Music: How do you solve a problem like Maria? Have her marry a man twice her age.

    The Music Man: Why would Marion marry a con artist/Music Man? She has a job. He is a transient. Really? No amount of “love” is going to change that guy.

    My Fair Lady: Already summarized by BiR. Why would she get his slippers and be subservient? Life selling flowers might be better than that narcissistic professor.

    I like the music though. Opera. Only Gilbert and Sullivan. But then there is this. Sigh:

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  6. I believe I have mentioned before how I go to the opera movies. I can’t stand the music, but I have a recliner and a tub of popcorn and I enjoy the scene changes and the sets and the lighting.
    We always joke, hoe. Everybody dies at the end, and it’s unusual to find an opera where that’s not true.

    “Dialogues des Carmélites” was actually very good. And mother Superior has a fantastic death scene at the end. A lot of shows that are heavy, it’s hard to say you “liked” them, but they’re very well done.

    Seeing the opera ‘Hamlet’, even the synopsis stated “Many deaths ensue”

    Typically musicals are going to have happy endings.
    Not focusing on the plot, just thinking about the music, ‘Company’ is good, ‘Les Miz’ makes me cry. ‘Music Man’… i’ll have to keep thinking.

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  7. To my mind, opera is best enjoyed if you don’t understand the language it’s sung in. Inevitably the libretto is so much yammering on and on about nothing. That said, I love opera.

    The first opera I ever attended was Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow; what a spectacular introduction it was.

     I had been in Moscow only two weeks when I saw it, just long enough to have visited the Red Square, St. Basil’s Cathedral, and the Kremlin, each prominently featured in the opera. I was not familiar with the music, and I didn’t know the story, but I was completely blown away by the incredible sets, costumes, and staging. I was hooked. I came to appreciate the singing and music through listening to a set of records I bought, a set now in tim’s collection.

    Favorite operas that I saw at the Bolshoi are Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades, both by Tchaikovsky.

    The now defunct Theatre de la Jeune Lune in Minneapolis was another company that staged wonderful performances of operas. It was a sad day when they folded. Theater Latté Da does a terrific job of musical theater. I’m truly impressed by the talent they attract and present. Actually, now that I think about it, there is a wealth of theater and other venues in the Twin Cities that present such a variety of creative work; there’s something for everyone.

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      1. Oh, I bet that was fun. I recall seeing one performance where the whole stage was flooded with water. If memory serves, it was a Mozart opera and it featured the twin sisters in the cast of characters.

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  9. I’ve always loved opera, but if you like happy endings, you’ll be disappointed. Mozart’s operas are an exception, most of them end with the main characters alive (except Don Giovanni, but no one is sorry to see him go).

    I used to listen to the Met Opera broadcasts on public radio when I was in high school. I got the chance to see the Metropolitan Opera at Northrup Auditorium at the U of M, which was wonderful.

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  10. Saw this on a t-shirt last week. Sums up my feelings about opera

    Tosca:  She dies

    La Traviata:  She dies

    Madame Butterfly:  She dies

    Aida:  She dies

    Carmen:  She dies

    Turandot:  She dies

    Tristan & Isolde:  She dies

    Othello:  She dies

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  11. I also have trouble with a couple of Disney pieces. Little Mermaid gives up her voice to get legs for a man? Please.

    Hunchback of Notre Dame. I never could bring myself to watch it. You know, in the book every single major (and many minor) characters are dead by the last page. Every single one.

    Sigh.

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  14. Waaaaay off topic. While I’m watching the Twins tonight, my baseball feed informed me that a game in Arizona will be postponed because bees were swarming on the netting behind home plate. My excuse to offer an amazing channel about saving bees.

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