Screenshot of Toni Blankenheim in Wozzeck.
A friend recently expressed profound bewilderment about my ongoing daily opera initiative. The count currently stands at 228. When I urged him to dip a toe into the operatic waters, he insisted he didn’t know where to begin. That’s lame. Like many needlessly wary people, my friend is hindered by classist assumptions and cultural constraints. Doesn’t he realize those arbitrary rules no longer apply? With the financial and social barriers of purchasing expensive tickets and wearing ostensibly appropriate clothing removed, there’s no real excuse for open-minded music lovers not to give opera a chance. Links to four wildly disparate murder-themed operas I watched in October are below. The free YouTube streams are listed in order of accessibility.
1. 1982 film version of Giuseppe Verdi's "Rigoletto"
Recommended if you like: starpower, Italy, familiar arias
My take: Wanna hear hits? “Rigoletto” has ‘em. Love celebrities? They don’t get much bigger than Luciano Pavarotti.
2. Birmingham Opera Company's 2002 production of Ludwig van Beethoven's "Fidelio"
Recommended if you like: revolution; red Solo cups; musical heresy
My take: Community opera productions resembling immersive performance art may be the most welcome discovery of my opera immersion. This unruly production takes extreme liberties with Beethoven’s only opera.
3. 1972 film version of Alban Berg’s "Wozzeck"
Recommended if you like: atonality; agrarian Germany; madness
My take: Although it premiered in Berlin in 1925, “Wozzeck” sounds as if it was written yesterday. The freakily absurdist “Wozzeck” is a personal favorite.
4. Fisher Center at Bard College’s 2013 production of Sergey Taneyev’s “Oresteia”
Recommended if you like: gore; Greek mythology; conventional productions with a stage, audience and orchestra
My take: The obscure 125-year-old Russian opera performed by a secondary company is excellently rendered as a three-hour bloodbath.