Opera's Second Death

[The Great Quail]

Dave writes,

>In the meantime, strangely enough, the only operas I
>actually own copies of (and thus the only ones I've
>really much listened to) are Mozart's Magic Flute,
>Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, Schoenberg's Erwartung
>and Adams' Nixon in China.  Again, I'm not really what
>you'd call an opera fan, I'm interested in the
>literature largely for other reasons (music, vocality,
>theatricality, cultural history, Warner Brothers
>cartoons, what have you)

Well, those are some pretty impressive operas to own, nevertheless!

If you are a "Nixon in China" fan, and given your other tangential 
interests, may I suggest Adams' second (and lesser known) opera, "The 
Death of Klinghoffer." I have been listening to it a lot recently, 
being as it is about Middle Eastern terrorism and its effects on 
people.

Oh, and if I can be completely pedantic here -- and yes, I know I am 
about to come off as a total classical weenie -- Schoenberg's 
brilliant "Erwartung" is not technically considered opera, but a 
"Monodram," meaning a short staged work for a single vocalist. 
However, the term does get blurred these days.... for instance, one 
of my favorite modern "Monodrams" is Feldman's "Neither," a setting 
of a Beckett poem, which is usually called an "opera" on account of 
its commission.

Uh, I will so stop talking about this on-list, before I bore everyone to tears.

--The "Brock Vond *is* Baron Scarpia!" Quail