Operas

Indeed, we can view "Treemonisha" as the ancestor to many works written today that are called operas by their composers, but which contain a great deal of rock, pop and other nonoperatic music. ❋ Barrymore Laurence Scherer (2011)

An agile vocalist with an impressive stage presence, she helped revive the bel canto repertoire -- romantic Italian operas from the 18th and 19th century that had largely fallen out of fashion. ❋ Emma Brown (2010)

Mr. Benjamin asserts that, "When he rather defensively stated in 1913 that '. . . the score complete is grand opera,' he was simply emphasizing that the format was that of true opera—i.e., all-sung—and not the typical hodgepodge entertainments that many of his contemporaries were calling 'operas' with or without irony." ❋ Barrymore Laurence Scherer (2011)

I used to tell students that a writer has to love all his characters, good or bad, and as in operas, the villain deserves a great aria or two. ❋ Unknown (2008)

It seems to me that the number of "bad" new operas is in fact actually much lower than it ought to be. ❋ Unknown (2008)

The movements of his dancers sometimes suggests the stylized steps of performers in Chinese operas, or the flowing strokes of a calligraphy brush. ❋ Unknown (2009)

Talfourd instructed, "[t] he ... poetry of operas is rarely of any value whatever; nor is coherency of plot much more important, if there be situations ... capable of suggesting the sentiment of the music" ❋ Unknown (2005)

Take the end of scene 1: the ingenue a mezzo rather than a soprano; in Slavic operas it was common for the "flighty" character to have a heavier voice than the "serious" character tells off the heroine's drunken, mother-fixated husband, then soliloquizes about her own sympathy for the heroine, but can't shake the feeling that it's not any of her business. ❋ Jaime J. Weinman (2006)

Somewhere along the line Mr. Hellyer has found the time and energy to study voice at the Toronto Conservatory; to attend the Banff School of Fine Arts and to participate in operas produced there. ❋ Unknown (1958)

In a related aspect, my wife the singer and opera professor has noted that the cost of sheet music has skyrocketed because singers and students are buying far less because they can copy it easily … and consequently, the music for more and more songs and operas is out of print, because those songs and operas are less popular and sales won’t pay for even the printing costs. ❋ Unknown (2009)

Mostly, I think his extraordinary technical genius is underrated and overlooked by most; the orchestration and the extremely tight and effective construction of his operas are the less-discussed and more-important aspects of his craft. ❋ Unknown (2007)

Wagner believed that his operas were the greatest achievements in theatre ever, and he did try to time his music to stage action, but a lot of his music is not all that well timed, often too long or short or fast or slow for the action he's calling for. ❋ Jaime J. Weinman (2008)

The opera was sung in Italian and was a bit shorter than most operas, which is good because I usually fall asleep. ❋ Maya Chalee (2005)

This opera is Donizetti's master-piece and except his "Figlia del reggimento" and "Lucrezia Borgia" is the only one of his fifty operas, which is still given on all stages abroad. ❋ Charles Annesley (N/A)

I didn't dare send Sol to the machine-shop, because I knew he wouldn't have been there a week before he'd have had the shop running on Goetterdaemmerung or one of those other cuss-word operas of Wagner's. ❋ Lorimer, George H (1903)

They seem to think if they can sing some songs, or even a few operas, that is all there is to it. ❋ Harriette Brower (1898)

This is the principle which Wagner saw so clearly, and has used to such effective purpose in his so-called operas, whose resemblance to the ❋ Various (1878)