Till now I thought that the musical theatre was an English invention and yes on my first trip to England, some 18 years, start of the Sixties, with the "mailboat" from Ostend to Dover and to London, 7 days with an all in bus/train/underground ticket. As I wanted to "smell" the British culture: two musicals, i still remember them as if I was there again. Quite an event for me...first 'A desert song" and then some days later "Oliver"...it was really a revelation for me.

But after a quick research, mostly on the first approach the wiki I found how wrong I was, Nearly international, even in Spain the "Zarzuela", France "L'opéra comique"...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_opera
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_theatre

And later the "musical theatre" as film...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_film

Nearing midnight overhere my further comments will be for tomorrow...

Kind regards from Paul.

What is the difference between opera and musical theatre.  Is it that opera is mostly sung whereas musical theatre is a mix of spoken dialogue and catchy songs.  As some (not all) "musicals" have weighty themes I don't really think I can say that the difference is that opera is "serious" and that musical theatre is not. "Les Miserables" the musical (based on another Victor Hugo novel - there was some discussion of "Notre Dame de Paris" recently on the site) is faithful to the source material I think and deals with serious themes.  (Obviously with a long book like "Les Miserables" some source material would have to be left out of the adaptation).

If Paul sees this, I will tell something quite funny about the first time I travelled through Belgium (on a train en route to Eastern France) I thought the posters for "Stella Artois" were for a Belgian celebrity (i.e. the lady on the posters).  Well, I suppose Stella Artois is quite a well-known Belgian beer.

There were songs in some of Shakespeare's plays if I remember rightly (or were those just cases of a composer liking some of the poet's verse and adding a tune to it?).  I know some time ago I mentioned the conte-fable "Aucassin et Nicolette" and linked to a site (though I don't know if it is live still - it can still be accessed though somebody may have said they contacted the email address and didn't get a reply).  A conte-fable mixes recitation and music though I guess there was just one person telling the story.  http://aucassinetnicolette.d-t-x.com

Thomas Morley, who was the organist of St Paul's cathedral and a contemporary of Shakespeare, is known to have set some of the bard's words to music. For example "It was a lover and his lass" sung in 'As you like it' (written 1599) appears with Shakespeare's words in Morley's "The First Booke of Ayres" (1600):



Morley published his musical arrangement of Shakespeare's song a few months after the play's first production, but it is unknown whether Morley had been commissioned to write the music, or rather that he just set Shakespeare's words to music for his own benefit. Nevertheless Morley and Shakespeare certainly lived close to one another in central London although there is no evidence they ever met.

Similarly in 'Twelfth Night' (written 1601) the jester, Feste, sings "O Mistress Mine". Morley includes a musical arrangement with this title in 'The First Book of Consort Lessons'. This is a multi-part arrangement for a consort of viols and does not give any accompanying words but crucially the music does exactly fit Shakespeare's lyrics:



Morley's musical arrangement of "O mistress mine" was published 1599, ie a few years before Shakespeare's play. This rather implies that the music, like others in the same collection, was an arrangement of an already popular song - "O mistress mine" also seems a rather odd title for a purely instrumental piece if it wasn't the already associated with a well-known song. This then suggests to me that Shakespeare was basically writing down an existing song, no?

One composer who was definitely involved in producing music to accompany the original settings of some of Shakespeare's lyrics, was Robert Johnson. Unlike Morley, he is known to have composed the music for The King's Men's productions of several of Shakespeare's plays. His best-known ones are those from 'The Tempest' (1610): "Where the Bee Sucks" and "Full Fathom Five". 

LadyinRetirement wrote:

What is the difference between opera and musical theatre ...  As some (not all) "musicals" have weighty themes I don't really think I can say that the difference is that opera is "serious" and that musical theatre is not. 

Indeed LiR. On another thread (well actually the same one but we seem to be discussing this in two separate places) I wrote (16 April) in answer to Paul's original premiss:

Meles meles wrote:

I'm not sure that I correctly understand you Paul, but you seem to be trying to separate out all the various shades of 'musical theatre' into different distinct categories. I don't think this is possible, nor particularly desirable. Personally I see all the forms of 'musical theatre' (a good, succinct term, btw) as just different positions along the same spectrum.

Nevertheless it is quite a common paradigm. For example, why are Mozart's operas usually referred to as being "grand opera", whereas the immensely popular (both in their time and nowadays too) works of say Franz Lehar, Gilbert & Sullivan, or Rogers & Hammerstein, are all to often dismissed as  being "light" operas, operettas, or simple musicals? They were all - Mozart included - essentially written just as popular entertainment, and the formula for their success (whether immediately financial or in longer term appreciation) seems to be based on much the same things: a clever plot with an unexpected twist (babies separted at birth, identical twins, mistaken identities, or an apparent paradox, all seem to be recurring and successful themes); a love interest of course; some sort of big visual spectacle like a grand wedding, a festival or a parade; then maybe throw in a bit of fantasy such as a few supernatural beasts or magical beings; and finally add some topical references. Plus of course plenty of catchy tunes ... as after the ticket sales, printed songs and dances from the opera but simply arranged for the domestic piano, were always a lucrative money-winner for the composer, as well as being sound publicity.  And that seems to be the basic premise whether we're talking about Andrew Lloyd Weber's 'Cats', Gilbert & Sullivan's 'Pirates of Penzance'; Franz Lehar's 'The Merry Widow', or Mozart's 'The Marriage of Figaro'.

Yes there are some operas that deal with heavier themes and darker raw emotions ... such as betrayal, guilt, thwarted love, murder, suicide and death. But in this regard Bizet's 'Carmen' is not so very different from Bernstein & Sondheim's 'West Side Story', and yet the latter is usually dismissed as "just" a musical? Indeed as popular entertainment goes, is there really that much difference between the Disney spin-off musical of 'The Lion King' and Mozart's 'Die Zauberflöte'?  ... and I mean in overall style and ethos, not simply because they both feature talking animals.

But yes, Mozart did write much better music ...

And I still stand by that. I don't see any fundamental differences between grand opera, operetta, comic opera, musicals, and musical theatre.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Is it that opera is mostly sung whereas musical theatre is a mix of spoken dialogue and catchy songs ... 

Well yes, as originally understood opera was entirely sung (that was its novelty) in contrast to a play with songs, but it has since come to include numerous genres, including some that include spoken dialogue. For example even a "Grand Opera" like Mozart's 'Magic Flute' includes several periods of spoken dialogue completely unaccompanied by any music at all. And if you look at, say again, 'The Magic Flute', the whole story (with its surprising twists, apparent paradoxes, high drama, love interest, spectacular visual theatre, and final happy ending) could indeed be seen as basically just an entertaining vehicle for a series of catchy songs and hummable (and moreover sellable!) tunes. Even if we humble mortals can't hit the high notes and sing the Queen of the Night's aria, we can at least be wowed by the drama and visual spectacle, and then whistle the tune afterwards:



... and also, over two centuries after it was written, still encounter it being used in advertising:

Thanks for the information, MM.  Some people have argued that "Phantom of the Opera"  by Andrew Lloyd-Webber is an opera.  I'm not sure I agree but I may be prejudiced because I have heard too many ghastly renditions of "Help me make the music of the night".

Lady and MM, already for the second time, no post specified, start again for the second time

I give first the link before it is a third time, no post specified

Lady and MM, I start again with my original message.

As I learned a lot the last days, among others from you, I think that music, lyrics, voices are a personal experience, perception, of a feeling that is limited to the person in question. Of course a particular song, music, voice, lyrics can have more likes (no bought ones) than some others, because nevertheless there seems to exist general trends among people.


And again a part of my message is gone
I personally tried in my Sturm und Drang period, I suppose at 16 to "feel" new music as was mentioned in the "college" class. At night in bed with a "portative" radio listening to the twelve tone music of Schönberg, but it couldn't seduce me
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-tone_technique
And in the four hours history of music that I saw in French as ""Si la musique m'était contée" (one can see episodes of it in French on internet. I saw already the second one on the net: the Romantic), if I recall it well (and it will be the same in the German copy above)
they say at the end that after all the experiences in the 20th century the general public came back to the great music of the end of the 19th century, start of the 20th...
And I suppose, at least it was that way in my case, the personal perception of music is guided from the childhood. In my case my father's songs along the tunes of the great arias or songs of the Thirties and with local texts alluding to both political and sexual subjects. For instance as with the song and music tunes of "Valencia" one on the banking crisis: Valencia, 't is te danken aan de banken dat de Frank zo lege staat. (it's to thank to the banks that the Franc stays that low) the other one about a sexual description of Valencia among the same tunes but with quite other words that I still recall...And a lot of other great songs and music with local words...

It is perhaps therefore that especially the great operas of especially a Puccini, because of the music and the words move my heart. As I mentioned my mother in law and the Ghent opera, in the time you could have a summary of each part of the opera in texts and even the full texts. Now it is a band above the singers with the translation moving along the singing...

For fear of again losing my message I will put two of my favourites in an addendum, as "Valencia" and I learned this evening for the first time that the music and song comes from a "zarzuela"

Kind regards from Paul.

Addendum.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Street_Where_You_Live
Lyrics
https://genius.com/Vic-damone-on-the-street-where-you-live-lyrics








http://www.valencia-tourist-tralyrics.htmlvel-guide.com/valencia-

Well, I'm sure I saw a poster (as in a notice) near the (very small) theatre in my hometown recently saying that there was a performance of the opera Carmen in July but I've looked online today and can only see something about the said opera having been performed last year (2018). To the best of my knowledge the theatre normally changes the posters punctually - I'll have to look next time I am in town.  There are some plays forthcoming.  The teacher of the Spanish class I attend and his wife are involved in a local amateur dramatic group and they will be putting on Cranford (adapted from the book by Mrs Gaskell - though I'm sure you know that).  Our teacher is the prompter I believe but his wife is playing Mrs Gaskell.  I thought at first she meant that she was doing the adaptation but she just laughed and said the play was already in existence but that Mrs Gaskell (or the character of Mrs Gaskell) narrates the story.  I'll try and get along to that and give them a bit of support.  I like the story - of course it's been on TV but I don't mind.

I buy the over 60s rail cards which are available (for people not in the UK the cards allow one to travel on a train with a discount of a third of the price - in England and Wales anyway, sometimes Northern Ireland and Scotland have different rules but I don't know if the rules about over 60s rail cards are different in those countries).  Anyway, I received an email today linked to the railcard telling me about various musicals that will be showing in London.  London has never been particularly cheap of course though at one time people could buy significantly cheaper tickets "up in the gods" in the top balcony but now the cheapest tickets seem to be around £19 or £20.  You can tell I haven't been a "culture vulture" these last few years.

In discussion further above re the naming of sung musical entertainment definition was questioned.

Entertainment it is unless used for devotional service and the composer decides how to describe it, I assume. And in doing so points out what sort of voice is needed. Voice is a remarkable instrument. Trained operatic singers use another when part of a choir, for instance. Sadly some over egg performances in a lighter genre with the full talent of their operatic range. Not only can the voice be used to complement the music but also the surrounds where performed. Indeed some sacred music actually uses echo within the harmony construction - so I learned from a skilled conductor. Most singers have several voices - I have used them all apart from a serious operatic rendering. It would be possible - I could do it anyway, to sing say  a pitch perfect Handel's Halleluiah chorus in a cockney singing voice or, musical style ( several types) operetta or folky...… Please God spare me from showing you... but it is possible.  
A good musical director will soon point out how the vocal sound must be formed. Once asked to do 10 bars choirboy high stuff during Brittain's Ceremony of Carols I even managed a tremor but that might have been because of nerves about the 5/8 timing.  What I really know about this magnificent art form could be written on the back of a stamp. I can, however, sing as directed from  ceilghi (sp?) to Mass and pantomime burlesque.  
My point is that the labels of sung music perfomances have a purpose and one of the main ones is to attract an audience to pay to hear it so they also need so know what they are in for. 

Possibly this is deviating from where a rail card chat might lead but trying to keep the thread on track as it were.

Priscilla,

thank you very much, you brought me to the essence of my feelings when moved by "sung musical entertainment". It is the voice that struck a "cord" in my heart (mind). My former wife (sadly passed away recently I heard) was in love with Paverotti, king of the high "c"s. I still have to do the research, but perhaps you and MM (perhaps he is more in the instrumental music, but I recall that he was in a choir) and GG (Gil) also knowledgeable in music (but seemingly he prefers the instrumental performances and not the thick ladies moving on the stage if I recall it well) can help me in all that.
I prefer (I think?) the great male "tenors" and each seem to have their own individual "voice", and even there I have preferences. And if I have understood it well you hint to the amazing scale and timbre in which this voice can variate?
I like also female voices, but then more with a "male"? kind of voice. In that I agree with my present partner, who is of the same opinion. To late this evening to elaborate further, but I will come with examples of female preferent voices of mine tomorrow. Will try tomorrow also to learn something about the high "c"s...See you tomorrow, nearing midnight overhere...

Kind regards from Paul.

Ah, Paul. I do so love 'lost in translation.' You may recall the useful advice to a child at a concert, "We cannot leave until the fat lady sings."

A thick lady, in everyday speak in UK. is one who is none too bright. It is an adjective that could probably land one in court these days...…. as may 'fat' also. 

Re the thread this stuff reminds me of classical Indian music which takes place in  patrons' homes and by invite only for a place on the floor. The lesser musicians play first, then a few light ragas are explored before the heavy stuff - and at the very end the best singer there , who in my experience, was always a fat lady.By then it would be about 3am and until then one could get up and move about, find food, have a drink outside or a quiet gossip in the garden but all had to be there for the fat lady when one of the great ragas was explored with sitar, voice and 2 tabla and a knowledgable crowd praising the clever stuff of subtle sophistication with raised cries of Wah Wah waaah. All rather like a quality jazz jam session in the late, late nights of my yore if not yours.

As for your questions above MM can deal with them, I only felt obligated to point out that voices can be adapted and tuned into the style of the music. Opera is out of my league, tho I do still go to them. I am, as it were, a bit of a thick lady in that circle of talent.

As for fat ladies - and chaps, belting out their stuff in grand opera - it's probably better to get the record. I  have been known to giggle at the wrong time. There have been some rotund Lieutenant. Pinkertons in M. Butterfly who would not have been allowed to serve in any navy - even with a nice voice.

I differ from Roger Waters on many topics. Andrew Lloyd-Webber music isn't one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MySqsrnCF8

Paul : You have slightly misunderstood me. I am perfectly happy with (most) vocal music. I just prefer it pure and not mixed with "drama". To me, they two don't fit in a way I find appealing.

The over 60s railcard is on topic in regards to seeing musicals for me.  I don't have a car and if I want to see a show whether musical or just spoken drama in a town other than the one in which I live I am dependent on public transport.  The one-third saving for travel when using the rail card is a boon for me.

Or you could say that your situation has the makings of a musical..... with a bit of development. The plots of some musicals vary in storylines. The problem I have with recently seen ones..... by coach....in a group.... no railcard needed.... has been the lack of memorable melody.  Much of Lloyd Weber stuff is equally forgettable. There is often a young person sitting in front of a huge control organ thingy who plays about with the sound from the back of the auditorium. They seem to prefer screech mode as they tinker. It seems that the professionals on stage these days cannot project without.

I had a Japanese opera singer next to me in choir. She was about 3 kilo and  4 foot tall but when she stepped forward from our rank and file to perform an aria in her trained voice she could make the huge cathedral doors far down the nave tremble; the dosing audience were always jolted into paying full attention. My part in all of this was to whisper certain pronunciations she could never recall...…. for instance... bosom.... which one must admit is as daft a word as you can get but even worse if you get it wrong.

I hope I didn't come across as "Woe is Me", Priscilla.  There are occasionally outings to the theatre offered by the U3A I belong to (on a first come, first served basis, though that is perfectly fair).  If I fancy a sally-forth to the theatre is for a production that there aren't any organised outings for (whether through U3A or others) things gets more difficult.  There was a play I fancied seeing in Birmingham (admittedly I didn't find out about it until most of the tickets had been sold).  Unfortunately there were no available seats for day-time performances left and the timings of the evening performances meant the last train would have left by the time the play was over.  The last national bus from Birmingham to where I live arrives in my hometown at something like 4 a.m. (admittedly I haven't checked this; I'm going by when I used to travel from London - when I worked there - for a weekend or however long a period of time I had in mind - so we are going back 9 years almost).  I've overnighted on Birmingham, New Street Station in the past and it's not an experience I want to repeat.  The last bus from town that goes  past my house runs at something minutes past 6 in the week and something minutes past 5 on a Saturday and on Sunday there ain't no such animal.  That doesn't mean I never go out in the evening - just that I have to exercise shank's pony - not that that's necessarily a bad thing.  Most of my viewing of musicals in recent years has been on TV (or on a TV station via the i-player or something similar).

I'll admit I may need to pay more attention to the advertisements (as on placards) for dramatic/musical productions both in my hometown and out of it.  This is going back a while but I would have liked to see Miss Saigon when it was shown in Birmingham but I didn't find out about it till after it finished.

Priscilla, I do like your story about enlightening the trained Japanese singer when appropriate with pronunciations.  I've sung in choirs in the past (never one which had voice tests).

As for musical soirees, the nearest thing I come to participation in such these days is intermittently attending local folk nights (usually held in pubs) - mostly as audience.  I haven't plucked up courage to do any performance other than join in choruses!

In case my last post came across as somewhat negative I'd like to mention some musicals I have liked.  When I was (a lot) younger I saw a rerun (of a rerun of a rerun) of Oklahoma.  Although I loved (and still do) the male singer's rendition of "Surry with a fringe on top" I had a soft spot for Ado Annie (Gloria Grahame) - the girl who couldn't say no - though it seems some criticised her deeming her not to "really" be a singer.

I lost a post where I tried to say I liked the TV version of South Pacific with Glenn Close.

We seem to have a pair of combinations in that there is another thread with Paul as the last poster further down the list. For the management - this is not a criticism 9as if I would dare) just saying.... which is among several of the Just William quotes  that have stuck through the ages. And what we need is  Just William - the musical. Perhaps I'd better write it. Gosh Yes! All with thirties music and po hats. 

Perhaps I ought retire to the long silence room again.

Priscilla wrote:

We seem to have a pair of combinations in that there is another thread with Paul as the last poster further down the list. For the management - this is not a criticism 9as if I would dare) just saying.... which is among several of the Just William quotes  that have stuck through the ages. And what we need is  Just William - the musical. Perhaps I'd better write it. Gosh Yes! All with thirties music and po hats. 

Perhaps I ought retire to the long silence room again.

Priscilla,

as LiR and I have had several times now a double post, but LiR edited it it immediately and I had another trick after this only double I didn't know how to correct. (ask LiR)
But now we are on this one and I stick to your mentioning of the "voice"...
I wanted to reply to your "thick lady" (dikke madam), but was struck in research for what, as I promised to you, a "manly" female voice, as was in my opinion a Vera Lynn in Land of hope and glory from 1962.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGQgdE50QA4

At more than 75 still to learn for this board.
I made a selection between three voices for the same song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaV6sqFUTQ4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My61CPOkMQY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaQ0YK_lEDo
And I found the voice of Leontyne Price for my ears and mind the best one...

And I start to understand I suppose why:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_type

And now I understand too why they call Paverotti: King of the high c's...
The female contralto meeting  the male tenor?
http://www.classical-music.com/article/six-best-contraltos-all-time

And I see now that one of my favourites Tito Gobbi is a "baritone"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NShOT3s6y6Y


Yes Priscilla, some "voices" seduce me and I don't know why...the colour the timbre and all that mentioned in the wiki about the voice...but I certainly don't like I see now female sopranos...

Kind regards from Paul.

In contrast to the deep contraltos (scarcely an accurate description of the voice of, say, Clara Butt, you also have the countertenor, or even in some cases the male soprano, the dearth of these, once supplied from Spain to the Vatican, led to the castrati. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGkSVq0FNFs

Green George wrote:

In contrast to the deep contraltos (scarcely an accurate description of the voice of, say, Clara Butt, you also have the countertenor, or even in some cases the male soprano, the dearth of these, once supplied from Spain to the Vatican, led to the castrati. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGkSVq0FNFs

GG and Priscilla,

yes I think I learned for the first time about these high pitched voices in a historical novel from Gore Vidal? "Empire"? And Gore (if it was him?) is not afraid about the typical details of an eunuch, has the tube in lead to evacuate the fluid from his bladder and indeed also about the voice.
I found no wiki on such an interesting subject  , but I learned nevertheless that it is only when one is castrated as a child that the typical child voice remains, other wise if later the adult voice remains...

And yes the deep female contralto are perhaps close to the male countertenor, but for whatever reason I prefer the female contralto. Perhaps it would help if I only hear the voices and dont see the males and females? Perhaps it is as with eating, not only the sight is vital but also the nose, in the case of voice performances: the ears and the eyes...

And this evening I learned again thanks to GG something new on this board
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alessandro_Moreschi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxSlnE408Eo

GG wrote on the double of this thread
"No. "Concert performance" is not staged. No 200-kilo sopranos jumping off the wall onto the trampoline and bouncing back into view, just unadulterated music."

Perhaps I understood it slightly wrong, because the picture of those broad bossomed fat ladies bouncing allover the stage stuck in my mind and impregnated it in such a way that I couldn't think at others...
But you can have fat ladies, who can do some quite elegant performances too




I wanted to add a reply to Priscilla about the "fat lady" (the thick madam (de dikke madam)) because it becomes too difficult with this youtube in the message. Will do it in an addendum...

Kind regards to both from Paul.

Priscilla,

now that you say it, I have a rememberance of reading in a novel: that's really thick from you or something like that...
We discussed it on the language forum and  as nordmann said, one uses first without knowing it the words that are the same as in the foreign languages although they can have quite another connotation...
I had a look to my Collins paperback and there they said: 1. of relatively great extent from one surface to the other. 8. Brit; informal. unfair or unreasonable. And we have also the expression: lay it on thick: "het er dik opleggen" in the same sense...
As to come back to that thick lady..of relatively great extent from the broad bossomed front façade to the well shaped bum on the rear façade
And we call it a "dikke madam" in our local...
Some lady, famous in Ostend, made a song about it in the local dialect of Ostend (one of the dialects of the West Flemish dialect)
https://muzikum.eu/nl/123-460-149092/lucy-loes/t-is-gedoan-met-de-dikke-madam-songtekst.html

't is gedaan met de dikke madam (it is finished with the fat lady) Meaning she by eating fish realized it from broad to thin shape (I was a witness of it, it was reality, perhaps not of the fish but in any case of the shape. BTW I learned that typical Ostend dialect in one year time by trying to speak it from the examples of the others)




BTW I found it even on Russian! websites...

Kind regards from Paul.

Paul your liguistic explanations are always lost on me...….as far as I am concerned a thick person in English  is  simply none too bright.

One could have a long thread re counter tenors. Suffice it to say I really like Ancient and Baroque music with counter tenors - and there are some who manage a higher range. Then the voice is like an instrument - esp in very early music. There are sometimes rare performances by specialusts - mainly small French and Italian companies  who also play instruments of the time and a sublime experience if ever you have the chance. I went to    one in the glorious Sante Chapelle in Paris and another in a tiny forsaken ancient church in the Essex marshes - by candle light that one was - both extraodinary. The following night  by chance the latter group also performed at a local jazz gathering using different voice but losing none of their considerable musical artestry.  Fortunately more modern composers, Brittain for one appreciated the possibilities of counter tenors so it is not just all Baroque and Renaissance tho Monteverdi and Co taking some beating.

It all makes the rave notices dished out to such modern shows as say, 'Calendar Girls.' (which I saw this weekend) cringe worthy. Youths in the audience yelled and clapped like rabid seals whenever anyone managed a top D.......... dumbed down appreciation,  if ever. It is fortunate that I have not been asked to write a review for this one....... my last one being somewhat heavily edited.

Priscilla wrote:

 Youths in the audience yelled and clapped like rabid seals ...

 Love the simile, Priscilla! Did make me laugh on this grey Monday morning.


EDIT: Although I suppose, strictly speaking, the male Northern Elephant Seal honks rather than yells. Found this about male seals' vocalisation technique:

The researchers found that males produce low frequency pulsed vocalizations that vary in
rhythm depending on the individual animal. These sounds often start and end with a small
acoustic flourish. Each animal has a unique signature call which does not vary.

Priscilla wrote:

One could have a long thread re counter tenors. Suffice it to say I really like Ancient and Baroque music with counter tenors - and there are some who manage a higher range. Then the voice is like an instrument - esp in very early music. 

In the 1994 film 'Farinelli' about the famous Italian castrato, the singing voice of Farinelli was created by digitally merging the voices, recorded separately, of the countertenor Derek Lee Ragin and the soprano Ewa Malas-Godlewska. But even on his own Ragin does have an extraordinary voice:

Cooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooor! MM. Thank you.

Indeed, and the combination of the two voices (male counter-tenor and female soprano) to try and recreate that of a castrato, still raises goose-bumps regardless of however many times I've heard it (although a youtube recording doesn't give the best reproduction):



Whilst that isn't his voice, the actor playing Farinelli is Stefano Dionisi, who I believe is actually a competent singer in his own right.

For the sound of a real castrato this is a recording of Alessandro Moreschi, the only castrato known to have made any solo recordings.  The recording quality is not that good but you can still appreciate his huge vocal range (I don't know when the recording dates from but Moreschi died in 1922 aged 63). I find his voice strangely, sadly, almost creepily, haunting ... but it seems to lack any of the richness and depth of tone of most opera singers (of any range), although that might well be due to the inadequacy of the recording technology of the time. 

The castrato voice here - and  I wonder if it is common to the condition - has flat breaks which somehow intrude with a broadness of tone which is unexpected; rather like a Punjabi intonation, actually which used to  grate on the ear. Thank you for bringing them both here - and as for the one before, well words cannot do justice to the accomplishment the achieved. That, and of course for the music itself. The demands on both singer and muscicians in this gilded period is ever extraordinary to hear. Even singing it in a choir ay my level made all else in the world for a brief moment become of no consequence whatsoever.

As I am in recent days learning a lot about opera, opéra comique and musical I saw this morning coincidentally a documentary about Monteverdi, who seems to be one of the most famous initiators of what was called opera.
I have it on my hard disc. Before you could copy the link for free, but nowadays one has to buy the DVD. And as it was a French documentary it is not that interesting for overhere.
As I spent a lot of the evening on a French forum about the Nazi Madagaskar Plan, I give here first my links that I found in Englsh and some in French for those on the boards understanding French. I will tomorrow comment them in full, as the link with the Renaissance: the human again in the center of the society...
https://www.francemusique.com/baroque-music/orfeo-claudio-monteverdi-first-opera-15631
https://www.limelightmagazine.com.au/features/monteverdis-lorfeo-and-the-invention-of-opera/
And from a London museum
http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/t/early-opera/

And an extract from the French documentary
https://vimeo.com/233098289

Kind regards from Paul.

Indeed Paul, the first true operas were Dafne with music by Jacopo Peri (now mostly all lost), first performed in 1598; followed shortly after by Euridice (in 1600) again by Peri, and then L'Orfeo (1607) by Claudio Monteverdi (libretto by Alessandro Striggio the Younger, a Mantuan diplomat and son of the composer Alessandro Strggio). These were the first works in which all the parts are sung throughout; previously the style for court entertainments had been essentially 'plays' comprising passages of rhyming verse, declaimed in a rather formal manner by the actors, and interspersed with songs, instrumental pieces and occasional dances.

The date for the first performance of L'Orfeo, 24 February 1607, is evidenced by two letters, both dated 23 February. In the first, Francesco Gonzaga informs his brother, Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga of Mantua, that the "musical play" will be performed tomorrow; it is clear from earlier correspondence that this refers to L'Orfeo. The second letter is from a Gonzaga court official, Carlo Magno, and gives more details: "Tomorrow evening the Most Serene Lord the Prince is to sponsor a [play] in a room in the apartments which the Most Serene Lady had the use of ... it should be most unusual, as all the actors are to sing their parts." (The "Serene Lady" is Duke Vincenzo's widowed sister Margherita Gonzaga d'Este, who lived within the Ducal Palace). There is no detailed account of the premiere, although Francesco wrote on 1 March that the work had "been to the great satisfaction of all who heard it", and had particularly pleased the Duke. The Mantuan court theologian and poet, Cherubino Ferrari wrote that: "Both poet and musician have depicted the inclinations of the heart so skilfully that it could not have been done better ... The music, observing due propriety, serves the poetry so well that nothing more beautiful is to be heard anywhere".

I've posted this before somewhere but I think it's a splendid performance (and as I remember Temp particularly liked the conductor's grand entrance and big floaty cloak). It's a full production of L'Orfeo in original style, with period instruments etc, conducted by Jordi Savall who is well-known in France and Spain for his performances of period music, not just opera but choral and instrumental works, from medieval, rennaissance, baroque periods. If some of the acting and singing seems rather 'stylised' one should remember that Monteverdi's opera was contemporary with Shakespeare's Macbeth, Anthony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus.

I think we can conclude that Menteverdi also regarded that opening Toccata highly - he used it in the 1610 Vespers.

MM thank you very much for this preformance of L'Orfeo and the mentioning of the circumstances. And thank you also for all the details that you explained overhere and where I partially read about during my research.

"It's a full production of L'Orfeo in original style, with period instruments etc, conducted by Jordi Savall "
I met it too in my research and started to look at it, but as i saw that it was for 2 hours...I started to scam through it...

Unbelievable how "modern" it all seems to be, although with period instruments and in the original style.

And yesterday I was a bit surprized that all this modern way of handling and thinking was under the Spanish rule of Philip II. Mantua under Philip II until his death in 1598?
The same Philip II with his inquisition here in the Low countries during the Dutch revolt with his burnings at the stake...

And what I yesterday wanted to say about the French documentary, was that the changing to the opera genre vocal music, was a change from the music devoted to God and religion (polyphony? Have to check) to the more to earth human subject.
I was trying to prove on the several fora (and I was not alone in my opinion) that the human centered world from the Antiquity, was never fully lost in Europe...there was a Carolingian Renaissance, an Ottonian one, even during the Middle Ages the human centered view was never far away as with an Abelard (BTW ABELARD WHERE ARE YOU?) and at the end you had the real Renaissance, especially in Italy and later in the Low Countries. On a French forum there was an interesting input from a French "intervenant", who said that it could have had to do also with the Protestantism which put the "Catholic order" in question and hence the more central role of the for oneself thinking human. And it was perhaps first that what was present in Mantua and Northern Italy and certainly in Venise, that city state without "royalty" and where Monteverdi later moved to. Yes that Venice on the forepost of the modern thinking as later the Dutch Republic and later the United Kingdom.

Kind regards from Paul.

Still love it, MM - and his swirly cloak! That opening sequence makes me want to dance a stately measure or two in a posh frock!

Mr Swirly-Cloak can play as well as conduct; he's the one at the left of this group playing the viola da gamba (a bit like a small cello):



(Sorry Paul, I'm wandering away from musicals and onto musicians).

MM, you have joined the PR-LiR team...

Kind regards to MM and Lady in retirement from Paul.

Wonder how many rehearsals it took to get the timing right!

Indeed, particularly, as is common with a lot of Italian and Spanish 16th century dance music, the persussion is syncopated, ie its regular beat is actually off-beat.