Opera on "Frasier"
Matthew B. Tepper
night, and this one was of a rarely-heard work which I truly think is a
"hidden masterpiece." Niles, as a punchline, was supposed to tell his
estranged wife, "I'll see you at _Schwanda der Dudelsackpfeiffer_." Nice
line, though I suppose they were going for the effect of an opera with a
funny name.
But I treasure my recording on Sony CDs, apparently no longer in print.
And wouldn't be nice if Jaromir Weinberger's comedic masterpiece could be
revived (by a Czech company, with Czech singers, and maybe even with a
Czech conductor [Sir Charles Mackerras counts!]) in the original language
as _Svanda Dudak_?
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://www.deltanet.com/~ducky/index.htm
My main music page --- http://www.deltanet.com/~ducky/berlioz.htm
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
"Compassionate Conservatism?" * "Tight Slacks?" * "Jumbo Shrimp?"
August Helmbright
oy兀earthlink.net (Matthew B. Tepper) wrote:
> Just a note that there was another mention of opera on "Frasier" last
> night, and this one was of a rarely-heard work which I truly think is
a
> "hidden masterpiece." Niles, as a punchline, was supposed to tell
his
> estranged wife, "I'll see you at _Schwanda der Dudelsackpfeiffer_."
Nice
> line, though I suppose they were going for the effect of an opera
with a
> funny name.
>
about a Czechoslovakian Bagpiper." As soon as I read that, I was alert
for a reference to Schwanda.
My favorite opera reference in Frasier has still got to be
Frasier "dreaming" during Einstein on the Beach.
--
August Helmbright
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Marksten
line, though I suppose they were going for the effect of an opera with a
funny name. >>
Except that Niles remarked "Schwanda die Dudelsackpfiffer," not "der" - a small
mistake I instantly pointed out to my wife (who couldn't give a damn!).
Mark Stenroos
oppont
a gift of 'Janet Baker's recording of Orpheus and Euridice' --- classy
writers indeed.
MAD4OPERA
a gift of 'Janet Baker's recording of Orpheus and Euridice' --- classy
writers indeed.>>
I don't think that Janet Baker was mentioned. The CD set pictured was the
more recent recording with Jennifer Larmore, Dawn Upshaw and Alison Hagley.
Niles and Fraser are always making comments about going to the opera then
adding 2 hours to the time they will be gone because it's "Wagner".
Matthew B. Tepper
<8uut9o$qto$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>:
>In article <_dCQ5.139$O%4.9...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net>,
> oyþ@earthlink.net (Matthew B. Tepper) wrote:
>> Just a note that there was another mention of opera on "Frasier" last
>> night, and this one was of a rarely-heard work which I truly think is a
>> "hidden masterpiece." Niles, as a punchline, was supposed to tell his
>> estranged wife, "I'll see you at _Schwanda der Dudelsackpfeiffer_."
>> Nice line, though I suppose they were going for the effect of an opera
>> with a funny name.
>>
>Not only that, but the subtitle of that segment of the show was, "It's
>about a Czechoslovakian Bagpiper." As soon as I read that, I was alert
>for a reference to Schwanda.
A friend tactfully pointed out in private e-mail that Niles had the article
gender wrong, and actually said "die Dudelsackpfeiffer." Still, give DHP
credit for getting that line out at all without losing it.
>My favorite opera reference in Frasier has still got to be
>Frasier "dreaming" during Einstein on the Beach.
Mine, though not opera, is from an episode where Niles has asked Frasier
his opinion about an aspect of his (Niles') love life, and Frasier is torn
between the possible answers he could give him. He spends a sleepless
night wandering through Seattle, beset by numerous amusing visual cues
taunting him for his indecision, and at one point is faced with a poster
advertising a Seattle Symphony concert highlighting two works: Ives' "The
Unanswered Question" and Elgar's "Enigma" Variations!
The reference to a 1936 _Götterdämmerung_ with Kirsten Flagstad, found in a
bargain bin, takes second place!
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
Mark D. Lew
oyţ@earthlink.net (Matthew B. Tepper) wrote:
> But I treasure my recording on Sony CDs, apparently no longer in print.
> And wouldn't be nice if Jaromir Weinberger's comedic masterpiece could be
> revived (by a Czech company, with Czech singers, and maybe even with a
> Czech conductor [Sir Charles Mackerras counts!]) in the original language
> as _Svanda Dudak_?
As you know, Matthew, I share your admiration of Svanda Dudák. And while I
agree that a revival would be wonderful, I disagree about the language.
Assuming that we're talking about an American performance [1], I don't see
what is gained by performing it in Czech.
I think Svanda, more than most operas, would play well in English. It has
great popular appeal and would go over best, I think, with the sort of
company that focuses more on communicating the story and reaching out to an
audience that isn't so purist. What has particularly convinced me of this
is seeing the published English language version by Dennis Arundel. Have
you read it? It's very good, I think. Assuming you're talking about the
same recording I have in mind (and it's hard to believe there are two...),
Arundel's version is what is printed in the libretto as the "translation"
(though it's not really a translation).
We've heard the same recording, haven't we? If memory serves me, it's
Hermann Prey, Lucia Popp and Siegfried Jerusalem. A few months ago I got a
working phonograph set up at home, so I've been going crazy borrowing
recordings from the public libraries. On CD and tape they have just a
meager collection of standard rep (plus mockera), but the vinyl collections
are an embarrassment of riches. The Oakland library actually carries TWO
copies of the Svanda recording (only one at SF).
mdl
(who has never watched a single episode of Frasier)
[1] In Europe, it still gets some play. Recently there was one in Germany
somewhere near the Czech border. Hof, I think.
Matthew B. Tepper
<markdlew-ya0240800...@news.earthlink.net>:
>In article <_dCQ5.139$O%4.9...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net>,
>oyţ@earthlink.net (Matthew B. Tepper) wrote:
>
>> But I treasure my recording on Sony CDs, apparently no longer in
>> print. And wouldn't be nice if Jaromir Weinberger's comedic
>> masterpiece could be revived (by a Czech company, with Czech singers,
>> and maybe even with a Czech conductor [Sir Charles Mackerras counts!])
>> in the original language as _Svanda Dudak_?
>
>As you know, Matthew, I share your admiration of Svanda Dudák. And
>while I agree that a revival would be wonderful, I disagree about the
>language. Assuming that we're talking about an American performance [1],
>I don't see what is gained by performing it in Czech.
Only the opportunity to hear whether and how Weinberger's original setting
adds notably to the wit, humor, and yes, even "authenticity" when performed
by native singers. Otherwise ... (see comment after your next para)
>I think Svanda, more than most operas, would play well in English. It
>has great popular appeal and would go over best, I think, with the sort
>of company that focuses more on communicating the story and reaching out
>to an audience that isn't so purist. What has particularly convinced me
>of this is seeing the published English language version by Dennis
>Arundel. Have you read it? It's very good, I think. Assuming you're
>talking about the same recording I have in mind (and it's hard to
>believe there are two...), Arundel's version is what is printed in the
>libretto as the "translation" (though it's not really a translation).
I agree with you here (and now I want to go back to the recording and
follow this Arundel version more carefully in order to "hear" how it might
sound).
>We've heard the same recording, haven't we? If memory serves me, it's
>Hermann Prey, Lucia Popp and Siegfried Jerusalem. A few months ago I
>got a working phonograph set up at home, so I've been going crazy
>borrowing recordings from the public libraries. On CD and tape they
>have just a meager collection of standard rep (plus mockera), but the
>vinyl collections are an embarrassment of riches. The Oakland library
>actually carries TWO copies of the Svanda recording (only one at SF).
>
>mdl
>(who has never watched a single episode of Frasier)
>
>[1] In Europe, it still gets some play. Recently there was one in
>Germany somewhere near the Czech border. Hof, I think.
--
oppont
was clearly the Erato set.
MAD4OPERA <mad4...@aol.com> wrote in message
> I don't think
NNRathbun
from an episode where Niles has asked Frasier his opinion about an aspect of
his (Niles') love life, and Frasier is torn between the possible answers he
one point is faced with a poster advertising a Seattle Symphony concert
highlighting two works: Ives' "The Unanswered Question" and Elgar's "Enigma"
Variations!>>
I too thought that was really inspired.
I do have one quibble with the Frasier/opera theme. I find it very hard to
believe that Niles' favorite aria would be "Vissi d'arte." He doesn't seem
like a Puccini kinda guy. I've always thought "Casta Diva" would have been a
more likely choice.
I know, I know. Get a life.
Nancy
Capa0848
>From: mark...@earthlink.net (Mark D. Lew)
>We've heard the same recording, haven't we? If memory serves me, it's
>Hermann Prey, Lucia Popp and Siegfried Jerusalem.
>
>mdl
===============
If memory serves, that recording was produced by George Korngold, son of Erich
Korngold, the composer of Die Tote Stadt, 1920, which preceded Schwanda by only
a few years.
Weinberger also wrote operas on themes as diverse as Wallenstein (one of the
leading figures in the Thirty Years' War, and the subject of a play by
Schiller) and The Outcasts of Poker Flat (based on the Bret Harte short story
of the American West).
Sadly, Weinberger took his own life in St. Petersburg (Fla, not Russia) in
1967.
Schwanda is another in the lengthening list of delightful eastern European
works that has just begun, in the last dozen years or so, to find a wider
audience in this country.
Regards,
Pat
Pat
a
Yet do I often warmly burn to see,
Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing,
And float with them about the summer waters.
Keats "Happy is England! I Could be Content"
Mark D. Lew
Tepper) wrote:
> Only the opportunity to hear whether and how Weinberger's original setting
> adds notably to the wit, humor, and yes, even "authenticity" when performed
> by native singers. Otherwise ... (see comment after your next para)
Well, Ms Popp is Slovak, is she not? Of course they were singing in German....
My recommendation for English was based on an interest in presenting this
marvelous work to an audience in the form they could best appreciate it.
On the other hand, as one with an intellectual interest in the piece, I do
see your point about the Czech. I'm hardly an expert, but my sense is that
Svanda is much more closely tied to the rhythms of the language than Dvorák
or Janácek [1]. Probably this is because Svanda draws so heavily on folk
and dance patterns. (In his use of the orchestra, Weinberger is very much
of his own era (ie, post-Wagner), but in the more basic style of
composition he follows Smetana, I think, rather than any of the later Czech
composers.)
Consider, for example, the verse that begins Babinsky's act one aria,
before the actual ballad (ie, before you flip to the other side of the
record). The rhythm is a polka-like 2/4, with a steady two-bar pattern of
8th-qtr-8th, qtr-8th-8th. The stress accent falls on the short downbeat,
but a length accent is on the following quarter. This is very Czech,
following the language's natural pattern of stress on initial syllables,
separate from vowel lengths.
In spite of the difficulty (for me) of the unfamiliar Czech sounds, in this
passage the Czech text nevertheless sings more easily than either the
English or the German [2]. The English text, charming though it is, resists
the accented downbeat which the music clearly wants. The German does a
little better, accent-wise, but only at the price of breaking the phrases
differently, so that the phrase ends one note early and the last note acts
like a pickup to the next phrase instead. The singer who is faithful to
the translated text will thus go against the grain of the intended phrasing
of the music.
> I agree with you here (and now I want to go back to the recording and
> follow this Arundel version more carefully in order to "hear" how it might
> sound).
And now I want to go back to the library for another listen!
mdl
[1] Caveat: The only Janácek I really know is Jenufa. Perhaps others are
different.
[2] For those few who actually care to follow along, here are the texts.
The first syllable in the first line is a pickup; all the other lines are
broken according to the musical phrase. (Forgive my clumsy attempt to
render Czech diacritics.)
Po m^esíc se milujou,
lásku si slibujou,
za krátky´ c^as z téhle
pohádky samé hádky,
c^lov^ek se dr^ív zm^ení,
nez^li se nad^eje,
z^enus^ka zanás^i,
muz^ chodí na freje.
When first Cupid comes your way,
he swears he's come to stay,
but though for some time
it's clover, soon it's over.
Husbands are all forced to
find someone else to woo.
Wives have the house to do,
no time to bill and coo.
Am Anfang gedeiht man, doch
später bereut man die
Ehe, ergündet, daß
alles sich besser findet,
wenn man in Freiheit, in
wechselnder Zweiheit, bald
fliehend, bald werbend der
Liebe Geheimnis sucht.
Matthew B. Tepper
>In article <8v10i...@news2.newsguy.com>, oyţ@earthlink.net (Matthew
>B. Tepper) wrote:
>
>> Only the opportunity to hear whether and how Weinberger's original
>> setting adds notably to the wit, humor, and yes, even "authenticity"
>> when performed by native singers. Otherwise ... (see comment after
>> your next para)
>
>Well, Ms Popp is Slovak, is she not? Of course they were singing in
>German....
Sadly, the operative term would now be "was." Fortunately she had a wide
international career, a lá la Destinnova.
>My recommendation for English was based on an interest in presenting
>this marvelous work to an audience in the form they could best
>appreciate it.
And on this point I certainly concur. Back in the early 1970s, the San
Francisco Opera presented Janacek's _Katya Kabanova_ (forgive me if I use a
transliteration of the Russian character name!), sung in English, conducted
by Rafael Kubelik, with Elisabeth Söderström in the title role. About the
same time, Sir Charles Mackerras' London/Decca recording of the work was
released, also with Söderström, but in Czech, with a largely Czechophone
cast and with the Wiener Philharmoniker.
What's more, the conductors were using differing editions of the work;
Mackerras supported the scholarship of a Janacek expert who found some
orchestral interludes which the composer had intended to be inserted for
some production; Kubelik played it "straight," without such interludes.
The Decca recording production team also helped "cheat" a little bit; from
the notes I recall that Janacek selected the viola d'amore for some solos
not for its sound, but because he liked the name! A little tweak of the
recording dials assured that the instrument's solo could be heard. Thus
San Francisco opera lovers had the opportunity to compare all manner of
differing approaches, between live performances and the new recording.
Should you decide to investigate more Janacek, I envy you your journey of
discovery. The _Vixen_ is a delight in English (Kent Nagano conducting it
in a shopping mall!) or in Czech; _From the House of the Dead_ is a moving
story of, I suppose, internal redemption is the best way to put it; _Katya_
(or _Kat'a_ if one prefers) is in some way more emotionally developed than
_Jenufa_, even if the characters are not so elemental; and _Broucek_ is a
romp if you can let your mind slide past the tedious bits. _Fate_ and _The
Beginnings of a Romance_ I've never warmed to, and I've not heard _Sarka_.
And that _Makropoulos_ thing is sufficiently dramatically overdone that you
really need an over-the-top diva to bring it off; fortunately, there is not
a shortage at the present. What have I left out?
Mark D. Lew
(Capa0848) wrote:
> >We've heard the same recording, haven't we? If memory serves me, it's
> >Hermann Prey, Lucia Popp and Siegfried Jerusalem.
> >
> >mdl
>
> ===============
>
> If memory serves, that recording was produced by George Korngold, son of Erich
> Korngold, the composer of Die Tote Stadt, 1920, which preceded Schwanda
by only
> a few years.
Funny you should mention Tote Stadt. After I got my record player up and
running and started borrowing vinyl recordings from the library, the first
two I checked out were Schwanda and Tote Stadt. The next two were Königin
von Saba and Leoncavallo's Boheme. By a neat coincidence, of the three
lead singers on Schwanda, Prey is also on Tote Stadt, Jerusalem is also on
Königin, and Popp is on Boheme.
mdl
Atsarisborn
death into Daphne's heart, informs her that a certain fellow "wants to be
Aeneas to your Dido." I presume he had Berlioz's love duet in mind, though
of course he gave it English pronunciation and could have been thinking of
Purcell, or even Vergil. A major opera composer.
Hans Lick
atsar...@hotmail.com
Mark D. Lew
<ench...@herodotus.com> wrote:
I've never watched Frasier, so I don't know the context, but I'm not sure
why you would think of a love duet.
If I heard someone say that, I would assume he means that the certain
fellow intends to love her and then dump her. I wouldn't presume an opera
at all. The story is a standard classical allusion, yes?
mdl