Maria Callas, Luciano Pavarotti, Freddie Mercury, and... who wrote down Bugs Bunny? This morning requires dramatic cooperation.
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Maria Callas, Luciano Pavarotti, Freddie Mercury, and... who wrote down Bugs Bunny? This morning requires dramatic cooperation.
Howdy, howdy, howdy! I’m Solomon Reynolds, and this is: Saturday Morning Car Tunes! Today, it’s gonna be a little dramatic. Opera has influenced rock stars like Queen and R&B singers like Della Reese. Why’s opera so popular?
The word opera means “to work,” as in operate or cooperation. Operas are works of music, where actors sing some of all of their lines. Plays with music date back to ancient Greece. Wealthy people in Renaissance Europe copied what the Grecians did, and opera was born. This is music by Monteverdi, the father of opera.
One way opera composers told their stories was through singspiel. Instead of singing the whole time, singers would also talk to move the story forward, like in Mozart’s The Magic Flute.
Another way to move the story forward was recitative or recit. Usually, a harpsichord would accompany a kind of talk-singing in between the songs. Recits can tell stories faster than songs can. This is from The Barber of Seville, a comedic opera by Rossini.
Opera choruses add to the drama, making them seem big and expensive. This is the “Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves” from Verdi’s Nabucco.
One of the greatest singers of all time was Maria Callas. This is her performing one of the most famous arias, or songs, by Puccini. Does she sound like a good actor?
Luciano Pavarotti was another G.O.A.T. In this aria by Donizetti, he sings a lot of high Cs, or a really high tenor note. Most people can’t sing that high, so it’s like listening to the opera Olympics!
Around 100 years ago, composers started to push the boundaries of what operas could sound like… not all of them are pretty or have happy endings. This is from Salome by Richard Strauss.
Berg used atonality to tell darker stories. Atonality avoids melodies and harmonies. How does his opera Wozzeck make you feel?
John Adams is a minimalist composer, which means he writes with repeated patterns or words, like from Nixon in China.
Gilbert and Sullivan wrote operettas together, which are shorter and less serious than opera. This is from The Pirates of Penzance.
Candide is another operetta written by Leonard Bernstein.
American musical theatre grew out of operas and operettas. Hamilton, by Lin-Manuel Miranda, is a record-breaking musical, which uses elements of hip-hop and R&B.
I’m Solomon Reynolds. I write and produce Saturday Morning Car Tunes, with research assistant Carolina Correa and audio engineer Stephen Page, only on Classical California. Tune in—or out of your car—next Saturday morning!
