Opera song #2

[cimorene]

I posted some time like a year ago about how much I like the Queen of the Night aria commonly referred to as "Der Hölle Rache" from Mozart's The Magic Flute. I don't typically like a lot of opera songs, which is largely because of the singing style but partly the structure, but I was essentially thinking, this is such a banger that the genre HAS to have some more bangers! Several people who like opera tried to help me with recommendations and I listened to a fair number of arias, but I never found anything with the same vibes.

There are other opera songs with great melodies, though. I love The Barber of Seville and William Tell (the whole operas), and some bits of the ring cycle, though in all those cases I prefer instrumental because the vocal styling irritates my ear.

But last week the YouTube homepage at work, where I'm not signed in and YouTube history is even off, recommended a video of Cristina Deutekom singing Bellini's Casta Diva after I played Der Hölle Rache, and I really liked it! I recognized it too - it's one of those things you recognize a million quotes from, like Shakespeare. I proceeded to listen to like ten more recordings of the song and to read the article on Wikipedia. The plot of the opera, Norma, strikes me as wack even by opera standards. Also is it just the Tiffany effect, or is Norma an odd name for a druid priestess in ancient Gaul?

This song has little in common with Der Hölle Rache, though. In fact, it's kind of a slow ballad song, which I don't usually like as much, although it is minor, which is the most important quality. None of the opera fans I talked to would have thought it matched what I THOUGHT I liked about Der Hölle Rache.

Comments

[stranger]

I would never have matched up "Casta Diva" with "Hölle Rache", but they're both absolutely iconic arias, with a number of world-class performances available despite being technically difficult (for different reasons) as well as intensely emotive.

The thing about Norma is that it's a very 19th century Italian take on Roman-era British history. That is, "history," the whole thing being a story that fits, vaguely, into the mythic Druid/Roman era, if only those people had been Italian Catholics. Hence Norma is a lot like an abbess in a convent, despite praying to the moon goddess intead of Virgin Mary. The native Druids are threatened by the Roman garrison just as the Italians of the time were fending off Austrian forces during the Risorgimento. Norma's star-crossed romance with the Roman garrison commander is very much Not Done, and dooms her from the start.

However, her impassioned and sincere prayer for peace, "Casta Diva", introduces her as a sympathetic character, and the plot conflicts play out as her heroic tragedy.

Hmm, while you were looking for other "Hölle Rache" type arias, did you bump into Lucia di Lammermoor, where Lucia's climactic aria(s) (the famous Mad Scene) in Act III are also technically spectacular and together convey her unresolvable conflicts? That's another Italian opera handling (17th century) British history via a romance that crosses political lines.

[cimorene]

Lol. I noticed that they seemed more like nuns when I was reading the synopsis!

I don't think I checked out Lucia di Lammermoor then, but I will now.

And I know, the songs sound nothing alike! If this adventure has taught me anything apart from some random trivia about opera, it's how little I can articulate or understand what it is that makes me like music or not! I wonder if it's something like chord progressions? I don't have the kind of ear that can just tell by listening what the intervals all are, so I will have to look up the music to them both if wanted to test the theory, but I have noticed that I have some favorites of those before (with other types of music).