Did You Know These Familiar Tunes Are From An Opera? Sep 02 '08 (Updated Sep 04 '08)    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet Popular Products in Music The Dirtchamber Sessions, Vol. 1 by The Prodigy From $11 Jersey Boys [Original Broadway Cast Recording] by Original Broadway Cast From $8 The Bottom Line Some music you hear all the time without realizing their operatic root And yes! No matter how much you think you dislike or don't know about opera, you are already familiar with loads of music from this art form. Even if you have developed the habit of diving for ear plugs whenever a batty neighbor put an opera on the stereo or turning to other channel whenever you chance upon an opera broadcast on KPBS or other cable channel, I bet you will go 'Aha! I know that tune!' with at least 5 of the operatic numbers listed here: 1. G VERDI: La forza del destino: Overture (James Levine/Orchestra of Metropolitan Opera) www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gCCL7raR34 This amazingly cinematic overture shows up often on TV commercials. Most recently as background theme in the ads for Stellar Artois beer. I'm afraid the opera proper is rather convoluted and morbid (Verdi was in a murderous mood when he composed the thing and keeps killing off his leading roles. Go to the opera house near you to find out if any of them manage to survive the show!), but.. I suppose like a good beer, you do get to wake up from the ill winds and malevolent fate depicted in this music after the final curtain... without that hang over headache afterward, even. 2. N RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Legend of Tsar Saltan: Flight of the Bumble Bee (Z Mehta/ Berliner Philharmoniker) www.youtube.com/watch?v=y41DykcpgRg This usually shows up as virtuoso piano or violin piece in TV commercials or in films (like near the end of Shine when David Helfgott commandeers a restaurant's piano and buzzes the place into submission). This piece occurs in Act III of the opera, when the magical swan-bird turns the Tsarevitch Gvidon into a bee so that he could fly to visit his dad incognito (I guess a bee would be just the last thing a Tsar will have in mind that might remotely remind him of his son!). 3. WA MOZART: Le nozze di Figaro: Overture (John Eliot Gardiner/English Baroque Soloists) www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oKU94kxv-o Not only are bees cool. They are downright operatically cool! Not only did Rimsky-Korsakov love bees, Wolfgang Mozart did, too, and turned his nosy barber of Seville, Figaro, into a busy bee who buzzes into too many troubles on his own wedding day in this splendid little overture to 'The Marriage of Figaro.' It gives a great overview of the opera even though it doesn't quote any passage from it. Listen to it and you will get a good glimpse of the genius of Mozart. Not many could approach him in his ability to fit so many different traits into the same piece of music. It is light-hearted yet pretty serious, stately with an approachably common touch, humorous with a generous dose of irony. Whoever think that Mozart was shallow just hadn't bothered to listen to him properly! 4. WA MOZART: Le nozze di Figaro: Voi che sapete (Vesselina Kasarova) www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyvyWoix9zQ Le nozze di Figaro is an opera-ful of nosy people. One of the most loveable of them all is young Cherubino (who is always sung by a female mezzo-soprano since Beaumarchais insisted that he is too innocent a character for any grown male to play... and Mozart evidently agreed). I'm not sure what to make of it, but somehow this lovely little serenade by a love-sick teenage boy to his mistress is always showing up in murderous mob films... It is even the main theme used to advertise the American mobster series 'The Sopranos' nowadays! Honestly... Cherubino wouldn't hurt a fly (though he might try to bed the female ones...)! 5. G ROSSINI: Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville): Overture (Nello Santi/ Orchestra of Zurich Opera) www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBvSMD-L8qU This is also another favorite of films. The rather calm beginning may mislead you into thinking that you're in for a more serious work... that is until Rossini hits you with his second theme. Your really get to hear what sort of character Rossini was listening to this thing. He liked to give most of the orchestra instrument a bit of the lead melody and let them all join up into adrenaline rushing waves of crescendo (there are 2 main crescendos in this thing). Listening to how the various instruments make their calls and you just know that the opera proper is going to be full of comic twists and belly laughs. 6. G ROSSINI: Il barbiere di Siviglia: Largo al factotum (Manuel Lanza) www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLu4KvorK5s Anyone who can sing Rossini's Figaro well can also do well as an auctioneer. Rossini had this love affair with the patter (right up there with his infatuation with the crescendo), which requires his singer to grow fork-tongued spitting out enough words to fill the Webster dictionary for every bar of sung music. Truly, if you can manage to out-talk this Figaro, then you should be speedily and unanimously elected to the World Fast-Talking Hall of Fame! 7. G ROSSINI: Guillaume Tell (William Tell): Overture (Claudio Abbado/ Berliner Philharmoniker) www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D5SDGjRidY Many of you are familiar with this thing from the beloved TV show, The Lone Ranger. This overture will put not only the scale of the mountains in your heart but also the smell of the high altitude rain and the feel of the Föhn wind in your hair as it gives you a sweeping musical tour of the high altitude Swiss country side, its village life, and the valor and values of the common people. 8. R WAGNER: Die Walküre: Walkürenritt (Ride of the Valkyries) (Karl Böhm/ Bayreuth Festival Orchestra) www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KZK9wNVl5M Most of you will be familiar with the orchestral version of this surreal scene from the third of Wagner's musical saga, the Ring Cycle. The Valkyries are the goddesses who feast on the dead and streak across the sky in the form of the aurora borealis. If you think this is awesome, well... the main Valkyrie of the story, Brünnhilde, isn't even singing here! This music is aptly used as a fleet of helicopters streak across the Far-Eastern sky on a bombing errand in Francis Ford Coppola's Acapolypse Now... 9. G BIZET: Carmen: Overture (C Abbado/Berliner Philharmoniker) www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP4k55L9GgA It was too bad that Georges Bizet died young and didn't live to realize what a big hit his final opera, Carmen, got to be. If you are a fan of figure-skating, then you are already sick of hearing this overture since just about everybody skates to it. It also tends to show up in any show or news article from Spain during the bull-fighting season. 10. G BIZET: Carmen: L'amour est un oiseau rebelle (Habanera) (Juliette Galstian) www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q763V3gJ7lw Love is a rebellous bird... and so the song goes, and no bird is as rebellous as beautiful Carmen the Sevillian gypsy is. This sensual song of sexual independence needs a healthy dose of confidence and restrained aggression to really knock the audience out of their pants... And it helps to have as richly sultry a voice like Juliette Galstian's is, too! 11. G BIZET: Carmen: Les tringles des sistres tintaient (Gypsy Song) (V Kasarova) www.youtube.com/watch?v=xooAFGIWAdA Carmen only gets hotter as the show progresses. By her third solos of the show our mesmerizing gypsy has worked herself to a feverish pace in her quest to not get bogged down by any one man as she fans the flame of passion through the Spanish country side. And if there is ever a woman with an unforgettable voice and presence to match that whirlwind of a character, Vesselina Kasarova does. 12. G BIZET: Carmen: Intermezzo (J Levine/ Orchestra of the MET) www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3G_6_R2ObE Not everything about Carmen the opera is bombastic and in-your-face. You'd be hard pressed to find a more understated and graceful depiction of the serene Spanish country side than this brief little intermezzo that separates the second and third acts of the opera. Close you eyes and experience the colors of the rural Andalucia on the wings of the flighty butterfly that Bizet conjures up in this music. 13. G BIZET: Carmen: Votre toast (Toreador Song) (Dmitri Hvorostovsky) www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqEn57tVA1s If there ever was an opera character who suffers from a perpetual state of testosterone-overdose, the very cocky Escamillo the bullfighter is it. I don't quite know what is it about the bull that makes it such a symbol of male virility... But no pre-stage shot of a Red-Bull is needed for anyone with the voice and ...er... other assets.. of Dmitri Hvorostovsky to bust any charging bull right out of the stadium with his rendition of this gallant song. 13. A PONCHIELLI: La Gioconda: Dance of the Hour www.youtube.com/watch?v=kujWSIFoe94 This charming ballet piece shows up during a grand ball in Act III of Amilcare Ponchielli's tragic opera. It is most likely remembered, however, from the dancing hippos sequence in the Disney film, Fantasia. 14. R WAGNER: Lohengrin: Act III Prelude (Arturo Toscanini/ NBC Symphony) www.youtube.com/watch?v=InPRlxxOpOc No matter how averse to Wagner you are, there is no denying the man's genius when it comes to music (especially in the bits where the orchestra dominates). This prelude to the third act of Lohengrin exemplifies all that is noble that a man can think of. A quest taken on unwavering faith. No matter how the opera ends, at least its journey is spiritually inspiring... I don't really know if its use in car commercials is meant to inspire you into buying the newest thing on the local dealer's lot (after all, I doubt very much that you'll find Lohengrin's swan-propelled boat among the Audi's and the Mercedes'!). 15. G VERDI: Nabucco: Va, pensiero (Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves) (C Abbado/Berliner Philharmoniker/Rundfunkchor) www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD4gWvTXj44 If you are Italian, this marvelous chorus from Verdi's first successful opera is practically the second national anthem to you. There isn't a superfluous note to be found on this elegantly mournful song, which captures the yearning to belong, to be peacefully at home after much trials and tribulation so well (since when the opera premiered, Italy was still struggling for independence from the Austrian Empire) that the populace literally adopted it. Not many can readily recall the other musical numbers of this opera, but you'd be hard pressed to find an Italian who doesn't know Verdi's 'Va, pensiero.' 16. G PUCCINI: Gianni Schicchi: O mio babbino caro (Patrizia Ciofi) www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKvT5eCfqLE A favorite of cross-over soprani, this charming plea of an obviously spoiled girl if from Puccini's mini-opera, Gianni Schicchi, which is usually presented as the third in a trio of mini-operas presented in a single evening by the communal name of 'Il trittico.' Lauretta is miffed that her papa won't let her marry the man she loves, so she threaten to go for a permanent dip in the Arno River if he doesn't let her have her way. If you'd like to know if he would give in or not, you'll have to go to the opera and find out for yourself! 17. G PUCCINI: Madama Butterfly: Un bel di vedremo (Mika Mori) www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_L0m1vYrmk Well... most would already know that this searing aria is from an opera. Though if you are one of those who are only familiar with the rocked up version of it that Sarah Brightman likes to sing, then you might not realize just how tragic the song really is. Cio-cio-san, the beautiful geisha, refuses to believe that she had wait in vain and disgrace for her beloved Lt. Pinkerton to return as he said he would. But the defiance is more of a knee-jerk reaction, really. The music doesn't leave much doubt how false her hope is. Mika Mori is not a known name in the opera world... And from this clip... I do WONDER WHY! 18. G PUCCINI: La Boheme: Quando m'en vo (Musetta's Waltz) (Anna Netrebko) www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj8BeKlMcZ0 You hear this in commercials all the time, and also in the beautiful film, Moonstruck, too! Musetta is actually a seconda donna rather than the prima donna of the opera... And this being a Puccini opera, that naturally means that not only does she survive the opera, she also gets the guy as well (the leading lady, Mimi, of course only theoretically gets the guy but dies before their love can be consummated)! 19. A BORODIN: Prince Igor: Polovetsian Dance - Gliding Dance of the Maidens www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChoRfYn5qP4 Originally from a scene of Borodin's very exotic Russian opera, this number was lifted to star in the hit musical, Kismet, and then popularized to the cross-over crowd by Sarah Brightman as 'Stranger in Paradise.' Doesn't this thing make you dream of exotic central Asia? 20. P MASCAGNI: Cavalleria Rusticana: Intermezzo (R Muti/ Orquesta del Teatro Comunale di Bologna) www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xvdig4N0bpk Probably most familiar to film-goers as the music of the Sicilian scenes in the first Godfather movies. It is a beautiful musical picture of the Sicilian life that drives the point home that sometimes the most resonating part of the drama is also the most quiet moment of it. 21. G ROSSINI: La Gazza Ladra: Overture (C Abbado/ Vienna Philharmonics) www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYUdixQGF0w Most of you would be familiar with this from the Kubrick film, The Clockwork Orange. It is an ambitious prelude at about 9 minutes long, and really is a bit majestic for the story it foretells. Ninetta tries to shelter her dad, who had deserted from the army, but spends much of the opera in prison for a theft she didn't commit. 22. G VERDI: La Traviata: Sempre libera (A Netrebko) www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSPK7Ayuw3s If you recall the beer commercial set in an opera house where two guys are busted with bottled champagne exploding in their tux as the soprano hits her high notes during an aria... This is the song. Violetta the courtesan decides she had given enough lip service (ahem!) to the virtue of prudence and now elects to live free and love... to the delight of young Alfredo. Have a look and listen at the youtube clip above and I dare you to repeat again that outdated old stereotyped notion of what an opera diva is like... This gal doesn't weigh 120 lbs dripping wet in champagne! Voila! Did you find that you knew more opera songs than you realized? Or that they aren't so spiffily out-dated as you imagined them to be? Even surprisingly enchanting, perhaps? Then don't just wait around! Check out that opera house near you and see if there isn't a good show there you can catch live. Opera is only intimidating to those who haven't given it a good go, really. The music isn't difficult to understand (well... at least not those that were written before intellectualism took over the genre early in the 20th Century)... It just requires you to give it proper attention, to listen without multi-tasking. Try it and see for yourself why music like this refuses to die even century after it was written!

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