This is a Journal entry by Dmitri Gheorgheni, Post Editor

Sunday's Elevating Film Tip: High-Brow Opera...Sort of...

Post 1

Dmitri Gheorgheni, Post Editor

Have you ever wondered what it would look and sound like if a roomful of Hogarth prints came alive and sang opera?

Do you like your high-brow music richly spiced with drunks, crooks, fences, and ladies of negotiable affection?

Today's freebie comes courtesy of a kind Youtube user, and was inspired by the fact that we heard NPR on the car radio.

No, NPR hasn't got any better, and they weren't playing good music, they never do that. But a quiz show they ran was enlivened by a terrible - and ironically intended - version of 'Mack the Knife'. Which made me yearn to hear...

Why, 'The Beggar's Opera', of course.

I was looking for the original, but ran across this beautiful staging of the Benjamin Britten version instead.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW2GIYQTtIY

If you don't know 'The Beggar's Opera', you're in for a treat. If you do, Britten's setting is tasty, and the sets are just fabulous. It will make you laugh, too.

smiley - dragon


Sunday's Elevating Film Tip: High-Brow Opera...Sort of...

Post 2

KB

Cheers! smiley - ok

Coincidentally, last week I found a clip of Brecht singing "Mac the knife" - well, "Mackie Messer" rather.

He was better at writing songs than singing them, I concluded. smiley - laugh But it was interesting to hear him sing it:

http://youtu.be/_QXJ3OXWaOY


Sunday's Elevating Film Tip: High-Brow Opera...Sort of...

Post 3

Dmitri Gheorgheni, Post Editor

smiley - ok Thanks! That was...amazing. smiley - rofl

Elektra said, 'Listen to him roll those rrr's...'

I like the hurdy-gurdy sound, too.


Sunday's Elevating Film Tip: High-Brow Opera...Sort of...

Post 4

KB

That's what struck me too - it sounded like crickets chirruping. smiley - laugh

I was surprised though - I thought rolling the R with the tip of the tongue (rather than in the back of the throat), which it sounds like he's doing, was more common in northern Germany. He was from Augsburg though.

Maybe I was wrong about that.


Sunday's Elevating Film Tip: High-Brow Opera...Sort of...

Post 5

Dmitri Gheorgheni, Post Editor

Bavarians roll their r's. I don't know about the north.

In the Rhineland, nobody does, or can. smiley - rofl I can't, either. I was told I had the same 'speech defect' as the people in Siegen.

In otherr words, I have a German hillbilly accent. smiley - whistle


Sunday's Elevating Film Tip: High-Brow Opera...Sort of...

Post 6

Pierre de la Mer ~ sometimes slightly worried but never panicking ~

Never thought about it, but no, we don't roll any r's in the north. And I think Brecht only did this for effect.

smiley - pirate


Sunday's Elevating Film Tip: High-Brow Opera...Sort of...

Post 7

KB

Quite probably: maybe it was a Verfremdungs- device. smiley - laugh


Sunday's Elevating Film Tip: High-Brow Opera...Sort of...

Post 8

Pierre de la Mer ~ sometimes slightly worried but never panicking ~

That's a big word for a rolling r smiley - biggrin

smiley - pirate


Sunday's Elevating Film Tip: High-Brow Opera...Sort of...

Post 9

ITIWBS

...with 'r's in it to roll...


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