Eclectic interests of oriental.

Here is one guy who tries Nessun Dorma in Bulgaria. The judges liked his musical talent but not his operatic skill. One of the judges advises him to forget opera.:LOL:


I have confidence in the above girls being successful as the opera fans are classy so there won't any outrageous behavior tolerated. You can see that the crass fans have lowered the behavior of Justin Bieber, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears., etc.
 
Last edited:
Here is one guy who tries Nessun Dorma in Bulgaria. The judges liked his musical talent but not his operatic skill. One of the judges advises him to forget opera.:LOL:


I have cofidence in the above girls being successful as the opera fans are classy so there won't any outrageous behavior tolerated. You can see the crass fans have lowered the behavior of Justin Belieber, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears., etc.


Well, at least they didn't throw things at him or drown him with a cacophony of boos the way they do at the La Scala opera house. (I do think he has a good voice, by the way.)

It's all very well, and in fact encouraged, to sing along and sway and dance when it's performed at an outdoor concert as in my post of the Rieu concert in Cortona upthread shows, but when you perform on the stage of a major opera house or concert hall, it's a very different and very serious business.

In that situation, you'd better bring your "A" game, as they say, and audience participation is emphatically NOT encouraged.

That's why this Riccardo Muti Nabucco performance, where, after the emotional response to the chorus' singing of "Va Pensiero" he allowed the audience to sing along with them, was such a departure. It was because this was at the height of political turmoil, and this song was the anthem of Italy during the Risorgimento drive for Italian unification. Some people still feel it should be, although the current anthem, the Inno di Mameli, has first place, as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, here it is. It actually begins at 1:20, and the English translation appears on the screen. As to language issues, of course, operas were not only written in Italian, and whatever the language, there are librettos both on the internet and in cheap pamphlet form through somewhere like Amazon, for example.

 
Yes that Bulgarian has a good voice.:)


The head honcho of India is an Italian.

Jawaharlal Nehru became Prime Minister when Mohandas Gandhi, a Parsi (Iranians of the Zoroastrian faith driven out by the Muslims of Iran but allowed into India) died. He had one daughter who married a guy named Gandhi but spelt differently. She had that name changed to match Gandhi. She was Indira Gandhi (assassinated just as Peter Ustinov was about to interview her)and she had two sons. She was assassinated as she ordered the raid in the most holy site of Sikhism in Amritsar in Punjab - the Golden Temple.

http://sgpc.net/golden-temple/amritsar.asp.

She favored her younger son, Sanjay, but he died in an accident Rajiv Gandhi was a student at Cambridge University and he frequented a Greek restaurant nearby or at the University. An Italian student worked at that coffee shop as a waitress. Rajiv and she struck a friendship. Then he married her. He became Prime Minister after his mother Indira died.

Now India was supporting the Tamils for separation in Ceylon or Sri Lanka. Later on Rajiv stopped the support. The Tamil Tigers were angered. One of their female rebels packed herself with explosives. When Rajiiv Gandhi attended a Tamil meeting this female assassin approached Gandhi with a garland of flowers. Just as she put the garland over Rajiv's head the explosives were set off killing both of them. Thus Sonia Gandia, the wife of Rajiv and an Italian, became the head of the Nehru dynasty. She runs the Congress Party.
 
Last edited:
I know next to nothing about Indian politics, but I'm aware that she was Italian. All lives are a journey, but hers has been an especially momentous and unusual one...perhaps a case of..
"Urge me not to leave you, or to return from following you; for where you go, I will go; and where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Wherever you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. May Lord do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts me from you." That used to be a pretty standard reading at Roman Catholic wedding ceremonies.

sonia_gandhi_childhood_pictures-%7B4%7D.jpg


In terms of opera, we have Madama Butterfly, another story of a cross/cultural love, but one that ended badly, of course.:)

Butterfly also gives everything, even her identity, but she is ultimately betrayed.

Un bel di vedremo (One Fine Day We'll See Him) is an aria sung by Butterfly as she imagines the wonderful day when he will return.

This version is ethereally beautiful, I think, and the English subtitles are on the screen.

 
That was from the Bible with Ruth, a non-Jew, following her husband.

Sonia must trilingual now knowing Italian, English and Hindi. I bet her children would be trilingual. With a name like Sonia it seems north European origin.

"She was born to Stefano and Paola Maino in Contrada Màini ("Maini quarter/district"), at Lusiana,[11][12] a little village 30 km from Vicenza in Veneto,[13] Italy, where families with the family name "Màino" have been living for many generations".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Gandhi

I get mixed up with Gilbert and Sullivan's "Mikado" and "Madame Butterfly" I don't think I saw "Madame Butterfly". Thanks for the video on Madame Butterfly explaining the plot.

The Rodgers and Hammerstein "South Pacific" seems to follow this line where France Nuyen character is betrayed by the John Kerr character.


How about "Romeo and Juliet" with Capulet and Montagues feud - forbidden romance and star-crossed lovers.
 
Last edited:
That was from the Bible with Ruth, a non-Jew, following her husband.

Sonia must trilingual now knowing Italian, English and Hindi. I bet her children would be trilingual. With a name like Sonya it seems north European origin.

"She was born to Stefano and Paola Maino in Contrada Màini ("Maini quarter/district"), at Lusiana,[11][12] a little village 30 km from Vicenza in Veneto,[13] Italy, where families with the family name "Màino" have been living for many generations".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Gandhi

I get mixed up with Gilbert and Sullivan's "Mikado" and "Madame Butterfly" I don't think I saw "Madame Butterfly". Thanks for the video on Madame Butterfly explaining the plot.

The Rodgers and Hammerstein "South Pacific" seems to follow this line where France Nuyen character is betrayed by the John Kerr character.



How about Romeo and Juliet with Capulet and Montagues feud.

I run true to form...I really like musicals too. :) I absolutely love South Pacific...one of my favorites.

The same story was reworked and updated in the musical "Miss Saigon".

This is "Last Night of the World" with the original London cast...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuUI5TW_UCU

This is Lea Salonga singing "I Still Believe" (he'll come back). It's just another way of singing "Un Bel Di Vedremo"-one beautiful day we'll see him coming.

 
Of course, if you listen to Verdi, it is woman who is inconstant...here are the words to one of the most well-known arias...La Donna e Mobile from Verdi's Rigoletto, and conducted by Mehta.

Woman is flighty
Like a feather in the wind,
She changes her voice — and her mind.
Always sweet,
Pretty face,
In tears or in laughter, — she is always lying.
Always miserable
Is he who trusts her,
He who confides in her — his unwary heart!
Yet one never feels
Fully happy
Who on that bosom — does not drink love!

Here are "The Three Tenors" singing the heck out of it...and having a lot of fun with it too...
 
I think there's a limited number of elemental human stories, and our great artists, whatever the medium, are always just reinterpreting them for each time and place.

Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet was based on an Italian story.

Then we have the new world version in West Side Story.

 
I do like Lea Salonga.

Richard Beymer was the star along with Natalie Wood but was outshone by George Chakiris. He was upset when the Academy Awards bypassed him. He quit Hollywood. I think Deanna Durbin also quit Hollywood for different reasons. I can only go by what I read.

1. She quit because she didn't want to do only musicals (type casting); she wanted to become a main stream actress. Studios in those days were rather rigid.
2. Her latest movie was not a whopping success.
3. Health reasons as it seems there is talk that she hid her left hand in all the scenes. She may have suffered an injury. Regardless she was the highest paid actress of her time and when she quit she could retire in style. I don't think she ever married and had no children, I think. She rejected Metropolitan Opera's efforts to recruit her. She didn't want to be an opera star.

She was a Canadian from Winnipeg. Winnipeg is cold and I was there one winter. -50 F degrees with wind-chill factor. My car wouldn't start. I rented out her DVDs from the library.

I think Jackie Evancho made a good choice to be a crossover/pop music artist as the Opera audience is small compared popular music. She can also appear in musicals. Anyone who can sing opera is given the highest respect so popular artists like to do the popular arias to gain respect.

Amira will have to learn English if she looks to he future in the US or UK if she wants to become a crossover artist to appear in musicals.
 
Last edited:
Love stories will always be around how else will the cycle life survive.

I remember seeing seeing the West Side Story when we were in Macau and the hit song was Ruth style "I will follow him" by Peggy March


A much older version by an older March.
 

the 1963 version
 
I love those first audition when the talented singer blow away the judges.


The Miss Saigon audition with Lea Salonga where they are very blase with bleary eyes and then they open their eyes and pay attention.

I began to realize the Phillipines do produce good singers as there is opera training when they were under Spanish rule.
 
Last edited:

Here is Jackie in America Got talent
 
India does produce good singers. Mohammad Rafi had a powerful voice and would have made a good operatic singer.


I don't how true the story is but here is another historical forbidden love.

Akbar the Great's son Salim (later Emperor Jehangir) loved a court dancer Anarkali and Akbar wanted to stop this romance. As the video shows Salim narrowly escape death.
 
Here is another movie Anarkali with Anarkali being buried alive.


Singer Lata Mangeshkar
 
These reality shows do bring out talent. Shreya Ghoshal doing the same song.

 
I don't know what is happening. With these talent shows and the internet we are getting a lot of little divas. Here is another Nessun Dorma from a 7-year-old:

 
Here is Lucia with O mio babbino caro:


There is so much pressure for these little girls. I wonder if her parents pushed her into it or she loved singing.
 
Last edited:
This Chinese vegetable hawker sings Nessun Dorma selling her wares in Chinese. She loves Pavaroti so much that she sings it with her sales pitch as she doesn't know Italian. She substituted her words in Chinese for Italian. :LOL::LOL::LOL:

 
Last edited:
Here is Luciano Pavarotti as Calaf in the Opera 'Turandot' singing Nessun Dorma:

 

This thread has been viewed 304834 times.

Back
Top