A Review of Sleep-Repelling Opera Music

Among the many misconceptions about opera by people who haven't given it a good try, the one that most threatens to awake my inner fire-breathing Smaug self is the assertion that opera is so boring that it will put people to sleep... as asserted by this TMZ article. Putting people to sleep! Well.... let's see if you can manage to go to sleep while listening to a few of these oh-so-boring opera arias! (click on name of aria to go to a sample clip on Youtube. If the link is broken - Youtube clips have a way of suddenly going AWOL - just search the site for the song title and you shouldn't have any trouble finding a good sample)

1. Walkürenritt (Ride of the Valkyries) from Richard Wagner's Die Walküre (The Valkyrie)
Have any dead need awakening? Play them this rousing excerpt from Act III of Wagner's The Valkyrie and witness a live (and right on the beat) resurrection. Wagner's Ring operas have their root in Norse and German mythology, of course, and this jarringly tumultuous music portends the ride of the Valkyries, the rather shrieky daughters of the chief god Wotan (Odin) and mother earth (Erda), across the heavens. As legend has it, their speedy streaking on celestial horseback across the sky for the battleground (where they pick up heroic dead warriors to adorn Vallhalla with) is visible to the human eyes as the eerie aurora borealis. Yes, you've heard this before. No, it wasn't composed for the film Apocalypse Now, though the use of it during the famous Helicopter Fleet scene is quite bloody goosebumps-inducing, isn't it? All those shrieking violins and roaring brass would make a warmonger of any pacific nerd... at least while the music last. There is no need digging out the German dictionary to decipher what is being sung. The 8 Valkyries are just hollering their signature war cry, 'Hojotoho!', which is shorthand for 'Cover your ears and hope I hit all my high C's!' (not really. I lied)

2. Libiamo ne lieti calici (Brindisi) from Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata
Those of us who are more turned on by the prospect of a rowdy party with flowing wines and flirty beautiful hostesses than the thought of riding across the smoggy sky behind noisy Norse goddesses would likely find the drinking song from Verdi's La Traviata just as jolly. As a rule, it's hard to get bored with a good waltz that celebrates free love and fine dining while providing good musical moments for champagne uncorking. Violetta Valery is throwing a rowdy house party when she experiences a mutual stroke of romantic lighting strike with ardent young Alfredo. And while the rest of the guest are rendered tipsy by the endless supply of liquor, the two lover surreptitiously flirt in plain sight while proposing a string of toasts to the good life. Who needs ecstasy when you can cap your sentences with ringing high notes, ay?

3. La donna é mobile from Verdi's Rigoletto
What do you think of lying restless in your only half-occupied bed in the middle of the night? If you are a guy, then perhaps the Duke of Mantua is your unwilling spokeman when he launches into this ditsy little tune about womanly virtues...
La donna è mobile ........................... The lady is slippery
Qual piuma al vento,......................... like feather in the wind,
Muta d'accento - e di pensiero....... perpetually changing their tone - and thought.
Sempre un amabile, ......................... Always so lovable,
Leggiadro viso,.................................. with a charming visage,
In pianto o in riso, - è menzognero... in tears or laughter - she's just acting!
And so my dear fellows, if you are ever in need of an operatic tune for use in serenading a woman I'd suggest passing on this one (unless you are sure that she doesn't understand a word of Italian, perhaps) or you might find yourself in need of a plastic surgeon.

4. Qual guerriero in campo amato from Riccardo Broschii's Idaspe (and borrowed by Vivaldi for his pastiche opera, Bajazet)
This aria is just about as ridiculous as opera gets when it comes to speed singing... It is a classic 'da capo' aria from the height of the castrato-friendly Baroque period; you hear fast pace theme A, then a slower breather theme B, then A is repeated a few times in increasingly copiously ornamented manner. Think of the number of notes you can sing per second and keep doubling it until you have strangled yourselves to death just thinking about it. Baroque opera singers know how to rock the house, mates... And they do it with their own natural voice - devoid of microphone amplification and heavy drum beats.

5. Ach, ich fühl from Wolfgang Mozart's Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute)
But what makes opera a really special art form is that it is NOT only about voice and music. It is about what the music is communicating - relating in melody what words alone cannot adequately describe. And some of the most dramatically devastating opera music are also some of the most quiet, like in this moment during Act II of Mozart's final opera, when heartbroken Pamina gives voice to the dreadful suicidal despair she feels upon her apparent rejection by Tamino. A loud note is ever only a loud note. An intense note is intense no matter how softly it is sounded.

6. Porquoi me reveiller from Jules Massenet's Werther
Werther, the young and rather unseemly horny poet Goethe wrote about in his The Sorrows of Young Werther, is miffed that his beloved Charlotte is shunning his romantic advances (for the very good reason that she is already married to another man). What's a man to do but resorting to reading aloud to her his favorite Ossian poem... which then takes on the life of its own in the course of the emotionally loaded melody. It really takes a seriously romantic (and sexually frustrated) man to be able to work himself into such a frenzy while being accompanied by such a brooding and stormy bunch of strings. It's like anticipating a nasty train wreck... You know it won't end well, but you're compelled to keep on looking nonetheless.

7. Votre toast, je peux vous le rendre (Toreador Song) from Georges Bizet's Carmen
But surely a list of sleepless operatic arias cannot be complete without at least one number from Bizet's Carmen! Anyone who has seen a tv show or clip about Spain and/or bullfighting must have heard this rousingly erotic tune, even if they don't know of its operatic origin. This is the theme song of Escamillo, the dashing bullfighter who, by the sound of him, can out-alpha-male any bull south of the Pyrenees.

Voila! Seriously, if you can fall asleep listening to any of the operatic tunes listed above then the nearest sleep clinic can really use your lab-ratting service. Opera is only boring to those who have never heard it properly!