To fall in love with opera is never too early, nor too late!

Opera, the superior form of art and musical performance combined with everything; acting, music, design… This complete piece of work, which is called Opera, has its origin in Latin language, where Opera means simple “ Work”. 

Work, which is done properly, has everything in it, and the best example of a complete work is – Opera. This time, we experienced Opera La Traviata – the must see opera. Perfect for those, who just step into Opera world, but also for older opera fans.

If you have never seen Opera La Traviata in your life, it is a missed dream of yours, but no worries, it is missed dream, not yesterdays dream :) Lets say so: It is easy to live on earth without love, but how one can live without love on this planet? 

Easy is not the way we should go, we should go the right way, which sometimes is not easy…

Love is beautiful, as Opera La Traviata is beautiful, combine love and opera and you can forget that there is 365 days a year. Instead you will feel that there are 366 days a year, 13 months a year and so on… you know the count yourself  ;)

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 Still at home in great anticipation....

Bird and me with Selfie at Deutsche Oper shortly before Beginning of La Traviata

Let me tell you more about facts, because I think I got a bit too romantic and cheesy at the beginning, but I could not help it! These are exactly the emotions that La Traviata arosed in me.

Tragic stories with beautiful meanings

Imagine the crystal clear sound and amazing pictures...

Opera is a creamy cake, with a bit bitter taste inside, probably because of a sour berry, which is found inside. Opera can never end happily. There must be tragedy or drama.

Me and Hendrik the Great decided to see opera La Traviata based on an easy decision that we wanted to have a piece of the biggest opera cake. La Traviata, Rigoletto, Aida, these are Giuseppe Verdis most famous operas that he has composed. 

We will definitely post more about operas in the future, so keep your eyes and ears wide open, because there will definitely be visits to German opera (Wagner), Russian opera (Tschaikovsky), English opera (Purcell), French opera (Lully) as well, and not to forget the mother of all operas, Italian opera. 

One of three Breaks during that Opera evening - Time for a Photo :)

Success can be built with time

Opera La Traviata, based on Alexandre Dumas roman “La dame aux camellias” was performed by the best opera singers and musicians. Patricia Ciofi sang Violetta´s part and was absolutely splendid. We enjoyed her beauty and bright, clear voice all 2,5 hours. It was absolutely a delight to see these singers on a stage. It is absolutely great that in our times we can enjoy both, women and men singing on the stage as it is now. In 17th century, it was a dishonor and absolutely not acceptable for women to be on a stage even to sing in a choir, therefore castrated men sang women´s parts. Basically, all the highest, from sopranos to altos. When Opera La Traviata had its premiere in Venice over than a 150 years ago, arised a question about morality. Premiere was not a success and Verdi wrote a letter after his premiere, where he wondered whether it was musicians fault, his fault or the moral that was behind the story. But that was quite a common reaction from audience. Premieres do not always find success; something that is new, odd, unexpected often rejects people´s sympathy and understanding. For example, lets mention Madame Butterfly, one of the most famous operas nowadays was a total collapse on its Premiere. The audience expressed themselves that it was the worst opera ever. 

The whole show took around 3 hours and of course, as it was not a Premiere of Opera La Traviata, people were cheering and shouting “ Bravo and Brava” many, many times. Soloists got many curtain calls. These are their moments when they can enjoy the presence and admiration of the audience. Please, note to yourself, if you are a new comer to the “opera world”, that whistling is a sign of “ boo” rather than sign of admiration. 

All in all, the artists received many curtain calls and were enjoying true audience´s joy!

And finally the curtains fall...

And to end this post, I would like to keep the mood and show a video, where the King of opera is singing Donizettis “L’elisir d’amore”. By the way, Pavarotti got a record amount of curtain calls when he sang this piece in Deutche Oper in Berlin. Guess what, he got around 165 calls and that lasted over an hour ;) Bravi!

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