#wagner opera

Here you can see the Painting in the Bedroom and how big it actually is. On the full Painting you can see Brangaine in the Background as well, what a sight to behold!

Tristan and Isolde: Completely loose their minds, actively seek out dying together and betray Marke, get discovered, Tristan gets killed and Isolde dies her Liebestod.

Brangäne:

Jan Brazda (Dec. 4, 1917 - 2011) was a Czech-born, Swedish artist and scenographer. He came to Sweden in 1939 when his mother, Swedish author Amelie Posse, fled the country after the Nazi occupation.

Brazda specialized in painting on glass and did many church windows and other decorative work. He was also a brilliant stage designer who worked on many Wagner operas throughout Europe and the US.

Fun story: I have never actually seen a full Wagner opera (you’re talking to the girl who spends 90% of her opera-watching/listening [okay, maybe slightly lower percentage for listening] on 19th/early 20th-century French and Italian opera), although I have listened to some excerpts. I really would like to finally sit down and watch a full Wagner opera, and though I was leaning towards Tristan und Isolde because why not and also the Prelude and the Liebestod are both awesome, I’m starting to have second thoughts on whether that would be a good first full Wagner opera.

If I had to chose live I would probably chose Camelot, just because of personal preference. I love Camelot! I would also enjoy Merlin and La Legende du Roi Arthur and I feel that watching it live would be an amazingly fun experience. Regarding Queens of Avalon, I feel like the difference between a live experience and a recorded one would not really be a lot, for me. For Artus Excalibur, I have still not watched it because I need subtitles D: 

And there are operas that I’d prefer over Merlin but honestly if it came out again I would run and spend too much money to be able to watch it live!

About my top 5 here they are:

Camelot. I love it, I absolutely adore it, it holds so many feelings (the 1964 movie was one of the first arthurian movies I’ve watched) from nostalgia to the heartbreaking moment Arthur finds out about the love between Lancelot and Guinevere.

Spamalot. I love Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Spamalot is like the perfect musical version of it, honestly, it’s a masterpiece. It is also the only arthurian musical that I’ve actually watched live in London.

Le Roi Arthus (Chausson) is an opera that, sadly, I’ve never watched live (and I did not like too much the dvd version I liked), but I’ve listened to it too many times and the overture is one of my favourite songs ever.

La Legende du Roi Arthur is a LOT of fun. I am not a super fan of the story they decided to focus but the songs are delicious

Queens of Avalon is also another precious gem. I wish we could see an actual full cast musical of it!

Other honorable mentions: Artus Excalibur looks amazing but I cannot appreciate it enough to enjoy it as I have no idea what the characters are saying, I have yet to watch Parsifal (Watching it in these days) and Tristan and Isolde which are both operas from Wagner, the Connecticut Yankee musical is also another one I would like to watch (I might have the audio to listen to, somewhere), and same for the Merlin musical. Merlin (the opera by Albeniz) was really enjoyable last time I watched it (the dvd version) and I would love to be able to see different adaptations of it.