Sadly, it seems like the rock opera is a thing of the past (though I don’t think many bands today could pull it off as well either). Of course there were never too many in the 70s either. In fact, I can only think of 3; Tommy, Quadrophenia, and The Wall ( all which are great masterpieces). I think the Kinks might’ve done one too but I’m not too familiar with it.
This thread is for rock operas and everything related to them.
I’ll start off by saying having just recently seen the movie version of “Tommy”, I really wish they’d made it in the same style as The Wall: using normal acting while just playing the original music over the action.
Don’t forget Jesus Christ Superstar, and the Who’s original recordingTommy was not as much a rock opera as a rock cantata.
I remember when I was a wee tot in the late 60s, one of my mom’s friends had an LP that was a rock version of Carmen, with artists of the day like Melba Moore singing the roles. I have never been able to find it, but I know the bloody thing exists.
I believe the Kinks’ rock opera was something called “Preservation Act 2”. Not too sure of that.
It is generally considered that the first rock opera was Mass In F Minor by the Electric Prunes, released in 1967. One song from this album (“Kyrie Eleison”) can be heard in the movie “Easy Rider”.
The Prunes album isn’t a rock opera – it is, as the title implies, a Mass.
The first rock opera is probably the Who’s goofy mini-opera, “A Quick One.” That was recorded in 1966. The first album-length rock opera is probably the Pretty Thing’s S.F. Sorrow, released in 1968.
In case anyone was wondering where I found out about these in the first place… my favorite site to learn about new music in this vein (hard rock/melodic rock/prog rock/aor):
There are actually quite a few rock operas being done- it’s just that they’re being primarily by bands in the prog-rock/melodic metal scene. And they don’t exactly get alot of attention
The Who also did “Quadraphrenia” (which has the “miniopera” “The Punk Meets the Godfather”). One critic called “The Who by Numbers” a rock opera, but he’s in the minority.
The Kinks did many in the genre: “Lola vs. Powerman and the Money-go-round” (one interesting thing is that the plot requires a hit single – so they wrote “Lola”), “Arthur or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire,” "A Soap Opera, “Preservation Act 1,” “Preservation Act 2,” and “Schoolboys in Disgrace.” “The Village Green Preservation Society” also has rock opera elements.
There’s also Jeff Wayne’s musical version of “The War of the Worlds.”
Genesis did “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.”
In addition to “Superstar,” Weber and Rice did “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”
It is, of course, hard to differentiate between a rock opera and a concept album unless the creator points to it and says “This is a rock opera.”
MTV did a “hip hopera” a while ago. Hip-hop version of Carmen I know it’s not exactly rock and I’ve never seen it, so I can’t tell you if it’s any good or not, but it’s a non-traditional style.
There was a recent movie version of Jesus Christ Superstar (2001, maybe) that’s really, really good. Glenn Carter plays Jesus and Renee Castle plays Mary Magdalene. I don’t remember who plays Simon and Peter, but they are both mightily hot.
It could be argued that the first album length rock opera (or at least concept album, depending on what distinction you make between the two) was Joe Meek’s 1960 I Hear a New world. I’ve only heard pieces of it personally, but it sounded pretty cool.
You said it. Although an opera is by nature both a musical and a dramatic work, most rock operas fall down on the “dramatic” bit. Many don’t really seem to have a story to tell, or even much in the way of characters. Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is arguably a rock opera, but damned if I could tell you what actually happens in it (“Uh…the world’s gonna end in five years, and then there’s this alien who joins a rock band, and…um…I dunno, man”) or who any of the characters are except for Ziggy and his nameless bandmates.
I think The Who’s Tommy is far ahead of most of the rest of the pack in this regard, as there are multiple identifiable characters and (despite a vague ending) an actual plot. But to accomplish this, Townshend had to resort to time-honored operatic techniques like brief recitative numbers that serve only to move the plot along. This is fine in the context of a larger work, but something like “Extra Extra!” could never have been released as a single. It’s a risky move for songwriters and musicians to spend their time recording songs that cannot survive on their own, so most rock opera composers haven’t done it. They’ve instead chosen to focus more on the “rock” than the “opera” and sacrifice some of the narrative in order to produce a series of related songs that can also stand alone. Which is fair enough, but it does blur the line between what can be considered a “rock opera” and what is just a bunch of songs based on a central theme or idea.
Does the Eagles’ “Desperado” count as a rock opera? If your exposure to them is limited to their greatest hits then you owe it to yourself to give it a listen.
Hey, and if you’re a fan of “The Wall”, give “Rebuild The Wall” by Luther Wright and the Wrongs a try.
Indeed, but still, Tommy, at least on the album, is a cantata, not an opera. A cantata is a drama sung by a chorus, and not an opera, which has costumes, scenery, and individual singers playing different roles.
All this talk about Queensryche, Savatage, Ayreon, Spock’s Beard, etc. and nobody’s mentioned Dream Theater’s Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory yet? FOR SHAME!!
Obviously you aren’t familiar with some of the other works. As Wumpus said, the first rock opera was S F Sorrow by The Pretty Things. It was devised as just that, in fact from memory the first track is S F Sorrow Is Born and the rest of the album follows his life which is remarkably like Tommy’s. At rockopera.com, The Boston Rock Opera’s site you can see the “strange” coincidences.
