# Suggest some good, sad opera for me to listen to...
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggest-some-good-sad-opera-for-me-to-listen-to/142302
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [December 12, 2002, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggest-some-good-sad-opera-for-me-to-listen-to/142302 "2002-12-12T19:09:41Z")
**Posts on this page:** 18
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Church\_Key\_Kid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Church_Key_Kid)
#### Post date: [December 12, 2002, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggest-some-good-sad-opera-for-me-to-listen-to/142302/1 "2002-12-12T19:09:41Z")
Can anybody suggest some really, really REALLY good opera, preferably in a non-English language? I don’t care about the story, although I want it to SOUND sad (as sad as possible). It doesn’t matter if what they are singing about is not depressing… it just needs to sound that way. I would also prefer female vocalists, but male would be okay.
It just needs to be really good, and sound really depressing. And not in English. And perhaps it should sound quite EPIC.
Is that too much to ask? 🙂
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### Author:  [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)
#### Post date: [December 12, 2002, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggest-some-good-sad-opera-for-me-to-listen-to/142302/2 "2002-12-12T19:33:16Z")
Ruggiero Leoncavallo’s **Pagliacci** contains the despairing aria, “Vesti La Giubba”:
Sample verse:
_Tramuta in lazzi lo spasmo ed il pianto;
In una smorfia il singhiozzo e’l dolor… Ah!
Ridi Pagliacco, sul tuo amore infranto!
Ridi del duol che t’avvelena il cor!_
translated:
Transform into foolery the spasm and the weeping;
Into a distorted grin the sob and the pain…Ah!
Laugh, Clown, about your crushed love!
Laugh about the pain that poisons your heart!
It’s quite epic! You can find soundclips of Pavarotti and other tenors singing it here.
Giuseppe Verdi’s **La Traviata** is pretty depressing, too ([here](http://www.metopera.org/synopses/traviata.html) is a synopsis), but I haven’t heard it in ages and I can’t remember what the music sounds like. :o I’m sure other Dopers can help out…
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### Author:  [@li\_l\_Dickie\_Dirtz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/li_l_Dickie_Dirtz)
#### Post date: [December 12, 2002, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggest-some-good-sad-opera-for-me-to-listen-to/142302/3 "2002-12-12T19:37:09Z")
**La Wally**?
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### Author:  [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)
#### Post date: [December 12, 2002, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggest-some-good-sad-opera-for-me-to-listen-to/142302/4 "2002-12-12T19:45:25Z")
**Dialogue of the Carmelites.** And it’s almost all female!
Get the original recording, the new one from L’Opera de Lyon with Kent Nagano is sort of colorless.
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### Author:  [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)
#### Post date: [December 12, 2002, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggest-some-good-sad-opera-for-me-to-listen-to/142302/5 "2002-12-12T19:46:45Z")
Oops, I misspelled _Pagliaccio_. _O, che vergogna!_
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### Author:  [@UWmite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UWmite)
#### Post date: [December 12, 2002, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggest-some-good-sad-opera-for-me-to-listen-to/142302/6 "2002-12-12T21:18:25Z")
Hmm… **Madame Butterfly** is about as depressing as it gets. I don’t know if it _sounds_ particularly depressing unless you’re following the lyrics though.
For added effect, listen to Weezer’s **Pinkerton** immediately afterward.
If you’re up for atonal stuff, maybe give **Wozzeck** a try. It’s depressing, and I’d say it’s quite ‘epic’ sounding.
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### Author:  [@Morgainelf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgainelf)
#### Post date: [December 12, 2002, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggest-some-good-sad-opera-for-me-to-listen-to/142302/7 "2002-12-12T21:18:44Z")
Try some Puccini. _O Mio Babino Caro_ from **Gianni Schicci** (sp?) is pretty epic, well known, and sounds sort of sad.
Or, perhaps something from **Madama Butterfly**. All will sound sweeping and big.
Or, listen to the third act of **La Boheme**.
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### Author:  [@alexandria2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alexandria2000)
#### Post date: [December 12, 2002, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggest-some-good-sad-opera-for-me-to-listen-to/142302/8 "2002-12-12T21:24:37Z")
Aida is good for a depressing cry, particularly that last duet “O Terra Addio…”
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### Author:  [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2002, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggest-some-good-sad-opera-for-me-to-listen-to/142302/9 "2002-12-13T00:35:24Z")
Ditto on “La Boheme”, act 3.
Tosca
The death of Boris, the finale of “Boris Goudonov”.
It may be hard to find a recording, but consider Menotti’s “The Consul”. It’s in English. It’s about a family trying to escape from a country behind the Iron Curtain. It’s not truly epic, but it’s one of the most despair-filled (rather than just sad) works of any kind I’ve ever come across.
A grandmother sings a lullaby with a sweet melody to a sleeping infant. It might be available as a separate aria:
“…Sleep, my child, sleep for me,
My sleep is death…
Let the old ones watch your sleep,
Only death will watch the old.”
The major and most famous aria of the opera is the powerful “To this we’ve come”, sung by the heroine, Magda, and it’s widely available separately: “To this we’ve come, that men withhold the world from men. No ship nor shore for him who drowns at sea. No home nor grave for him who dies on land. To this we’ve come: that a man be born a stranger upon God’s earth, that he be chosen without a chance for choice, that he be hunted without the hope of refuge. To this we’ve come; and you, you too, shall weep…Look at my eyes, they are afraid to sleep…What will your papers do? They cannot stop the clock. They are too thin an armor against a bullet…”
From the finale of the opera: “Lo! Death’s frontiers are open. All aboard!”
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### Author:  [@Forbin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Forbin)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2002, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggest-some-good-sad-opera-for-me-to-listen-to/142302/10 "2002-12-13T03:03:06Z")
Le Fluer che tu m’avais jette (sp?)
From Carmen by Bizet
The Flower Song…I think it’s sad (it is to me \)
Act Three, Scene One from Sampson and Delihla (Wow, big spelling problems for me tonight!)
That’s some sad stuff!
Can’t think of anymore right now. Dunno why?
😕
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### Author:  [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2002, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggest-some-good-sad-opera-for-me-to-listen-to/142302/11 "2002-12-13T04:05:35Z")
_O mio babbino caro_ is hardly sad; it’s from a comedy, after all. 😉
The Flower Song is certainly poignant, telling how the hero managed to make it through his incarceration just looking at the flower Carmen gave him and thinking about her, only to have her treat him as a “thing”, yet he still loves her.
For sad, go with _La Boheme_, especially third act songs, and I have to agree about the one about the clown…
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### Author:  [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2002, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggest-some-good-sad-opera-for-me-to-listen-to/142302/12 "2002-12-13T06:37:01Z")
“Una furtiva lagrima” from Donizetti’s “L’Elisir d’amore” (A quiet tear from The Elixer of Love)
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### Author:  [@Dragon\_Phoenix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dragon_Phoenix)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2002, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggest-some-good-sad-opera-for-me-to-listen-to/142302/13 "2002-12-13T06:40:49Z")
I’ll second the Puccini recommendations and throw in Debussy _Pelléas et Mélisande_.
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### Author:  [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2002, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggest-some-good-sad-opera-for-me-to-listen-to/142302/14 "2002-12-13T07:04:04Z")
_Susannah_, by Carlisle Floyd, is in English and has a female heroine.
If you aren’t sniffling by the end of Susannah’s aria “The Trees on the Mountain”, then I reckon you have a heart of stone. No, screw that, no heart to begin with.
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### Author:  [@Morgainelf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgainelf)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2002, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggest-some-good-sad-opera-for-me-to-listen-to/142302/15 "2002-12-16T16:10:52Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by DSYoungEsq \*
> \*\*_O mio babbino caro_ is hardly sad; it’s from a comedy, after all. 😉
> \*\*
Yes, in _context_ it’s a comedy, but the song taken by itself is quite sad.
Translation (not mine…culled from internet)
‘Oh dear daddy
I love him, he is so handsome
I want to go to Porta Rossa
to buy the ring
yes, yes I want to go there
And if my love were in vain
I would go to Ponte Vecchio
and throw myself in the Arno
I fret and suffer torments
Oh God, I would rather die
Daddy, have pity, have pity’
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### Author:  [@Morgainelf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgainelf)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2002, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggest-some-good-sad-opera-for-me-to-listen-to/142302/16 "2002-12-16T16:31:03Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Dragon Phoenix \*
> \*\*I’ll second the Puccini recommendations and throw in Debussy _Pelléas et Mélisande_. \*\*
Oh Good Lord, **Dragon Phoenix**! First you recommend Dawn Upshaw and Dietrich Fischer-Diskau, and now _Pelleas_? Get out of my head!!! 😃
I agree - wonderful suggestion.
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### Author:  [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2002, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggest-some-good-sad-opera-for-me-to-listen-to/142302/17 "2002-12-16T16:53:25Z")
The Pearl Fishers. Freakin’ beautiful. It’ll make you cry.
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### Author:  [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2002, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggest-some-good-sad-opera-for-me-to-listen-to/142302/18 "2002-12-16T18:04:56Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by rowrrbazzle \*
> **Tosca**
The end of Tosca is certainly sad, but I don’t think it _sounds_ sad unless you’re following the lyrics.
–Cliffy