What do you "assign" to the Shire?

[JennyHallu]

Opera. Or at least Verdi. Yes, I liked it.

[Anguirel]

Which one? Rigoletto?

I assign Don Carlos in particular to avoid this post being skwerl-worthy.

[Lalaith]

Otello for me.

[JennyHallu]

La Traviata

[Celuien]

I'm rather partial to Il Trovatore and Rigoletto myself, though La Traviata was the first of the Verdi operas I saw...

I assign Donizetti operas. L'Elisir d'Amore and Lucia di Lammermore are highly recommended. Una Furtiva Lagrima is such a beautiful aria.

And Rossini operas too. They're wonderful - I can probably hum most of The Barber of Seville from memory from listening to it so much. But don't ask me to sing - my voice isn't exactly operatic and probably belongs in Mordor.

Actually, I'll assign all of the Bel Canto composers. Bellini isn't performed nearly as much as deserved.

[Anguirel]

I thoroughly endorse Lucia di Lammermore...

The cast names alone! Lord Enrico di Ravenswood!

[Lalaith]

Agreed. I was fortunate enough to attend a Royal Opera performance of Lucia where they had a proper glass harmonica for the mad scene. An instrument so rare, with a sound so sublime, that it belongs, in itself, in the Shire.

[Celuien]

Originally Posted by Lalaith

Agreed. I was fortunate enough to attend a Royal Opera performance of Lucia where they had a proper glass harmonica for the mad scene. An instrument so rare, with a sound so sublime, that it belongs, in itself, in the Shire.

Now that sounds spectacular! I love the mad scene (Anna Moffo was the soprano in the recording I have), but never heard it with the glass harmonica. Sadly.

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Lalaith

Agreed. I was fortunate enough to attend a Royal Opera performance of Lucia where they had a proper glass harmonica for the mad scene. An instrument so rare, with a sound so sublime, that it belongs, in itself, in the Shire.

You are so lucky - one of my favourite pieces of music, the Mozart Fantasia in F minor, was composed for glass harmonica but I have only heard it on the organ (albeit played by someone who is now Kapellmeister in a german cathedral...).

I rather like baroque opera - Handel's Rodelinda particularly. Nice to get a tenor villain and I am a counter-tenor fan (claim to fame meeting Andreas Scholl).
Handel at least must go to the Shire - ifnot for his opera for Zadok and Messiah....

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Lalaith

Agreed. I was fortunate enough to attend a Royal Opera performance of Lucia where they had a proper glass harmonica for the mad scene. An instrument so rare, with a sound so sublime, that it belongs, in itself, in the Shire.

Interesting idea. However, given the armonica's association with insanity, perhaps that instrument was played excessively in Gondor until it affected Denethor--the staltwart, healthy hobbits being more impervious to such disorders?

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

One example of fear from playing the glass armonica was noted by a German musicologist Friedrich Rochlitz in Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung where it is stated that "the armonica excessively stimulates the nerves, plunges the player into a nagging depression and hence into a dark and melancholy mood that is apt method for slow self-annihilation. If you are suffering from any nervous disorder, you should not play it; if you are not yet ill you should not play it; if you are feeling melancholy you should not play it."