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Hey Guys,

Anybody played the tuba part for the whole opera of Don Carlo?

What is the fun factor???

Nope. No-one's played the tuba part, mainly because it's an ophicleide part.

I've played bits and pieces of that opera over the years but never the entire thing. Nothing I've seen so far suggests anything noteworthy.

Always a bit confusing. Sounds like one of those nationalistic issues. The first edition was French and first performed in Paris in 1867. Paris was basically the ophecleide capital. But even the 1886 Italian edition calls for Oph. Wagner's early operas, such as Rienzi" also sported the ophecleide. But that one also has a separate bass tuba part. In Wagner's early years he was in excile and often in Paris. Of course later (in the 1880s) Verdi preferred a newly developed valve contra bass trombone for which the part was referred to as Cimbasso. He sometimes called it Trombone Grande or often just Bass Trombone. But it was always the 4th part. We can all read about that elsewhere. Often, newer editions would rename that part as Tuba. I'm thinking of the German edition of Symphony Fastastique, or the Grand Symphony Funebre & Triumphal by Berlioz. We can probably be certain that Verdi would not have the tuba in the pit, but would in the "Banda" on stage. He felt the tuba made the orchestra sound too much like a military band. But most other non Italian opera orchestras did not particularly worry about that little detail. Today with a ton of information on what is "correct" performance practice, and the availabilty of cimbassi, we tend to go with the Maestro's wishes.

I played a run last year and another about 10 years ago. There's plenty of stuff to play but I honestly can't recall a single passage.