Classes have finished for the year, and my daughter is still at school, so I spent a happy afternoon making cute lavender sachets for Christmas gifts:
and, to counteract the cuteness, listening to a tale of lust and greed - Rheingold from my new USB Ring.
Sound quality is really excellent and everything satisfactory once I had sorted out some weirdness with the track numberings.
Natalie
This is a wonderful opera! And, a wonderful recording! It almost out-Mozarts Mozart!
The opera is very average, some of it sound very generic and a bit uninspired. But it has its moments, a couple of fun ensembles and a fews nice arias. I enjoyed it.
"Every theatre is an insane asylum, but an opera theatre is the ward for the incurables."
FRANZ SCHALK, attributed, Losing the Plot in Opera: Myths and Secrets of the World's Great Operas
Something weird happened when I copied them onto my hard disk- so I had to go in and renumber them using the Amazon MP3 list as a guide. Took about 10 minutes, far less time than it would have to name and rip them. I'd like a complete Britten and a complete Verdi on a stick for starters.
Last edited by Soave_Fanciulla; December 18th, 2013 at 06:32 PM.
Natalie
Considering discussion on another thread, played this as a reminder of the opera. I love Caballe, and the opera is Bellini, so .. Very Good!
Then, because as an older person I tend to forget things that I listened to more than 10 minutes ago (and, then, because the opera, while good, is not particularly memorable):
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Der Rosenkavalier
Lotte Lehmann, Richard Mayr, Maria Olszewska, Elisabeth Schumann, Viktor Madin, Hermann Gallos, Bella Paalen, Aenne Michalsky, Karl Ettl
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Robert Heger
Studio recording, 1933
I think this has got good sound too, of course considering it is a recording from such a long time ago. How much the engineering has taken away from Lotte Lehmann's voice I don't know but their is plenty of character in the singing and I like it.
Lohengrin
Siegfried Jerusalem, Cheryl Studer, Waltraud Meier, Hartmut Welker, Kurt Moll
Vienna Philharmonic, Claudio Abbado
A great recommendation by Hoffmann! It was not the recording he recommended (he suggested others) but on the opera itself. He saw the list of my likes and thought I would like this. Good call! Straight away my favourite of the Wagner's. A romantic opera with Princess' and Knights in shining armour. Feel free to throw any other suggestion like this my way.
9.118/10
Adelson e Salvini
Bradley Williams, Alicia Nafé, Fabio Previati, Lucia Rizzi
EAR Teatro Massimo Bellini Orchestra and Chorus
Andrea Licata
A budget recording (not for the end consumer) and so not great sound. Voices are there and the feet are here and the orchestra is over there (none in the same place)! However if someone is very keen to hear the work there are few choices for this opera.
No. Sorry that just won't work.
Anyways, moving on.
Ponchielli: La Gioconda
Giannina Arangi Lombardi, Ebe Stignani, Camilla Rota, Alessandro Granda, Gaetano Viviani, Corrado Zambelli, Aristide Baracchi
Orchestra and Chorus of La Scala
Lorenzo Molajoli
1931
Really not sure how I arrived here. Actually no idea at all.
Unlike the Der Rosenkavalier above, this is a different sound. Same sort of time of the recording and recovering but different engineers (and materials obviously). This sounds like your playing a 78. Whether this is by design or circumstance I don't know but I also don't think one is better quality than the other but this more obviously sounds like an older recording.
Otherwise yes I like the opera.
More of Boito's hand.
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