booty call
As we approach the new year, La Cieca is gearing herself up to revive the recently dormant Unnatural Acts of Opera. Your doyenne was thinking that an interesting theme for 2009 might be “The Greatest Pirates,” i.e., the most important and impressive live, non-commerical recorded documents of opera. La Cieca is now accepting nominations from the cher public and will open the floor to discussion of the ten most demented and therefore most indispensable of the opera pirates.
#85.:”Intermezzo is a great piece”
I’ve performed it, and Strauss-lover though I am, to me it sounds like Hindemith fell into a vat of Whipped cream. Ick.
a candidate i don’t think anyone has mentioned: “tristan” w/nilsson and vickers under bohm from 1973. i also second the nominations of the callas/simionato/del monaco “norma” from la scala and the l. price/corelli salzburg “trovatore” under karajan. if releases on the andante label could be included, i’d add the 1937 salzburg “nozze di figaro” with pinza and toscanini’s 1951 salzburg “falstaff” with stabile.
yeah, yeah, i know you can’t do met broadcasts … but if you make an exception, let it be the martinelli/tibbett/rethberg “otello” from 1938 or the 1939 “boccanegra” with tibbett, rethberg, pinza, martinelli and leonard warren — two of the most exciting operatic performances, live or in the studio, i’ve ever heard.
Verdi’s NABUCCO (Eduard Tumagian, Julia Varady; Bavarian State Opera/Pinchas Steinberg – 1991).
How about the Giacomini/Freni/Pons Il Tabarro at Maggio musicale Fiorentino in ’91? Stunning.