clash of the dowagers
La Cieca realizes that you, cher public, are getting as antsy and downright annoyed at the machinations chez NYCO (oh, that’s right, they don’t have a “chez,” do they?) Anyway, as bemoneyed matrons on the NYCO board ravage the Upper West Side whilst hurling millions at each other, La Cieca thought she should put it to the level heads of the parterre commenters to decide: In the end, who’s going to get the top job at NYCO? (Note, this is not “who should get it,” but rather a prediction of who will get it.)
With La Cieca’s permission I can walk you through the process of capturing the broadcasts. Nothing simpler.
Let me acknowledge, while I’m at it — the very BEST thing about the Sirius XM broadcasts is the little guy in headphones on the Launch page. He’s my screen saver
I have a Sirius radio and subscription and tape by connecting the radio through the pre-amp to either the tape or CD recorder. (Yes, I got myself a CD recorder just for this purpose. This also allows me to transfer old cassettes and LP’s to CD’s.)
Three problems, though: (1) It takes time to take out the announcements, divide the performance into 60-minute segmenst or so, etc. (2) The piles of CD’s grows rapidly while the space to store them gets scarcer every day. (3) I find myself often recording faster than I have time to listen. I now sometimes welcome weeks when there are no interesting broadcasts.
Permission granted, wotan, and thank you iltenoredigrazia.
Nice try, Indiana (#49), but then how to explain the fact that Sirius has given us EVERY Britten and Prokofiev broadcast (it seems). I think we’re up against the possibility that Jimmy L. loves LULU and doesn’t like WOZZECK, that some decision-maker is fond of certain operas and not others. It was said for a while that Cesare Siepi was blocking the release of broadcasts in which he appeared, but that seems to have been settled.
It may be moot, of course, because the bloom seems to be off the rose at Sirius. I offer as evidence that each week there are 13 archive broadcasts available. Two years ago, six of those would be first-time, six months ago, three were first-time, now we get one new one, two if we’re lucky. Of the ca. 1500 broadcasts in the archives, we will get between 50 and 100 each year. That’s pretty sparse.
I suspect that the money problems at Sirius XM are taking a toll and that the Met management — not seeing this as the cash cow they anticipated — are pursuing other possibilities. For the time being, though, it is our best source for lacklustre THAIS performances in duplicate as well as cliffhanger TRISTANS we can compare ad nauseum.
Okay, then.
You will need an audio capture program. Several used to be available for free download, but that time is past. A fairly cheap alternative (around $20.00) is Audacity (Google Audiocapture Audacity and you’ll find it.) This will allow you to record, edit out the yimmer-yammer, and give you a finished file which you can either commit directly to disc as a CD, convert to MP3 format which will allow you to put up to twelve hours of pretty good sound onto a single disc but which will play only on an MP3 player (which most DVD players are, incidentally), or using itenoredigrazia’s set-up, record them to a cassette for your car. I do about 70 hours of Sirius and Net broadcastss each week, plus there is access through downloads of damned near every note every uttered on an operatic stage (the selection of Farinelli is understandably in short supply.)
Since I have La Cieca’s kind permission, anyone who is interested can contact me at garyheilsberg@yahoo.com and I’ll be glad to help you in any way I can.
ITENOREDIGRAZIA — we’re on the same page evidently, but I would like to downplay your reservation about being time-consuming. I put up for grabs the following scenario:
With my very limited, very cheap equipment, I could set up shop today at The Met, and using house wires, have a finished CD of that night’s performance complete with case and artwork ready for you by the time you get to the front exit.
Furthermore, I suspect this will be done in the near future. In fact, the service may already be available in some European houses.
Audacity is open source and free (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/).
An outstanding software, but when compressing the files, there’s no option for setting commandline parameters, so I record and edit sound files in Audacity and save them as full .wav files, then I use Foobar (http://www.foobar2000.org/) to compress the files to VBR .mp3 (or .ogg) format.
I have my sirius receiver attached to my stereo system. I also have my dvd recorder attached to my stereo system on LINE 1. I use the timer on my dvd recorder to set the times with the 8 hour setting (incidently my dvd recorder will not record audio only so I run the video line through an older vcr left on with a blue picture to provide the video signal)I then transfer the operas when I am listening to them to cd with a cd recorder which is also hooked up to my stereo system. The advantage is the dvd gives me a master copy complete that I can then break up as I feel is best on CD. especially good for Wagner and Strauss where acts are often more than 80 minutes long. It also enables me to cut out MJ’s commentary.
Wotan:
I suspect the copyrighted stuff has to hammered out by Sirius on a case-by-case, or at least composer-by-composer, basis. That might explain the inconsistencies you’ve noted.
However, the Lulu vs. Wozzeck case is a real puzzle, since they’re by the same composer and from the same publishing house, and Levine has championed both. (Though I doubt that Levine has much to do with what Sirius broadcasts.)
alto- I never claimed that every broadcast was a gem. The MANON LESCAUT with Tebaldi shows her at much less than her best. and the Tebaldi Gioconda with Morrell shows him in really bad shape. Most of us would give alot to have a singer of Elinor Ross’s ability today. Have you seen the video of NORMA, a real artist with a great voice. and while you may have had to much AMARA, we would be very grateful for her ability today. I saw one of her last performances as Leonora in FORZA (she was Bumbry’s cover), she was fat and old at that point but still sang the crap out of FORZA, it was a gutzy ballsy performance that a singer twenty years her junior could have been proud of. The greatness of the collection includes the mediocre performances of other eras like the Leona Mitchell MANON LESCAUT and the off nights of great singers that have been captured but have not circulated on expensive pirates in the past. It is a fairly accurate record of singing in different eras including the weaker performances. It also gives you a better idea of an artist like Milanov than her studio recordings do. Her AIDA with Del Monaco is much more exciting than the studio performance as is her TOSCA from CG with Corelli. These recordings also led me to appreciate such singers as Stella, Tucci or Stella Roman. and despite Richard Tucker’s awkward stage deportment, no singer today can handle the Verdi roles with such control today ( and he was definitely considered second string in his day)Let’s be honest, Callas’s legacy would not be so well understood if it were only based on her studio recordings. the live performances (sadly only one mediocre LUCIA from the MET) are what capture the legendary artistry.