Gratuitous Musickal Posting (TM)

Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolutions has a post up comparing recordings of Mozart's Don Giovanni, arguably the greatest opera every written period.

The only recording I own at the moment is the one by J.E. Gardiner that he mentions approvingly.

Among the others he lists, I note the Georg Solti recording from 2000 with Bryn Terfel and Renee Fleming. I grew up on a box cassette set of Solti's first recording of the piece, with Bernd Weikl and Lucia Popp. I must say, I've never had a problem with Solti's being too muscular for the music.

Just by way of experimenting, I happen to have a video version of Don Giovanni lined up in my Netflix queue, with the Gurzenich Orchestra conducted by James Conlon and featuring Thomas Allen in the starring role. I know absolutely nothing about this performance other than the fact that Peter Sellars doesn't have anything to do with it which, for me, is a promising start. I'll let you know what I think.

In fact, I recently went through Netflix's classical music category on something of an operatic binge. Aside from Don Giovanni, I also tossed these flixs into the queue:

- A 2002 recording of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo with Le Concert des Nations. (I've got the old 70's Nikolas Harnicourt films of all three of Monteverdi's great operas.)

- Solti's 1987 recording with the Royal Opera of Mozart's Die Entfuhrung Aus Dem Serail.

- A 2004 performance of Jean-Baptiste Lully's Persee, originally written for Louis XIV.

- An old 1974 film of Rossini's Barber of Seville by Claudio Abbado, which I immediately cancelled when I remembered I already had a tape version of it.

What, you say? No Verdi? No Wagner? No Puccini? Nope - can't stand 19th Century opera.

As usual, I'll write reviews of these whether you want to read them or not.

Yips! to Lemuel.