Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Perhaps Mr. Gockley Could Dust This One Off.

In the big CRI sale at ArkivMusic, I picked up a recording of scenes from Peggy Glanville-Hicks's opera Nausicaa. The singing is mostly good, sometimes great - well, that's the very young Teresa Stratas in the title role, you see. I love the music, which is extremely grand, very effective, and in quite an individual style.

In the liner notes is the tidbit that in the early 1950s, San Francisco Opera and the Ford Foundation commissioned an opera from Glanville-Hicks, with a libretto by Lawrence Durrell. Intended as vehicle for Maria Callas, Sappho has never been performed.

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