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Catching up with Catch of the Day
What we played on October 7, October 28, and November 4

November 4, 2018

Listed below are the tracks we played on October 7, October 28, and November 4.

Keepers

Rolling Down to Old Maui – Kimo Nevius (kimosongs.com, 2018)

Rolling down to old Maui (traditional)/The Other Side of the World/Lahaina Town

Whaling is a closed chapter in Hawaii, thank goodness. Yet it's good to hear some old stories, recaptured and performed with gruff authority by a talented local songwriter-troubadour. The CD comes with an informative album of photographs, notes, and lyrics.

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Anima Sacra– Jakub Józef Orliński, countertenor (Erato, 2019)

Il Pomo D'Oro, Maxim Emelyanychev

Smanie di dolci affetti... S'una sol lagrima (Zelenka)

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Speak for yourself, Conrad!
A postscript on Opera as Opera

October 26, 2018

As far as I can see, commentary on Conrad L. Osborne's doomsday book Opera as Opera: The State of the Art, including my own, has focused on his arguments. As well it should. The tone of the reviews to date has been reverential, in my view justly so.

But in a private communication, a well-placed critic of my acquaintance suggests that Osborne's diagnosis is too bleak, that he makes too great a fuss over singers, and that it ought to have been possible to find some example of contemporary Regietheater of which he could approve.

The way I see it, these objections are without merit.

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So, what exactly will it be when the wind blows?
Revisiting Catch of the Day, rounds #38 and #39

September 5, 2018

Here's a recap of our playlist for August 26. Notes on our tracks for September 2 appear below the space break.

The history of our musical theater has few scandals to set beside that of the catch-as-catch-can unveiling of the Lefty agitprop vaudeville The Cradle Will Rock, book, lyrics, music, and orchestrations by Marc Blitzstein. Conceived in the spirit of the Threepenny Opera and produced by the federally funded Federal Theatre Project (those were the days!), the show nearly tanked at the eleventh hour, when Washington pulled the plug.

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review of Celestial bodies: How to look at ballet

August 28, 2018  •  Amazon Reader Reviews

Full disclosure: Laura Jacobs and I have been talking dance (and theater and music...) for decades now. So, don't expect me to be impartial—not when I'm quoted, listed in her index, and most handsomely singled out in the acknowledgments. That's not to say I don't have an honest opinion, so if you're interested, read on.

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Jeremiah at the opera: a talk with Conrad Osborne
Curtains for the most all-enveloping of art forms?

August 25, 2018  •  Oper! Das Magazin (Berlin)

Among Americans for whom opera is a matter of spiritual life and death, Conrad L. Osborne will need no introduction. Back in the Dark Ages, when vinyl collectors had two stereo Rings to choose from (Solti's and Karajan's) and rival Lucias you could count on the fingers of one hand, Osborne produced, for the exacting readership of High Fidelity magazine, comprehensive discographies raisonnées of Mozart and Verdi that reward close attention to this day—for while the sparse listings are long out of date, the questions Osborne raises are timeless, as are the insights he teases from the souls of the characters, as expressed in words, music, and the inflections of living performers.[1]Though never an easy man to please, his recognition and nuanced appreciation of work that hits the mark set standards on which it would be hard to improve. To clinch the bargain, he belongs to the cadre of elite critics one turns to simply for his rapier prose, which continues to glitter in the blog he launched in July 2107.

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Books by Matthew Gurewitsch