Brand Name Recognition

I'm feeling a little guilty about the number of searches I see that lead someone to this tarty little blog that clearly was looking for a Fisher Price toy. So I think I may change the title, though I remain ever yours,
Maury

That wasn't me actually signing off. It just started sounding like the closing of a letter is all. In any case I came up with the name of the blog in thirty seconds because I was on a park bench with my laptop bumming someone's wireless. It's a long story involving Vermont, Medicaid fraud, and Romance languages. Yeah.

Someone who statively prefers to remain nameless played me the most soul-wrenching thing last night in the form of an Arabella conducted by Kraus and of course given voice by the stupefyingly awful Viorica Ursuleac. She's long enough dead I'm not softening that one up. So anyway you get a kind of aesthetic whiplash listening to it because she sounds about 80 though she was 46 when she recorded it, but behind her is the most nuanced, emotionally fraught orchestra playing courtesy of Kraus. The kind of playing that suddenly makes other readings sound black and white. We must have listened to four recordings of the duet, really the only part of the opera it requires no special effort to love.

Meanwhile for any of you that are on itunes, they still have that whole Guiglelmo Tell w/ Pav and Freni on sale for $9.99. I read about this courtesy of Mr. Chalkenteros in the comments section over at Wellsung, and couldn't resist. Surely someone will notice, so rush over there if you want it. I'm not a card carrying LP fan but he sure as hell shines in the big last act scena.