Thursday, September 07, 2006

This is what Christmas Eve is like for goyim, right?

Can't resist joining in the fun of speculating/making wish lists about what they'll release. The central theme of my broadcastlust is Steber--I just took a stroll around the ol' database and she was in quite a lot of broadcasts, and I don't think that many of them are things I've seen even on Naxos or Bensar. Otello in '52 with Vinay and Warren? I'd take that. Wozzeck? Lay it on me.

Out of curiosity I'd love to hear Traubel in The Man Without a Country. It's kind of a stand-in fantasy for The King's Henchmen, which was too early for broadcasts. (Don't ask me why the one subs for the other...American operas that fizzled but featured a big star, I guess. King's Henchmen had Tibbett, and a libretto by Millay, by the way.)

There's some Thill including a partial Faust with Rethberg, and a Boris G that's probably not in Russian despite the presence of Kipnis--it's 1943 after all. And that one has Thorborg.

And of course there are some things with pet singers of mine, El Amor Brujo among other things with Jean Madeira, at least a couple of 'casts with John Alexander (unless it's another Alexander)and so on and so forth.

Met Maniac's Lost Broadcasts page features some partially extant broadcasts that are the stuff of dreams, some largely irretrievable Leider and Melchoir, zum Beispiel.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

There's a recording of "El Amor Brujo" with Jean Madeira on the Tuxedo label, according to Amazon. Jean Madeira was in the first "live" opera I saw: ELEKTRA at the MET (1971).

Maury D'annato said...

How was she? It is for her Klytamnestra that I adore her. Was it with Borkh? ('71 is late but I'm relatively sure there's an Elektra from then.)

Anonymous said...

When I attended the MET ELEKTRA, I was a teenager who knew little about opera. I remember it was an afternoon performance with big voices singing loudly: Nilsson, Rysanek, and Madeira. I went backstage to meet the singers and I recall that Jean Madeira was a striking woman under that Klytaemnestra makeup.

Princess Alpenrose said...

Where's the database?

Anonymous said...

That Wozzeck is in English, and somewhat expurgated (can't say "piss" on the stage of the Metropolitan in 1959(?)), but it's kinda cool nonetheless. Hopefully they'll include it.

b.