Tatiana Troyanos sings Mahler’s Rückert Lieder, recorded “live”; date unknown.
Listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1rpkuBZuU0
Category: Blog
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From the beginning…
This was the first-ever post on my original blog, Oberon’s Grove:
On this spring-like morning, I’ve been for a walk in Inwood Park. We are living now at the very northern tip of the isle of Manatus, and in the park a boulder marks the place where the Dutch are reputed to have purchased the island from the native inhabitants. When I am there, I try to imagine what it was like then. In a way, I wish it had remained untouched and un-christianized but then of course I would not be here. I’d be blogging from England or Holland or wherever it was my forefathers came from.
April 13, 2006
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Experimenting…
…with bringing posts from the Grove to the Glade…
Ferruccio Busoni ~ Mass
Above: composer Ferruccio Busoni
Coro Filarmonico Trentino perform Ferruccio Busoni’s Missa in Honorem Beatae Mariae Virginis. Listen here.
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Changing Places
It’s difficult for me to be moving my 19-year-old blog called Oberon’s Grove to a new platform, and giving it a new name. But the prior server has become unreliable, and no longer offers maintenance or help. So, to keep blogging, I have to make a change.
The original platform I’d been using was so easy to use, and now I am going thru a period of adjustment. “You can’t teach an old dog news tricks,” as the saying goes, but I have to give it a try or give up altogether.
I’d like to keep the new blog, Oberon’s Glade, alive for a few years if possible. Luckily, some techie-friends have offered to help.
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A Polish ‘STABAT MATER’
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The Wanderer Summons Erda
Above: contralto Qiu lin Zhang, basso Yvgeny Nikitin
In this scene from the final act of Wagner’s SIEGFRIED, Wotan (in his guise as The Wanderer) wakens the Earth Mother Erda from her deep slumber. She wearily evades his questions, and it becomes clear that the doom of the gods is at hand.
SIEGFRIED – Act III scene- Evgeny Nikitin – Qiu Lin Zhang – Eschenbach – BBC Proms 2006
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Grigory Sokolov ~ Rameau’s Les Cyclopes
Grigory Sokolov astounds with his playing of Rameau’s Les Cyclopes; watch and listen here.
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HOTEL DU LAC
Above: Anna Massey as Edith Hope in HOTEL DU LAC
HOTEL DU LAC is a 1986 jewel of a film which I watch once or twice every year. As far as I know, it’s never been released on DVD, but I have my old VHS copy. Though I have watched it at least a score of times, it still touches me, in part because it deals with romance/sex among people of a certain age.
The central character, Edith Hope, is a successful middle-aged writer of romance novels. After many years of leading a seemingly contented solitary life, she accepts a marriage proposal only to leave her prospective groom standing on the church steps when she has a sudden change of heart on her wedding day. Her friends are outraged, and she flees London for a bit of peace at an off-season hotel on Lake Lucerne: the Hotel Du Lac. Here she meets – and nearly marries – Philip Neville, a successful businessman who makes her a surprising offer.
The other guests at the hotel provide comic relief though all are, in their own way, sad and lonely people. Edith’s London set also provide for some interesting personality studies.
Two of my very favorite actors, Anna Massey and Denholm Elliott (above), are so perfectly cast as Edith and Philip. Both these remarkable thespians have since passed away; it makes me feel blue to think we’ll not be seeing their faces and hearing their memorable voices in future films. The rest of the cast are excellent.
And you know me: always an eye for the handsome face. A very young Jean-Marc Barr (above, photographed a few years further on) plays Alain, a waiter at the Hotel Du Lac who loses his job when blamed for something he didn’t do. Msser. Barr went on to appear in many films, including EUROPA, BREAKING THE WAVES, and DOGVILLE. As Alain, he’s deliciously naive and sincere.
Anna Massey, by the way, was the daughter of actor Raymond Massey. She passed away in 2011.
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IL TABARRO @ La Scala ~ 1983
Above: Piero Cappuccilli as Michele in Puccini’s IL TABARRO at La Scala, 1983.
Watch and listen here.
Piero Cappuccilli – Michele
Sylvia Sass – Giorgetta
Nicola Martinucci – Luigi
Sergio Bertocchi – Il ‘Tinca’
Aldo Bramante – Il ‘Talpa’
Eleonora Jankovic – La frugola
Ernesto Gavazzi – Venditore di canzonette
Vito Gobbi – Voce interna
Jeda Valtriani – Voce interna
Bruno Brando – Un amanteConductor: Gianandrea Gavazzeni
Oberon's Glade 