chickenfeet: (srscat)
[personal profile] chickenfeet
From [livejournal.com profile] oursin

1. Is there anywhere, that, supposing you to be offered the ideal job with more than acceptable pay and benefits there, you would refuse to relocate to?

If it were just me and a return ticket was involved then the answer would be "very few". I don't think I'd be interested in going somewhere really dangerous or unpleasant like Baghdad but I'd be pretty flexible. However, in reality, it would have to be somewhere [livejournal.com profile] lemur_catta would be comfortable which would restrict the choice quite a bit.

2. Is there any particular cuisine you have not yet tried that you would like to?

I've had little or no exposure to Laotian or Cambodian. I think I would probably like them. I've not had much South American food either though what I have had I've liked.

3. What would be your ideal production of a particular opera with particular performers?

Last year's Met Peter Grimes came pretty close! OK, assuming all performers are 'in their prime' then I go with Le Nozze di Figaro with Fischer-Diskeau and Schwarzkopf as the Almavivas and Terfel and Bartoli as the lovers. I can't make my mind up whether I want Bohm or Beecham in the pit.

4. If you could take a year off to research some particular topic or learn a skill, what would it be?

I think maybe rugby coaching. Given a year full time I might get quite reasonable at it.

5. Normans or Saxons?

Let's see, we have a relatively literate people with an amazing literature and really cool art plus trade, a navy and so on who even produce scholarly and/or saintly kings on a fairly regular basis. Or we have a bunch of illiterate barbarians camped out pretending to be French. As far as I can see the only good thing the Normans did was to lay waste to Yorkshire. It's no contest.

Usual rules. Comment for questions but if you do you have to answer them!

Date: 2008-10-06 10:22 pm (UTC)
ext_1059: (Default)
From: [identity profile] shezan.livejournal.com
... have you been to listen to it yet? Am running the "Preview all" feature and falling enraptured all over again.

... I have this in vinyl. Obviously need to buy the CD...

Date: 2008-10-08 11:13 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com
I like it but I don't think I'm in love with it. I think it's something about the colour of Siepi's voice.

Date: 2008-10-08 12:19 pm (UTC)
ext_1059: (Default)
From: [identity profile] shezan.livejournal.com
As time passes I find more and more that voices, however good, do not suffice to make an opera; I find the overall conception & vision matter more. What I loveloveLOVE in this one is how joyous, how warm, how tender, how light-hearted and sure-footed it is. I played the comparison game at Amazon (really, those "Review All" things are a marvel) and it kicked Boehm out of the water, exposed Solti as ponderous and wordy (I know, I know), made mincemeat of that fraud, Gardiner, and really only saved (of the recordings available to sample) Giulini (which is of course magnificent, but there's a dramatic element I worship in Don Giovanni, and which I think is overkill in Figaro), René Jacobs (again after his Cosi, even though I was instinctively prejudiced against it and naturally Fritz Busch.) Karajan's 1950 Philharmonia version is interesting but nowhere as evenly good as his Cosi of the same period.

But Kleiber's genius is the Viennese ensemble spirit; this is such a happy production!

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