Poll for Nicole

[Nicole Marie]

Sorry Bones - I have 3 requests for it today. I gotta play it today during the Four Play.

[musicworm]

whatever!Either is great!

[barfle]

YRH, you have a recording of Mazeppa? I've been looking (not all the time, of course) for one since 1984. I must admit I wasn't knowledgeable enough to pick out familiar pieces in the performance, and being in the Kirov Theater was, as you might imagine, a bit exciting/distracting all on its own.

How about a few shots in the four play, and what's the recording?

[Shapley]

Barfle,

Here's one:
http://music.barnesandnoble.com/search/product.asp?userid=2WC1NZA6MU&ean=717281905220

I don't know anything about it, however.

V/R
Shapley

[barfle]

Well, I know it's $35 and that's discounted! It's gotta be three discs, though, so it's not outrageous.

I'll certainly give it some thought, thanks, Shapley.

[Shapley]

No problem. I looked at iclassics.com first, but only found a couple cd's with excerpts. I didn't look at Amazon.com, they may have something there.

It doesn't look like a lot of recordings of the full opera are available, which is understandable, since it is not one of his better known. I'm sure what you'll find will be imported, thus the hefty price tag.

I didn't see anything listing the number of CD's, but it does list the Total Running Time: 2:31:50

I would think 3 cd's wouldn't be unreasonable, two cd's maybe, but that would be pushing the limits for the cd's storage capabilities, I think.

V/R
Shapley

<small>[ 10-15-2003, 09:52 AM: Message edited by: Shapley ]</small>

[Redsox75]

I think "Lucia" is pretty tough to beat as a recommendation for a first-timer to opera. It's got almost non-stop fantastic arias that are memorable, it's got a great plot that's easy to follow, and a perfect ending to boot.
I like "Tosca", too. Much of the same applies to it as to "Lucia", however, Scarpia is a sinister, rotten villain; in "Lucia", Enrico is pretty bad, but not to Scarpia's level.
These two would be the ones I'd send a newbie to hear.

[OperaTenor]

I still vote for the more famous Puccini operas, and will grudgingly side with Shos with reagrds to Carmen.

[barfle]

Hijack alert!

One of the design goals for the Compact Disc was that it be able to contain Beethoven's 9th Symphony. That runs about 71 minutes, depending on tempo, so a regular CD can hold 71 minutes of music. There are some CDs that hold more bits than that (700MB compared to 650MB), but there's no guarantee that they will play in a standard CD player. I only have one commercial CD with that much music on it, and it won't play reliably on my older CD player. It does fine in my DVD player. Mazeppa, being over 2½ hours long, should be on three CDs, since I doubt that they would deliberately put it on the higher density discs, and I also doubt that the break would come at the right point.

And now back to our regular program...

[jmfryar]

Any reaction to the Met's interactive screens with stories and translation, accesible during performance? Haven't used them personally...

I would think it would make any opera more accesible...I hate flipping through my notes trying to figure out who's who and doing what to whom. It's kinda distracting...

[shostakovich]

Back to the hijack. Recordable CDs hold 80 minutes of music. I have come across only one CD (forgot what's on it) that had over 80 min.
Shos

[Shapley]

72 1/2 Minutes (plus or minus a few seconds) is the longest pre-recorded CD that I have in my collection. I believe it is a Herb Alpert and the TJB CD.

V/R
Shapley

[barfle]

I have recordable CDs at both lengths (650MB and 700MB), not to mention a handfull of the cute little ones that I can't make labels for.

As I recall, my over 71 minute CD is a Duruflé Requiem with several other selections on it on the Delos label, but I don't want to cast any aspersions on the record company because it's absolutely gorgeous when played through my DVD player.