Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish listening to Tosca by Puccini, a mono radio broadcast from the 1960s with Leontyne Price and Franco Corelli with Kurt Adler conducting. I have a later recording with Leontyne Price but I wasn’t that crazy about it, but should probably listen again. This one’s very good, but, you know, mono and a radio broadcast. It also ejected itself after two tracks, but I put it back in and it seems to be behaving better now – oops, spoke too soon. It has behaved poorly and will be going back to Amazon today. We simply cannot abide CDs behaving poorly and ejecting themselves after eight minutes. Why I oughta. So, now I’ll listen to the other Price recording and this time hopefully the Price is right. Well, right off the bat I hear why I don’t care for this – distortion immediately and very hot mastering, which doesn’t help the distortion one bit. I’ll have to find a better recording, I’m afraid. I do recall this gets better as it goes along, as if the engineers said, “Oops, we’re in the red, better back off.” I’ll see if there’s one with Freni, who I always enjoy, or any of my other new favorites. Speaking of favorites, I also finished listening to Mascagni’s L’Amico Fritz, which I loved. So tuneful and lovely, a great recording with excellent singers. So, I’m now wanting to hear all of Mascagni. I have a couple more of his operas on their way to me. I also listened to two Kurt Weill things – don’t think I’d call them operas, but the first, Der Kuhhandel is terrific – really tuneful and classic Weill sound, and in it we hear the tune that would become September Song in Knickerbocker Holiday a few years later. I found all of this enjoyable, which I can’t say for the second Weill album, Der Lindberghflug and The Ballad of Magna Carta. The piece about Lindbergh wasn’t much to my liking and it’s not performed very well, I must say. The Ballad of Magna Carta is fun because Weill is going for an American sound and the finish of it is very tuneful in that regard. I also listened to a CD called Verdi Chore. I’m afraid my stupidity got the better of me – I thought it might be a choral piece like his Requiem, but alas it’s choral passages from the operas and let me tell you a little of THAT goes a very long way. I also watched the first half of Bizet’s Carmen, a Met production directed by Richard Eyre with Elina Baranca, who I really love and let me tell you she’s something else in this. What a voice, what an actress. And so many hit tunes. The production is very good so far and has some fun choreography by Christopher Wheeldon. Lots of energy and color in this and I’m looking forward to the second half. But, as with all these recent Mets, we do have to endure a host, in this case Renee Fleming, yakking backstage before the show, and then interviewing the two leads during intermission, which is really insufferable. Let the kids have a break, for heaven’s sake. Tosca has calmed down, sound-wise and is better, but I’m definitely trying another recording and that’s all there is to it.
Yesterday was a day, I think. I got seven-and-a-half hours of sleep, answered e-mails, pondered whether to do an introduction to project one aka Tonight’s the Night, came to no conclusion, then went and picked up a couple of packages. I’ve been going back and forth with a guy in France from whom I ordered a CD back in December. It hadn’t arrived, the tracking number he provided wasn’t good, then I got a good one but his postal service LAPOSTE was glitching, didn’t recognize the number again, then went offline. He then wrote back and said it had been delivered on July 10. Now, what’s funny about that is that I had this nagging thing in my head that I’d gotten the package from France – I just remembered seeing it. But it wasn’t here so I was going to check at the mail place. But I put on my thinking cap and thought, well, it’s been delivered, and I remember seeing it, kind of. So, assuming that’s true there would be only one answer – and that answer was it would either have fallen off the front seat and gone under the seat or gone off the side and lodged itself in the space between the passenger door and seat or be in the trunk. So, I went to the car and looked in the space between the passenger door and seat and – there it was. Unbelievable.
I then came home, someone came and picked up a few CDs, then I went to Taco Bell – haven’t been in over six months – and brought that home and ate it. It was – Taco Bell and I enjoyed it as such. After that, I did a few things on the computer, listened to music, and then watched the first half of Carmen on Blu and Ray.
After that, I spent a bit of time entering all the project one aka Tonight’s the Night songs into my ASCAP catalog so that they’re all protected. So, that’s done now. And the rest you know, including the bit about Tosca ejected.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll try to find out exactly when the Darling Daughter will be coming to visit, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, I’ll start preparing our two new Kritzerland releases, and I’m going to really start tub-thumping project one aka Tonight’s the Night everywhere I can. It must be done. I’ll eat something light but fun, and then I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow is already Friday – where did this week go? Not sure what will be up for Friday and the weekend, but then we’ll be heading to the premiere of project one aka Tonight’s the Night on the tenth.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, do whatever needs doing, hopefully pick up packages, start preparing our next two Kritzerland releases, plug Tonight’s the Night, then I’ll watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite works of the wonderful composer, Mr. Aaron Copland, whose opera, The Tender Land, I’m listening to right now. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, not having any of Tosca ejected.