Diacriticism Notes

AHHHH.. and kurde moll, what is the problem with the Polish words searches? Surely, there must be some ASCII issue that has so far prevented me from finding articles on people we like that just happen to have fancy Polish consonants in their names. (Mine is plain vanilla, luckily).
I am referring to two giants opera-dom, an established one- Ewa Podles (now officially websited) and upcoming one: Mariusz Trelinski, yes, trannylicious, or dark and drab as they see him. The buzz over his Boheme (ahh, Metro Weekly did notice the couch!) is getting louder.
But important spelling issues remain; it should be: Ewa Podleś & Mariusz Treliński.
The Goddess and the Gifted Troll. He is not ugly per se, but it does have a cultivated artistic skunkiness going in his general look.
Diacritic marks are sadly necessary for us; there is no option of writing them out in combination, as it is with German umlauts. But take a name like Podles, assuming it is even in nominative form and try searching Polish mags archives. Total mess...
... but here is the reason I was fuming about this issue: it's only now, after running some proper Treliński searches, that I dug up an interview (Polish link here) titled- ohhhhhh! - "I was born for Don Giovanni"! In which he speaks at lengths about a project that will end up taking two years of his time, the movie, a collaboration with - yes!- Marc (Boski) Minkowski: the Don Giovanni movie. The basic idea: Don is actually killed by Commandatore, and all that follows is just feverish imaginings, a "confrontation of his own myth". Interesting. Very interesting. Please, let's get it made AND available for us to see! After net gimmicks, and a year or so after it was premiered, where the heck is Kenneth Branagh's Magic Flute? Certainly not in cinemas near us, nor on DVD. I know it was actually made with a purpose of NOT making money. Let's hope the Trel-Mink Don movie, in the great tradition of the other Don classics, is a smash hit, DVD special editions, Oscar dripping Amazon best-seller. Just bring it on already!

Soho the Dog Quiz

OK, I came up with my answers to this very wicked quiz.

1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
Figaro's Non più andrai in Don Giovanni. I had no idea it was there, and when I first sat down to listen to Don G, I barely knew Le Nozze, so when this piece came up, I scratched my head and said "Isn't this what Mozart plays in Amadeus when he is showing Salieri up..?" These days I know better, but it's such a cool cross-marketing.

2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.
Am not a connosieur of crossover, but Juan Diego's Sentimiento Latino is preeety good.

3. Great piece with a terrible title.
There are number of Bach cantatas (especially The World is my Hospital series) with particularly nasty titles but Mein Herz schwimmt im Blut takes the crown.

4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?
Benji. Silly question.

5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)
The first Ms Gesualdo!

6. Terrible piece with a great title.
The Assassin Tree. Well, am not sure just how bad it is, but how can it live up to such a great title...?

7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?
I love The Smell of Valkyries in the Morning- so here's another vote for Wagner in Apocalypse Now, but my personal favorite is Il Dolce Suono from Lucia di Lammermoor in Fifth Element.


8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.
Any album by Renee Fleming would qualify, especially her Xmas Special (complete with the film edition), known as le Sacred Cow, but if I had to pick one, it would be her Handel album.
BTW, Amazon has removed my review of the Sacred Cheese for "spiteful content"- in other words, it was too scathing and funny and zee righteous Flemingos were pissed off- but a shorter version survives on iTunes. Jpeg version here:

9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?
Marvin. Better songs.

EXTRA CREDIT:

For early-music nerds: Name a completely and hopelessly historically uninformed recording that you nevertheless love.
Flagstad singing Gluck and Bach. So wrong. It's Flagstad. I love it.

Jacobs does Don part I

Finally, at long last! Concrete release dates and promos are being rolled out!
Harmonia Mundi will release René Jacobs' Don Giovanni in Europe on Sept 27 , US of A gets it on October 9, both as a SuperAudio CD (Amazon does specify it is an import and a hybrid disc) and a regular version. I will likely get the hybrid, not that I have any illusions about being able to play the SupC part just yet, but, just in case...
There are two audio samples available at HM site: the overture (sounds appropriately ominous) and Deh vieni alla finestra (sounds like nothing special...)
The cast is largely the same as in the Innsbruck production. Minus Lacroix costumes... please to release DVD at some point in the future, please! I am much looking forward to Pendatchanska; have not heard enough from the other singers to have an opinion.
The Don is young and completely unknown to me, but he does have a beautiful light baritone voice that is a must for me, for this role. I hate proper bassos singing Don... Judging by the Deh vieni sample, Johannes Weisser is not in the league of Peter Mattei, the best Don in this Galaxy (the Universe is too big and full of empty holes to count) but let's hear the whole thing first.
Someone kindly posted badly synchronized, but very interesting videos of the recording sessions on YouTube:

YouTube - René Jacobs - Don Giovanni Recording Sessions: Part 1

YouTube - René Jacobs - Don Giovanni Recording Sessions: Part 2

YouTube - René Jacobs - Don Giovanni Recording Sessions: Part 3

True to his form, Jacobs promises radical, wild and crazy things... for example, a very SLOW Fin ch'han dal vino ("there is a trill in this aria.. have you ever heard it?") . The cover follows the style of his Nozze and Cosi, and the box will look very nice on the shelf. Oh, and there's the music too, with outstanding sound production, I'm sure, enough to raise any neighborhood statues back to life...
-so why am I so blasé about this Don? Have I not been waiting with baited breath for years? Well yes, but in the meantime, Daniel Harding's recordings, the CD- available in iTunes - and the Brook's production on DVD came my way and nothing's been the same way since...