This triple-CD set is part of the "Wiener Staatsoper Live" series of remastered historical ... more
live recordings--and recordings don't really get more historical than this one. This 1955 production of Der Rosenkavalier marked the re-opening of the Vienna State Opera House after its destruction during the war, and also the departure of the allied forces from Austria. Thus it was designed to show the world exactly what Vienna was capable of--and pretty much achieves its aim. The main three female voices must come close to what Strauss imagined in his dreams, all individually exquisite and yet forming an almost unbearably gorgeous blend in the final trio. The minor roles too are impressive: you don't often get voices of Karl Terkal's calibre taking on the brief, challenging role of The Tenor. The recording is full of the realities of a live staging, which means that some details get lost and there is a confusing sense of distance and perspective. But it also means that the atmosphere is electric at times, and the orchestral playing crackles with spontaneity. --Warwick Thompson
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Advantages: Great cast, conductor and orchestra, top notch production Disadvantages: None, to be honest
all things are relative!?
Anyway, once you get around the issue of people singing most of the time, I have to say that the vast majority of operatic plots do deal with situations that are actually very realistic in terms of human nature - love, treachery, war, ambition, envy etc - and this is definitely the case with Richard Strauss' "DerRosenkavalier" ("The Rose Kavalier".) The main aspect which has to be explained right at the start is that the character of Octavian - a male - is sung by a woman. Why? Because he is supposed to be only 17 years old and having a middle-aged tenor just wouldn't cut it dramatically. For me it is no different from the female Principal Boy in pantomimes.
Richard Strauss wrote the opera to a libretto by his long-time collaborator Hugo von Hofmannsthal and it was premiered in Dresden in 1911 ...
Advantages: I am glad I was introduced to this one. Disadvantages: One dodgy track could have been omited.
Auf Der Maur were a band that I had not heard of before last week. It was not till I read a review by one-true-ben that they came to my attention. I was interested enough to investigate their web site and was very impressed and I downloaded the four available video's from there and have been listening to them for days while I have waited for the album to arrive.
I am writing this as I listen to it for the first time because I wanted write it now to get my first impressions. I haven't even opened it yet.
It says on the cellophane wrapper,
'Le premier album de Mellisa Auf Der Maur en collaberation avec les meilleurs musiciens du rock nord-american'
The album arrived from CDWoW via airmail from Hong Kong, actually faster than the royal mail would have delivered it from next door, but that is beside the point. I am trying to ...
Advantages: Small and smart, HDMI port, GPU chip, 160GB HDD, handles HD media output and has an eSATA port Disadvantages: Low on RAM and processing power for a Vita PC, extremely wobbly stand and no optical drive
Have Acer started down the better path with the Acer Aspire REVO R3600? Well that may just be exactly what they have done. Its good looking fast has a big hard drive, a GPU and runs VISTA rather than XP.
The good stuff.
The Acer REVO is another one of these net top PC?s albeit a little different.
First off it can handle allot more than just net browsing and word-processing, which is all its pre-deceases could handle. This is due to its Nvidia GeForce 9400M graphics. Having this means that where as previously net top PC?s have just been for net browsing and a little light word processing, you can now start to venture into the media world,
The Acer REVO can handle HD media without any major hiccups and also comes with a HDMI port for instant connection to your living room HDTV making it one of the first net top media PC?s, and this ...
