This Month's Opera Magazine

Opera magazine has just come winging its way through may letter box. There's an interesting article about Peter Gelb's new regime at the New York Met; it makes it sound very promising and hardly the bugbear that people threatened.

One the newsdesk page there is a report about a proposed critical discography of Heddle Nash; it seems the compilers are looking for information about recordings. I hardly imagine they'd be interested in hearing about my Mother's reminiscences of hearing the aged singer appearing very late in his career as Faust in a amateur/semi-pro. production in Cleethorpes. Mum was very scathing about his ability to play the young hero and preferred his records.

There is a rather short obituary for soprano Anna Moffo; we really only came across her late on in her career whilst we were students in Manchester in the early 1970's. Her recording of Massenet's Thais was a bitter disappointment.

Andrew Clements's review of Sir John in Love was a little disappointing, though its obvious he was trying very hard to be fair. It would have been interesting to have had 2 different views in parallel. I'm interested to read Rodney Milnes's bad reaction to Hercules at the Barbican; I had to miss it but David went and was not very thrilled.

Sarah Connolly's appearance as Octavian in the Scottish Opera Rosenkavalier in October is almost worth making the trip up there for. But I don't think I'll be pining to hear Placido Domingo sing Tamerlano at the 2008 Salzburg Festival - I presume he's singing the role of Bajazet, which would be no draw. I wonder if this entry could be right. Rosalind Plowright is singing Mother in a Chandos recording of Hansel and Gretel, presumably this will be in English.