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I recently heard it for the first (!) time (not with Sutherland, though). It's very prettyI'm considering starting up on La Traviata with Joan Sutherland tomorrow if the mood strikes me. I listened twice through and read the libretto once about two years ago, but haven't touched it since.
And I'm watching this one:Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg - the Metropolitan opera/James Levine, for the umpteenth time lately. I love it soooo much!
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you know, that's interesting; I was talking to my mum about La Traviata vs. La Boheme and she mentioned she liked the music of La Boheme better, which surprised me, as I feel exactly the opposite of what you are saying. La Traviata's music has more punch for me, whereas with Puccini the music sort of never stops, it just continues on from aria to aria, without breaks. I like breaks, even recitatives (if they aren't overly long).The highlights don't QUITE hit me as hard as my favorite Mozart or Puccini bits
The stroy takes place in China but there is a mistake since Turandot (originally pronounced Turan-dokht a combination of two words Turan and Dokht) means the duaghter (in persia Dokhtar or in old persia Dokht) of Turan, not China. Wikipedia has described Turan as a part of the ancient persian empire but it needs perhaps a little more clarification: Turan which means the land of Tur was a place in central asia. Tur was the elder son of Fereydoun, the king of persia (Iran) in ancient myths. Fereydoun had three sons Tur, Salm and Iraj and divided the land between the three of them, but Turanian people later migrated into central asia, built their own kingdom and began a very long time war with Iranians as described by Ferdowsi in his famous epic masterwork The Shahnameh (the book of kings). Later historians and scholars reffered to China and Tibet and even the Turkish areas in asia all as the ancient land of Tur (and so Turan) but this is not true since the origins of the Turanian people is from persia and of course totally different from the Chinese or Tibet people.I think the music of Turandot is wonderful but I hate the characters.
how was it, then?Thanks to a post by 'andorra' & subsequent visit to a website that assesses the excellence of recordings, sonically....I've found an opera set that I purchased X years ago, that I have never ever listened-to. I saw that it had achieved a 4.3 rating in the listings & it suddenly twigged/lit up the one spare brain cell inside my mental cavity (there's plenty of cavity!..) & I've now collected it from out of storage, for an Easter listening. I'd be very interested to hear if anyone else is familiar with this work....
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It looks a bit 'saucy' from the box graphic....but I bet it won't be?!!