Walking on 34th Street this afternoon on my way to TONY's palacial west side HQ, I was startled to see a photograph of Lorin Maazel staring out from the front page of the New York Sun. (The photo, left, is credited to Stephen Chernin/AP.) Immediately alarmed, I rushed over to the newsstand to see what it was that had landed our maestro on page one.
Turns out it was nothing more -- and nothing less -- than Maazel's return to the Metropolitan Opera podium after a 45-year absence, for tonight's performance of Wagner's Die Walküre. The newspaper actually started George Loomis's feature interview on the front page -- above the fold.
I must say, for some reason I find that very inspiring.
Playlist:
Kyle Gann - Private Dances; Time Does Not Exist; On Reading Emerson - Sarah Cahill; Hovenweep; The Day Revisited* - Bernard Gann*, Kyle Gann*, Da Capo Chamber Players (New Albion)
Olivier Messiaen - La Nativité du Seigneur - Hans-Ola Ericsson (Bis)
Jonny Greenwood - There Will Be Blood (original soundtrack) (Nonesuch)
Anaal Nathrakh - Domine Non Es Dignus (Season of Mist) and Hell Is Empty and All the Devils Are Here (FETO)
Black Flag - Damaged and My War (SST)
Wayne Shorter - Introducing Wayne Shorter (Vee-Jay/Koch Jazz)
Mikel Rouse - International Cloud Atlas (Exitmusic)
Saliva Bastards - Saliva Bastards (Durian)
Black Sabbath - Reunion (Epic)
Radiohead - In Rainbows (W.A.S.T.E.)
Vincenzo Bellini - I Puritani - Anna Netrebko, Eric Cutler, Franco Vassallo, John Relyea, Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra/Patrick Summers (Deutsche Grammophon)
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