There are works that are so overwhelmingly great while you're listening to them that it is impossible to believe that they aren't played more often. Delius' opera A Village Romeo and Juliet is that kind of work: it has all the audience appeal of La Bohème and all the profundity of Tristan und Isolde. But after it's over, the music doesn't stick in the mind and the story becomes, even for an opera, more than a little silly: who ever heard of a love death that takes place on a hay barge? But another listen sounds like one of ...
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There are works that are so overwhelmingly great while you're listening to them that it is impossible to believe that they aren't played more often. Delius' opera A Village Romeo and Juliet is that kind of work: it has all the audience appeal of La Bohème and all the profundity of Tristan und Isolde. But after it's over, the music doesn't stick in the mind and the story becomes, even for an opera, more than a little silly: who ever heard of a love death that takes place on a hay barge? But another listen sounds like one of the greatest operas ever composed.But it's been hard to convince anybody else of that, especially not while they're listening to it. That is until now: this recording of A Village Romeo and Juliet conducted by Charles Mackerras has been able to convince other people that the opera really is great, at least while they're listening to it. Mackerras has created a nearly ideal opera recording, one to rival both Beecham's Bohème and Furtwängler's Tristan, a recording that realized both...
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