Don and on.(Looking Back)

I've been building my DVD collection and adding visual software to my modest collection. I've periodically weeded out my recordings because of reduced space or especially predatory beasts. When I cast my mind back over my various collections of recorded music and speech, I am conflicted with joy and sorrow over treasures lost and recalled to mind.

Forty-some years ago, I picked up a wonderful recording of Mozart's Don Giovanni on London vinyl. It was conducted by Wilhelm Furtwangler and had Cesare Siepi singing the title role. I quickly came to love it. Using a variety of turntables and styli, I had listened to it from coast to coast. I found myself acquiring more copies of the Don. Eventually, as I planned to move from the Pacific shores to the heartland, I decided to cull my collection of discs and full of I decided to bestow my original copy of the Don to a community of nuns called the Daughters of Jesus. I might have been thinking of a tax deduction and they seemed likely to enjoy the recoding.

I'd mentioned to my wife that I was planning to reduce my collection of discs. Since I had at least two recordings of this Mozart opera, reducing that to one was sensible.

Having been married for a relatively brief period of time, I assumed that my bride would tell me if she had a problem with my action. One learns about such matters eventually. There were periodic references to Siepi as a superb Don but I did not take these as terribly serious. When I finally got the message, it was too late and the recording was out of the catalog. I was careful not to give any other recordings away and I tried harder to understand my wife and her tastes in opera. (Italians are born with the genes of musical critics.)

I tried hard never to reference the absence of that recording from our goods and chattel. Recently while browsing in our local Barnes and Noble, I saw a DVD of Don Giovanni in two acts with Siepi and most of the original cast along with Furtwangler conducting. I realized that I could make points with my bride of some 40+ years so I purchased it.

I don't know why I was surprised to find that the disc included a visual performance along with the music as in 1955 such things were rare. I realized almost immediately that the music had a precision and shape that was typical of Furtwangler's conducting. In effect, it sang before the singers were involved. The visuals were sedate and generally in pastels. One didn't need any flash given the tone of the piece.

The sets were part of the cliff face in the Salzburg venue and made for a flowing production which is easy to follow. The action on the stage was classic in ...