Sometimes bel canto is just what you need. Sometimes you don’t need a massive orchestra or sophisticated accompaniment. Sometimes you just need a nice tune. When all you need is a nice tune, bel canto delivers big time. I find that in listening to opera, sometimes I really care about the story, and sometimes I really don’t care at all. In this case, I don’t really care about the story.
Glad to be listening with you.
There are really so many different ways to listen to music. I don’t think any two people hear the same recording quite the same way. I listen as though each recording is as huge and intricate and contains as much to discover as a planet. Each recording is a planet full of oceans and mountains and all kinds of landscapes. A good recording encapsulates the same sort of landscapes, except that rather than traversing them with the body, they are explored with the mind and the ear. This makes it impossible to listen to a recording only once. This would be like going to Paris for the first time and only being allowed to stay one night. You have to listen to a recording many times to really hear it; to really let yourself sink into it and travel to that other place that lies somewhere in the far corner of the imagination. That way you get all of the shades that seperate one composer or performer from another. I have heard the expression “God is in the details”. I definitely think what some people would call details are what make a good performance.
