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It is imposable to live in Boston…and particularly since I installed that large directional rotatable antenna on my roof and able to get everything high quality from Rhode Island to New Hampshire. The only problems that I see… is the hard drive space. Now, I am at 370GB space used and it keeps growing. Do you remember a week or two ago I wrote an article about my vinyl setups? Since then I did not even turn it on and was running my FM and Lavry’s recoding gear….

This weekend has been wonderful. 

Saturday morning I eventually found strength to sit down and to listen to a treat of a life-time. I have guy who owns a stunning live recording of Kurt Masur’ with Chicago SO performing Shostakovich’s Fifth in June 1988. This recoding never was made available in any media format but it is absolutely the best and the most shocking Shostakovich’s Fifth that I ever herd (among probably 3-4 dozens). Over the course of couple year I was trying my guy to make a copy of this recording to be more or less acceptable quality but he never did. Eventually I did convinced him and this week I received the first and the only raw transfer, no processing and no editing, from the original open reel aircheck tape. (I even sent him my UltraDisk CDRs) Wow!!! Eventually I got THIS performance of the performances at the level of quality that I feel it deserves! I listened all 4 movements (it is live and there are no breaks in there) and then one more time the last movement. What the shame that this performance never seen wide public! What is in the head of the Morons who keep publish the countless Shostakovich’s Fifth that sound like wet dog….

On Saturday after lunch the WHRB’s Metropolitan’s live broadcast of Massenet’s Manon with Renée Fleming,  Massimo Giordano, Jean-Luc Chaignaud, Julien Robbins conducted by Jesús López-Cobos. It was not great performances but some moments were very good. Not to mention the always phenomenal post-MET WHRB’s program. It was told that MET live broadcast is herd by 11.000.000 radios listeners around the world. Well, the WHRB’s post-MET program is way more interesting that the MET broadcast themselves and it is available live on internet for the folks who do not have a privilege to live in Boston. The next Saturday, April 15 it will be Donizetti’s Don Pasquale with Netrebko. Tune on the Internet after the MET’s broadcast (from 1.30PM to ~4.30PM) and you might share my excitement about having the WHRB in town.

http://www.whrb.org/

Today, on Sunday WGBH broadcasts live from my local Shubert Theatre Boston Lyric Opera's production of Verdi's La Traviata. I’m not a big fan of the Boston Lyric orchestras and the cast that they bring to the production. They seldom deliver a performance that I like and I. Although do record them frequently, but I practically never keep those recordings.  However, the quality of the local “live” broadcasts is nothing short of stunning. The Shubert Theatre is in a way small theatre with very comfortable stage for a pair of microphones. The local lives broadcasts are not the same as frequently with compression MET’s broadcast and not the same as US’s or European’s delayed syndicated broadcasts. The local “live” have zero compressions and the sound that I am getting in room is absolutely the best sound or redaction that I can get from any media. It is worth for any audio person to hear any complex chorus peace live broadcasted (or recorded on Larvy) from Shubert Theatre in order to get a reference how sound REPRODUCTION might be. What is particularly funny audio-wise is to hear the none-compressed Verdi via an amplifier with 6E5P as a driver. The Verdi’s change of tempos and dynamic is a beautiful match for the 6E5P’s “dynamic viscosity” and “own dynamic brain” and the 6E5P-armed Milq does real wonder with the Shubert Theatre’s sound.

http://www.wgbh.org/classical/

Tonight, Sunday evening is another fantastic treat from WHRB. It will be the much discussed Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde with Domingo, Stemme, Fujimura, Pape, Bär, Holt, with Pappano leading the Orchestra and Chorus of the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. This broadcast will be from EMI disck and from what I head it was very very very seriously recorded and performed. I never heard this performance and am very much look forward to hear and to record it.

Live in Boston? Where did you see life?
Romy the Cat

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