Mad

CPO's latest CD featuring the Capella Orlandi brings together stage music by Gottfried Finger and John Eccles, who wrote songs for the famous English stage actress Anne Bracegirdle. At the end of the seventeenth century England's theatrical world was shaped by the defensive stance of traditionalists toward influences from the Italian opera and the magnificence radiating from the French court. The English counterproposal, the 'English opera', was a combination of 'heroic plays' with musical inserts ranging from individual songs, as were performed during Shakespeare's time, to 'all-sung masques', miniature operas with pastoral content. The Mad Lover is a good example of the English opera. On this recording song inserts from other masques are added to this comedy by John Fletcher from 1647. Anne Bracegirdle was so very successful with compositions by John Eccles that she later exclusively sang works by him.

is an American humor magazine founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines in 1952. The last surviving title from the notorious and critically acclaimed EC Comics line (Mad began as a comic book published by EC, debuting in August 1952 with cover-date October-November), the magazine offers satire on all aspects of American life and pop culture, politics, entertainment, and public figures. Its format is divided into a number of recurring segments such as TV and movie parodies, as well as free form articles. Mad's mascot, Alfred E. Neuman, is typically the focal point of the magazine's cover, with his face often replacing a celebrity or character that is lampooned within the issue. --