Simply Verona

The tradition of presenting operas in the Arena of Verona was inaugurated by Aida when it was performed there in 1913. The wide-open spaces of this opera-the blue skies and fragrant forests of Ethiopia, the starry nights on the Nile-and its picture of Egypt's ancient civilisation found their ideal setting in the grandeur of this centuries-old Roman amphitheatre and in the open air of Verona's summer nights.

Since (at least) the Greeks, humorists, moralists and satirists have been fascinated by the artistic game of inversion, of “the world turned upside down”, which is how one might translate the title of this largely forgotten opera by Salieri. It here gets its first ever recording. Present an image of society turned on its head and you enable your audience/reader/viewer to see the actual way of things in a whole new light. Your aims may be to expose the follies and errors of the actual, to propose a better way of doing things, or simply to get some laughs from the resulting improbabilities and surprises - or, of course, a mixture of all these motives and more.

Paolo Conte - Arena di verona [Live]
Italian singer/songwriters | 2 CD | All Covers | MP3 VBR ~ 226 Kbps | 187 MB
Genre: Jazz-Pop | 1h 35m 57s | 2005

Biography by Mariano Prunes
One of the most idiosyncratic, charismatic, and internationally successful Italian singer/songwriters of the past four decades, Paolo Conte created his own unique style, combining a love for jazz and music hall together with a weary yet sympathetic and humorous understanding of human foibles. Born to a well-to-do Asti (Piedmont, Italy) family in 1937, Conte began to learn the piano at an early age, together with his younger brother Giorgio Conte — who would also become a famous songwriter in his own right — at the insistence of their father, a distinguished notary but also a passionate jazz amateur. Following in the family's footsteps, Conte became a lawyer and practiced the profession until well into his thirties. Contemporaneously, he played the vibraphone in several local jazz bands.

When slacker thirtysomething couple Burt (John Krasinski) and Verona (Maya Rudolph) discover that his parents are moving overseas, the duo – who expect their first child in a few months – set off on a cross-country tour to figure out where they should lay down some roots in Sam Mendes' poignant comedy Away We Go. They visit a number of different cities, and meet with a different friend or family member's family at each stop. Their hosts include a set of emotionally detached parents (Allison Janney and Jim Gaffigan), a pair of overprotective new-age parents (Maggie Gyllenhaal and Josh Hamilton), and old college pals (Chris Messina and Melanie Lynskey), who have adopted a number of kids. Novelist Dave Eggers wrote the script with Vendela Vida.

Manuscript number Mus. Ms. 31528 of the British Library, London, is a collection of 46 undated works for violoncello. Of these at least 30 are autograph works from Giuseppe Dall’Abaco (a mix of solo sonatas with basso continuo, 2 virtuoso cello duos, as well as 1 ‘Duetto’ of debatable provenance) including his unpublished „Op.1“ (XII Sonate | Per il Violoncello, e Basso | Del Sig. Giuseppe Barone | Dall’Abaco). The very high quality script, along with the appearance of bass figures at critical moments, strongly suggests that this set of pieces was in preparation for publication. The manuscripts of the remaining 18 sonatas are not so carefully prepared, including scribbled revisions, and are in need of some final corrections. Furthermore, the bass line appears almost entirely without figures, leaving ambiguity as to which instrument(s) would have made up the continuo section.