jmc's classics
Today is the anniversary of the Death of Italian composer Alessandro Stradella in 1682. he was murdered for running off with the mistress of a venetian nobleman. He had embezzled money from the Catholic Church.
There were a number of operas and plays based on his life. The most famous one is that of Federich von Flotow (1812-1883). Flotow was a German. This opera is not popular right now. Flotow's most famous work is Martha which also is not popular. However several recordings of Martha are available at the present time. There have been several attempts to revive it in recent years. The most notable is that of the Wexford Operas Festival in Ireland in 2001. At the present time I can't find any recordings of this work. However there are some recordings of individual arias of this work. In the past, I have seen one complete recording of this work but not at the present time. There is a better fate for Martha. On Arkiv Music there are four recordings of this work available. As well as some individual recordings of some of the arias. It was featured in the 1943 version of Phantom of the Opera with Nelson Eddy and Claude Rains. It also featured music from I Pagliacci by Rugerio Leoncavallo (1857-1919). I personally like this movie. It is not as gory as the book of the same name and other versions of Phantom of the opera. It does snot have a lot of the same story lines of the story and the Broadway version. I do like this movie. I also like a lot of the movies from this time. I hope that in the near future both works become more popular and are revived. Martha is one of my favorite operas. I have a copy of the 1944 version with the Berlin Staaktskapelle conducted by Johannes Schuler. This recording is stillavailable
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