Benjamin's "Written on Skin"

[listener]

available on line
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b02yjj2m

[bhodges]

Thanks so much for this! I have read so much about this - they're doing a concert version at Tanglewood in a few weeks - but still have not heard it yet. Have already forwarded the link to a few friends who are also interested.

--Bruce

[lescamil]

This will be on BBC Radio 4 on Friday, and it will hopefully be posted here online on the iPlayer for us all to watch later: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b033cf7v

You need to be in the UK (or use a proxy) to watch it, I think.

[listener]

found it on CD, possibly at other sources too
http://www.clicmusique.com/advanced_search_result.php?search_in_description=0&keywords=Written+on+Skin&manufacturers_id=&osCsid=33a6d603019de20d7e71f0e2a0712c5c&x=17&y=3
yea, amazon.uk can supply and not too expensively for a 2-disc set
[asin]B009VECK8Q[/asin]

[bhodges]

found it on CD, possibly at other sources too
http://www.clicmusique.com/advanced_search_result.php?search_in_description=0&keywords=Written+on+Skin&manufacturers_id=&osCsid=33a6d603019de20d7e71f0e2a0712c5c&x=17&y=3
yea, amazon.uk can supply and not too expensively for a 2-disc set
[asin]B009VECK8Q[/asin]

Fantastic, thanks for this info. PS, Barbara Hannigan is a wonder, as both singer and actress; I have heard her in Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre and Mysteries of the Macabre, and it's difficult to imagine anyone better.

--Bruce

[knight66]

I watched this on the BBC and the performance really was marvellous. But i don't get along with the piece. It has been labeled a masterpiece, but i must be frankly old fashioned. It is of the school of sung play and what I look for in Opera is something that allows the voice space to expand and fly. I am completely sick of new operas that only allow for momentary fragmented melody. Here we have returned to the yards of dry secco recit and this piece feels like any and all arias were cut from it as self indulgence.

As so often, the focus is now on dialogue and moving the story forward. Why though are composers to reluctant to provide a flowering of melody? It is music, not an arid desert we are encountering.

Mike