What a long, strange trip it's been -- (Robert Hunter)
- Thread starter Baldr
- Start date
AudioBear
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2007
- Posts
- 1,656
- Likes
- 1,021
OK, I'm interested. Where's the news? Mike?
bosiemoncrieff
Headphoneus Supremus
Just got out of Fidelio.
What a strange, silly opera. First: the libretto is the work of a remarkably incompetent librettist. The most that can be said for it is that it's in and out in 2.5 hours including intermission. The heroes are wholly good; the villains mustache-twirling and ultimately blank. As vile as Alberich or Hagen is, you have no doubt Wagner understood them down to the bones. The plot is poorly conceived. The first duet with the mezzo and her suitor is completely irrelevant to the remainder of the opera. She is an extraneous character. The exposition, so to speak, in no way prepares the listener for the conflict. There is no rising action. The conflict is introduced and simmers at the same emotional level until suddenly we have a climax where Fidelio throws off her costume and Pizarro's boss arrives. There are no difficult decisions—no 'vissi d'arte', no Wotan having to kill his offspring, no Brunnhilde deciding Beschlossen ist's; das Schlachtloos wend' ich ; dir, Siegmund, schaff ich Segen und Sieg ! in violation of her father's edict — or not to return the ring when Waltraute begs her to in act 1 of Götterdämmerung (or Siegfried at the start of act 3).
It feels strangely like an oratorio to freedom. Like Haydn's Creation. A prefiguring of the Ninth Symphony in another medium. I enjoyed the contemporary sets and costumes, but so much of the stage action was absurd that I cackled with laughter more than once. The little dancing that the freed prisoners do with the women's chorus at the finale ultimo just looked so out of place. There was no struggle—they didn't earn their campy folk dancing. It was cigarettes without the coitus.
But the music.
Schiit.
On music alone, it approaches Tristan and Parsifal. It equals Otello. Either act exceeds the whole corpus of Puccini, Rossini, Donizetti—the whole history of French opera from beginning to end. I have the same feeling that I had for Idomeneo but much more intensely. Why couldn't Beeethoven find a competent librettist to give him a text worthy of his music? Surely Goethe could have translated Measure for Measure for him. Lear may have been too complicated for poor Ludwig—certainly too dark—whose intellect had relatively little to offer beyond boilerplate encomiums to freedom and brotherhood. And, for all its faults, that's what he gives us over and over again. Fidelio. The Missa. The Ninth. We should relocate the opera to the symphony hall. It would be better appreciated without the stage action. In concert its faults are masked and its virtues made as plain as possible. It may not be what Beethoven had imagined, but it is what he ought to have.
What a strange, silly opera. First: the libretto is the work of a remarkably incompetent librettist. The most that can be said for it is that it's in and out in 2.5 hours including intermission. The heroes are wholly good; the villains mustache-twirling and ultimately blank. As vile as Alberich or Hagen is, you have no doubt Wagner understood them down to the bones. The plot is poorly conceived. The first duet with the mezzo and her suitor is completely irrelevant to the remainder of the opera. She is an extraneous character. The exposition, so to speak, in no way prepares the listener for the conflict. There is no rising action. The conflict is introduced and simmers at the same emotional level until suddenly we have a climax where Fidelio throws off her costume and Pizarro's boss arrives. There are no difficult decisions—no 'vissi d'arte', no Wotan having to kill his offspring, no Brunnhilde deciding Beschlossen ist's; das Schlachtloos wend' ich ; dir, Siegmund, schaff ich Segen und Sieg ! in violation of her father's edict — or not to return the ring when Waltraute begs her to in act 1 of Götterdämmerung (or Siegfried at the start of act 3).
It feels strangely like an oratorio to freedom. Like Haydn's Creation. A prefiguring of the Ninth Symphony in another medium. I enjoyed the contemporary sets and costumes, but so much of the stage action was absurd that I cackled with laughter more than once. The little dancing that the freed prisoners do with the women's chorus at the finale ultimo just looked so out of place. There was no struggle—they didn't earn their campy folk dancing. It was cigarettes without the coitus.
But the music.
Schiit.
On music alone, it approaches Tristan and Parsifal. It equals Otello. Either act exceeds the whole corpus of Puccini, Rossini, Donizetti—the whole history of French opera from beginning to end. I have the same feeling that I had for Idomeneo but much more intensely. Why couldn't Beeethoven find a competent librettist to give him a text worthy of his music? Surely Goethe could have translated Measure for Measure for him. Lear may have been too complicated for poor Ludwig—certainly too dark—whose intellect had relatively little to offer beyond boilerplate encomiums to freedom and brotherhood. And, for all its faults, that's what he gives us over and over again. Fidelio. The Missa. The Ninth. We should relocate the opera to the symphony hall. It would be better appreciated without the stage action. In concert its faults are masked and its virtues made as plain as possible. It may not be what Beethoven had imagined, but it is what he ought to have.
Baldr
Sponsor: Schiit Audio
- Joined
- May 14, 2011
- Posts
- 943
- Likes
- 7,513
So the play went up and I can now relax after taking a night off with only a bit of writing yesterday, I am glad to be back here for a bit of catchup.
It seems that the MP coasts, then lurches along as Ivana needed to rewrite certain portions of the code to evade some library hassles. The good news is that not only does it sound even better, but it takes up even less overhead in the processor. The bad news is that it has 4x the latency which she has brought down from 10x. On and on. The first version is looking like a fall project.
I have spent some time recently nagging the PCB house with respect to my next project for which we now have metal and are expecting first articles on the assembled boards in 10 days or so. Barring any disasters, it should be 4-6 weeks to up on the Schiitsite. Normally, the products are named by Jason. An exception was Cthulu, named by myself given the resemblance. My next project name was picked by me from a list of likely candidates hand selected by Jason: It shall be the Schiit Eatr, which is pronounced exactly as you suspect. Coming in a few weeks to a meet near you, although we will have one concealed at the next CanJam.
It seems that the MP coasts, then lurches along as Ivana needed to rewrite certain portions of the code to evade some library hassles. The good news is that not only does it sound even better, but it takes up even less overhead in the processor. The bad news is that it has 4x the latency which she has brought down from 10x. On and on. The first version is looking like a fall project.
I have spent some time recently nagging the PCB house with respect to my next project for which we now have metal and are expecting first articles on the assembled boards in 10 days or so. Barring any disasters, it should be 4-6 weeks to up on the Schiitsite. Normally, the products are named by Jason. An exception was Cthulu, named by myself given the resemblance. My next project name was picked by me from a list of likely candidates hand selected by Jason: It shall be the Schiit Eatr, which is pronounced exactly as you suspect. Coming in a few weeks to a meet near you, although we will have one concealed at the next CanJam.
ColtMrFire
1000+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- May 30, 2010
- Posts
- 1,351
- Likes
- 392
Pietro Cozzi Tinin
Headphoneus Supremus
Just as I said earlier on.
A decrapifier/reclocker.
A decrapifier/reclocker.
Pietro Cozzi Tinin
Headphoneus Supremus
For USB we have the Wyrd.
So I guess s/pdif only
So I guess s/pdif only
Pietro Cozzi Tinin
Headphoneus Supremus
It will be very hard to compete with the ifi:
http://ifi-audio.com/portfolio-view/accessory-spdif-ipurifier/
Does extremely good work and at 165,- does not break the bank.
I use it between a CD-transport and my DAC
http://ifi-audio.com/portfolio-view/accessory-spdif-ipurifier/
Does extremely good work and at 165,- does not break the bank.
I use it between a CD-transport and my DAC
Pietro Cozzi Tinin
Headphoneus Supremus
Let's go to a real opera forum for that discussion.
This is not the place to expose small nuts and tell everyone they're big.
The EATR may be a step-up from the WYRD, or may even cannibalise it...a combined USB/SPDIF schiit eatr (or isolation device) would be different... I don't recall seeing many combined solutions...it's been either one or the other.
Users who are viewing this thread
