Oh — P.S.! (Or Pre-S.!) Happy birthday, Mozart! (Er, technically that was a few hours ago — Jan 27.) Here’s a luscious bit of K.387, recently recorded by the Franklin Quartet.

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The first opera I ever saw was a traveling company’s production of La Traviata, in Wright Auditorium in Greenville, North Carolina, when I was about ten. At intermission, my dad (a pulmonologist), told me what was wrong with Violetta (tuberculosis probably) and hinted that she wouldn’t make it through the end of the evening (indeed she didn’t). It was the saddest show I’d ever seen. And some of the most beautiful music. For about a year after that, I would every night program the same eight or nine tracks of my parents’ Traviata album (DG, Kleiber with Cotrubas/Domingo/Milnes) into a little cd boombox, volume down low. I still remember part of that series: 1, 2, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 (I always programmed the same set: overture, a couple rollicking party numbers, and then skip the soggy stuff to get to the tragic duets in the second act). There’s just something about that music and story that got to me, and still does. Last week I got to see Willy Decker’s new “lone red dress” production at the Met (and, of course, I cried right around track 16). This show is gorgeous. It’s great to have a set and staging that are assertive without being overbearing. Like a strong, solid frame, without the tacky embroidered genre scene. I’ll leave it there. Sob. Joy.

[Here's an ambient clip from the 66th St subway platform last week, featuring Germont's "De Provenza il mar" and Violetta's "Sempre libera".]

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Every night at the 66th Street Lincoln Center subway stop, there’s a musician who plays the themes of that evening’s shows — usually opera tunes, but I think he covers the Avery Fisher fare as well (does anyone remember hearing Ligeti’s Grand Macabre last spring?). It’s really impressive that he adjusts his set list every day, and I often wonder if anyone notices, or if concertgoers remembered the music they’d just heard well enough to recognize it played on a sax or flute. (I did this a couple evenings outside Covent Garden back in 2005, but only a couple of people recognized my awkward solo violin renditions of Ariadne auf Naxos. …Danny Boy raked in way more cash.)

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