I am late coming to your penetrating, lively opera reviews, not having encountered them until I tried to -- did -- a few of my own on Amazon, geezer memories, as it were, based on my post-college time living in Italy 60-plus years ago, where (being well-connected) I made the acquaintance of some artists mentioned in your reviews of (mostly) 1950s-'60s recordings.
I was particularly struck today reading your reviews of verismo operas I'd managed to resist during a long lifetime of listening.(I'll certainly give Chenier a try after a half-century of non-exposure.) There, I found reference to the "mysterious" Lorenzo Molajoli and was puzzled by why you and referenced colleagues had never tried to consult any of the participants in his (Molajoli's) recording colleagues as to whether he was really Toscanini in disguise, among them Rosetta Pampanini and Dino Borgioli, the latter in fact, in residence as a teacher in London in the late '50s.
But to be fair (which I always am) I'm old -- and, you, clearly, are a good deal younger. I attended Borgioli's vocal master class at the University in Florence in 1956 (?). He wasn't much of a teacher, but was a most engaging, charming guy with, even at age 60 or so, the remains of a lovely lyric tenor.
Anyway, I do admire your work -- and am glad to have found the larger body oif your reviews you at this late date, a discovery that might not have been made under happier than these self-isolating circumstances.
((I may have referenced you -- don't have the patience to check now -- in my Amazon reviews of Falstaff (Mario Rossi), Otello (Erede/Tokyo), Simon Boccanegra (Gavazzeni/Salzburg)).
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