microrobert
06-11-2013, 06:24 PM
X-Rays Reveal Lost Aria in 200-Year-Old Opera
http://media.tumblr.com/cfd58a890a98daefe21ff3ad4cb5f28e/tumblr_inline_mo8m1mIbYy1qz4rgp.jpg
Scientists have helped to restore Luigi Cherubini’s opera “Médée” to its original glory.
A lost aria, or solo song, from the piece, which Cherubini apparently smudged out in spite more than 200 years ago, has been revealed by x-ray scans.
Cherubini was an Italian composer who worked mostly in France and counted Ludwig van Beethoven among his contemporaries and admirers.
When Cherubini’s French-language opera “Médée” premiered in 1797, critics whined that the opera was too long, and as legend has it, the composer cut the piece by about 500 bars.
A shortened Italian translation of the opera became the dominant form of that opera into the 20th century. But today, many opera-goers and critics long to see “Médée” — which tells the wrenching Greek myth of Medea — as Cherubini first wrote it.
X-Rays Reveal Lost Aria in 200-Year-Old Opera | LiveScience (http://www.livescience.com/37339-x-rays-reveal-lost-cherubini-aria.html)
http://media.tumblr.com/cfd58a890a98daefe21ff3ad4cb5f28e/tumblr_inline_mo8m1mIbYy1qz4rgp.jpg
Scientists have helped to restore Luigi Cherubini’s opera “Médée” to its original glory.
A lost aria, or solo song, from the piece, which Cherubini apparently smudged out in spite more than 200 years ago, has been revealed by x-ray scans.
Cherubini was an Italian composer who worked mostly in France and counted Ludwig van Beethoven among his contemporaries and admirers.
When Cherubini’s French-language opera “Médée” premiered in 1797, critics whined that the opera was too long, and as legend has it, the composer cut the piece by about 500 bars.
A shortened Italian translation of the opera became the dominant form of that opera into the 20th century. But today, many opera-goers and critics long to see “Médée” — which tells the wrenching Greek myth of Medea — as Cherubini first wrote it.
X-Rays Reveal Lost Aria in 200-Year-Old Opera | LiveScience (http://www.livescience.com/37339-x-rays-reveal-lost-cherubini-aria.html)