This is da bomb!

Good morning (or evening or afternoon for my far-flung readers). How are you all today? Here the sun's breaking through the clouds, a Test match is being played 19 miles away (weather permitting), and I've received a pile of CDs in the post (I have a new card, but no PIN, so can only shop online for now).

What has Postman Pat brought me today? John Adams' Doctor Atomic Symphony and three CDs of Vaughan Williams: 'Sancta Civitas' and 'Dona nobis pacem' (VW was a cheerful agnostic or atheist and liberal to left - 'Sancta Civitas' is an interesting exploration of the fate of the soul while 'Dona Nobis Pacem' is a warning against war), Folksong Arrangements and Choral Folksong Arrangements (which also has some Holst). Normally my tastes are a little more modernist, but I've a soft spot for VW, and he's on the classical wing of the peace and socialism movement - folk songs were (like the 1960s) a way to demonstrated solidarity and to reconnect with culture unadulterated by bourgeois atomisation - though not always successfully. The Adams is a symphonic version of his latest opera, which follows Robert Oppenheimer as he builds the first nuclear weapon - I can't afford the actual opera recording yet, but it'll come.

Meanwhile, Steve Reich, when's Double Sextet being released? It won prizes ages ago and it still isn't commercially available. Boo!

Nessun bloody Dorma? You're having a laugh

Cynical Ben has been to the opera - Rufus Wainwright's supposed revival of the genre in particular - Prima Donna, and came back with mixed feelings. Despite not being able to spell 'apparently', he's got some really interesting things to say about it. Here's the pennyworth I added in the comments section of his piece.

I was really interested in what you'd make of this. I'm not a huge fan of Rufus Wainwright, but don't dislike his music either. I applaud his adventurousness, and think that the classical world could do with some new blood. But: a classical composer who thought he could wander into a record company's office, toss off some songs he made up on the tube and expect respect would be laughed at, so I'm not sure who thought getting Rufus in would be a good move. Whether you're an opera fan or not, it takes a lifetime to understand the genre's requirements, history and limitations - only then can you start to break the rules creatively, as Shakespeare points out in Sonnet 130. The same goes for pop music of course.

This thing about bringing tunes back betrays the lack of understanding behind the project. I like tunes. However, modernism in classical music posed the central question of how prettiness and order, which tunes represent - though not always the former - can reflect into a world of mechanisation, mass slaughter and so on: a world without direction in a sense. Composers turned to other ways to order their music, or to disorder. Pop music, with some exceptions (Scott Walker?), largely but not entirely turns away from examining and representing the philosophical and existential dilemmas. That's why contemporary classical music is more challenging and experimental than rock and pop: even Glass's Doctor Atomic, which is post-minimalist and melodic, is still experimental. If Wainwright thinks opera is or should be about tunes, he's actually writing a musical.

On the singing style - I absolutely loathe the exaggerated warbling style (coloratura, it's called). Thankfully, this German Romantic/post-Romantic style is very much on the way out, so it'll be safe to go back into the opera house. Finally, everyone - opera's only the preserve of the posh in the Anglophone world. In Italy, it's a lot cheaper than seeing a Serie A match and everybody goes.