Delos Diary

We are now on the verge of releasing two new CDs, both featuring wonderful music as well as suggesting social messages relevant to current news and today's interests.
The first, Anton Arensky's melodious one-act opera "Raffaello" (Raphael, in English), tells the story of the great Renaissance painter Raphael, who uses his mistress Fornarina as his model for a painting of the Madonna. An outraged cleric and patron, Cardinal Bibiena, condemns Raphael's morals and the painting even though he hasn't yet seen it. Upon the unveiling of the work of art he decides that its beauty transcends everthing else and gives Raphael, the painting, and the mistress his forgiveness and blessing.
This narrative seems strangely familiar in today's atmosphere of name calling and condemnation before facts are fully known.
To add to the piquancy of the work, Arensky composed the male role of Raphael to be sung by a female mezzo-soprano.
Our own glorious Marina Domashenko tackles the trouser role with gusto, and encores the short opera with an aria and six songs and romances also by Arensky. It's a star turn for her and something to look forward to for all of us.
The other recording to anticipate will be Behzad Ranjbaran's "Persian Trilogy", three symphonic poems based on stories from the ancient Persian saga "The Book of Kings" Shahnameh. Ranjbaran, the composer, born in Iran and long an American citizen, has retold three classic tales in a musical language, lush and romantic, eminently accessible to most music lovers. The nation of Persia, now modern Iran, both pre- and post-Islam, is as rich in art, literature, folklore and architecture as any other great civilization of the ancient world. This is something we must remember in our current difficulties with reality in the Middle East.
The dramatic orchestrations and the power of Behzad Ranjbaran's music comes through with maximum impact in performances by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by (another surprise) JoAnn Falletta, the distinguished American musician who made waves for many years with the Long Beach (California) Symphony and who actually commissioned one of the three works recorded.