John Smyth asks:

>Has anyone had a chance to hear "Joseph's Legende," with Sinopoli and the
>Dresden? Besides opinions on the performance, I would also like opinions
>about the recording and audience presence, as it was a live recording.

Not with Sinopoli.  I have the Kempe recording.  I love Strauss, but, to
put it charitably, this work should be decently buried.  Strauss himself
was disappointed in it.  He was bullied into writing it by Hofmannsthal,
who, characteristically, berated him for not achieving the grandeur of his
conception (although the libretto is actually credited to one Count Harry
Kessler, Hofmannsthal dictated it from beginning to end).  The libretto's
a late 19th-century s&m kitschfest of decadence (a la Wilde's Salome and
Swinburne's Atalanta in Calydon).  Neither Hofmannsthal's finest moment
nor, as it turns out, Strauss's.  Del Mar finds it weak.  It's probably
best known for sparking a furious exchange between Ernest Newman and George
Bernard Shaw - Newman saying the work bit, and Shaw giving the "Am I not
Sophocles" defense.  Newman comes off better than Shaw.

Steve Schwartz