It's 25 Years Ago Today Since Maria Callas Died. There's a badly designed but well-intentioned and informative Italian website to commemorate the anniversary and there's the film Callas Forever, directed by one of her best friends (and the director of many of her most memorable operas, Franco Zefirelli. It premiered today. Mozart's Requiem was also played at the concert held in her honour tonight in Athens. I can't help thinking, though, that the Web is sorely lacking in resources about one of the greatest, most goosebump-provoking singers who ever lived. In fact, classical singers and classical music in general seem very (increasingly) badly served. Even the glorious Andante magazine, which I recently linked to, looks like it's disappeared...
posted by MiguelCardoso on Sep 16, 2002 - 21 comments

The Shot Chord Heard Round the World! On the morning of Nine Eleven 2002 at 8:46am, over 160 choirs across the world will sing Mozart's "Requiem" to metaphorically stand in for the thousands of voices silenced a year ago. Among all the ideas I've heard to commemorate this occasion, this one seems the most dignified, and least cringeworthy. They mentioned it on NPR's Morning Edition (caution: Real Audio file).
posted by ZachsMind on Sep 10, 2002 - 33 comments