Charles Moyer wrote, << All of this brings me to comment on your stated choice of music as an uplifter of the soul. I also love the Beethoven Quartets esp. the later ones. They seem to have a depth and confidence that simplifies and distills even the most essential. And of Mozart operas "The Magic Flute" is my favorite. Someone could make a comparison with Papageno, lock on mouth,to Pound's Ouan Jin's mouth being erased in the Pisan Cantos , both being a necessary condition to save the life of the written text or word. Or as Rabate says in his book, "The per-fection of the Word requires the disappearance of the subject who utters it." p.148. In other words the poet as demi-god must save the Word by his own self-sacrifice. "tempus tacendi"? He may have been anticipating his defense in court also. But I would bet "Don Giovanni" is your favorite. Am I right? I must relate a story about a performance of this opera. As you know the rake must atone in the end. So in the last scene he descends into hell. At this particular performance the elevator platform stuck at the point when he was only half-way down leaving his head and upper torso still revealed. So he was brought up again and the descent was reattempted only to fail once again.Whereupon a member of the audience exclaimed for all to hear, "How wonderful, Hell is full." >> I have been listening to and studying Don Giovanni over the past several months. It is not my favorite YET, but it may very well turn out to be. Tastes change and develop. My favorite Mozart opera has for the longest time been The Magic Flute ( I especially like the Ingmar Bergman film version, which might repel some purists because of the Swedish text). The direction and cinematography are unsurpassed. Recently I have become acquainted with the Peter Sellars versions of the Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni. Right now, my favorite Mozart opera is the Marriage of Figaro, in part because of the magnificence of Peter Sellars direction. Wonderful anecdote about Don Giovanni! -----Wei ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com