Dear British Bass Matthew Rose, Esq.:
Thank you for making this year's Concerto di Capodanno memorable in a freaky/geeky way (but not as freaky as your zombie ghost in Verdi's Macbeth). I was in the audience of Auditorium di Milano the night of Monday, December 31, 2007 for the annual New Years performance of Beethoven's Symphony #9 in D minor, which Leonard Slatkin luckily fondled better than he did with last year's cursory grope, and you held it down.
I didn't care that much for your compatriots on the stage, although Orchestra Sinfonica e Coro Sinfonico di Milano Giuseppe Verdi was pretty good, and Slatkin washed the passages in an overall lightheartedness that took away any of the heavy, frightening, & thunderous readings that we've heard in the past from dead maestri. Götterfunken, indeed. That was pretty balls out.
Hugs,
*~*'OC'*~*`