Magna Grecia Abîmée dans le Gravier -- J.C. Bach's 'Temistocle' mounted at the Leipzig Oper by Les Talents Lyriques de Toulouse

Yet another sublime baroque (or early classical) opera--perfectly played, sung and acted--strangled in its cradle, made unlistenable, by the arrogant and heartless ignorance and presumption of its set designers (with the evident connivance of the director--and what does that tell us?)....

I wasn't able to find the score online, and read along with it, like I like to do; but, miraculously, I was able to find still photographs of the very production I was listening to--and I post them here because they show, plain as day, why, after a few minutes, I stopped listening at more than half volume to this incredibly significant, historically important, and intrinsically wonderfully beautiful opera. To quote from a review, dated the 24th of June 2005, signed (I think) by one Mehdi Mahdavi, in Altamusica, L'actualité de la musique classique:

"...la Perse japonisante [Bushido, don't you know--as like the patriotic honor of a Greek general as never mind...Oh, never mind] de Rifail Ajdarpasic et Ariane Isabell Unfried s'encombre malheureusement de détails superflus, d'autant que le gravier entournant le pavillon tournant de Serse ne cesse de crisser sous les pas et sous les roues, souvent au détriment de la musique...." Make that "incessament au détriment de la musique." Every goddamned note was swallowed in a susurrus of staticky gravel-noises. What it was like, acoustically speaking, was listening to an a.m. radio broadcast, in the bad old days before f.m., on the edge of transmission-range during an Aurora Borealis display. Lovely French word crisser; it means, just like it says in my online Larousse French dictionary, émettre un bruit grinçant, aigu et continu, plus ou moins fort et souvent désagréable. Exactly.