FRANCO FAGIOLI

You hear that "dueling banjos" business between Fagioli and the trumpet?!  Sweet fucking Jesus!  A long time ago--46 years ago--I sat in the Spokane public library and read through a similar contest between the divinely gifted and inspired "Caffarelli" (born to fortune, he had himself castrated at the age of 10) and a trumpet of equal range and agility, which, it was universally acknowledged, Caffarelli won hands down, on all counts, including absolute loudness.

So anyway, my other Diva Assoluta, Cecilia Bartoli, still in possession of her voice and all her faculties (including the most spectacular, and most profound baroque/bel canto scholarship of this age or any other), has taken Sr. Fagioli and several other great artists, both instrumentalists and singers, unto her ample bosom, and produced the 'Stabat Mater' of Steffanni (arguably, the greatest composer who ever lived).  Imagine.  I have never heard it.  Ma non vedo l'ora.