An envelope just arrived at my office containing not one but two recordings of Vivaldi's opera Tito Manlio, one on the Naïve label and one on cpo. The Naïve discs, with the Accademia Bizantina under Ottavio Dantone, are a studio recording. The cpo set, with the Modo Antico under Federico Maria Sardelli, derives from live performances at the Opera Barga Festival. It's time to reflect once again on the staggering prophetic powers of Norman Lebrecht, who predicted that the year 2004 would mark the end of the classical recording business, and on the eerie prescience of those who predicted that EMI's Tristan und Isolde last year would be the last-ever studio opera recording.
