In Brief

Here is your regular Sunday dosage of interesting items, from Blogville and beyond:

• Jessica Duchen has published an article about just what exactly an authentic performance of Handel's Messiah is. Do conductors and audience members have "Messianic delusions," as she her headline puts it? [The Independent]
  
• As reported all over the place, Roberto Alagna was booed off the stage of La Scala this weekend. However, Giorgia Meschini had by far the best take on the story, by transforming it into a hilarious comic strip ("Panico alla Scala!!!"), with pictures from the opera house and Photoshopped (Italian) text balloons. My favorite is when Alagna, a French speaker, says "parbleu," a word that instantly marks someone as French in a comic book, even though I have never heard a French person actually say it. [No guru, no method, no teacher]
  
• La Cieca surprises many and comes down in support of Alagna in LaScalaGate2006. It is a well-reasoned argument. [parterre box]
  
• Steve Hicken quotes a recipe for "Eggs Carter" in honor of Elliot Carter's 98th birthday. [listen.]
  
• Glimmerglass will mount the first American production of Wagner's little-known opera Das Liebesverbot. [AP]
  
• Having spent some time doing extra work as an editor and proofreader, this comic from Geist, Lesser-Known Editing and Proofreading Marks, made me smile. This was pointed out by a favorite read, an always informative and entertaining, if slightly esoteric blog. [languagehat]
  
• Bob Shingleton has a longish review of a new book about, or rather not about, the closeted skeletons in the House of Wagner. [On an Overgrown Path]
  
• As predicted in some quarters, WETA's board has officially admitted that it will consider switching back from an all-news format to classical music, if WGMS goes to a sports format. If WETA does go back to classical music, I pledge to make nothing but overjoyed statements here, no smug "I-told-you-so" triumphalism. Promise. WETA, not only will you be making Ionarts happy, but the NEA will get off your back, too. [Washington Post]
  
• On a list of the Top 51 Classical Music Blogs, compiled by Scott Spiegelberg, Ionarts comes in at #4. Watch out, Alex Ross (#1), Sequenza 21 (#2), and On an Overgrown Path (#3): you are in our crosshairs. [Musical Perceptions]