In Brief: Ninth Day of Christmas Edition

Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to good things in Blogville and Beyond.

• I do love Pelléas et Mélisande and caught some of the performances of the Met's recent production on my Sirius player: judging from what I heard -- Finley! Kožená! Rattle in the pit! -- I really wish I could have been in the house for one of them. Maury d'Annato was. [Parterre Box]


• Watch Simon Rattle's interview last month on Charlie Rose. [Charlie Rose]


• Denis Dutton, the founder of the indispensable Web site Arts and Letters Daily -- a big inspiration behind the founding of this site -- died this week. [Huffington Post]


• Ionarts favorite Maurizio Pollini is known for a demanding precision: he threatened to cancel a 1983 concert at the Barbican Hall in London "because of its notoriously poor acoustics," a complaint that ultimately triggered attempts to improve the venue's sound. [The Guardian]


• Tyler Cowen responds to a request for what recordings to buy as an introduction to classical music, on a budget of $100. I would probably include at least one opera on DVD in there. Anyone want to make their own introductory package? [Marginal Revolution]


• Manuel Legris, former étoile of the Opéra de Paris, took up the directorship of the Vienna State Opera Ballet last August. Ariane Bavelier has some thoughts on how it has gone so far. [Le Figaro]


• The French are raising money to restore and preserve the house where Napoleon lived during his exile on the island of Saint-Hélène, which remains a French territory. See some pictures of the place in this video. [TF1]