On the Anonymous Lover

James Conlon at the Hudson Review:

With the vanishing of the name goes the disappearance of the object, the slice of art, the fragment of literature, the portion of music. With the fading of the thing, so the name is gradually effaced from memory, and whatever there was becomes anonymous.

I have long taken a special interest in music by composers whose names and works have been virtually eliminated from history. LA Opera audiences know this well; the Recovered Voices series introduced them to a part of the extraordinary literature of works by composers whose music was banned and whose lives were disrupted—or worse—by the Third Reich.

Our presentation of The Anonymous Lover, by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, is a logical extension of that mission. The composer was born on a plantation on the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe.

more here.