A Night at the Opera
Astrophil & Stella (2021)

This delightful one opens with the naturally vanilla tinged, respectively sweet grass and labdanum, segueing as a gorgeous chewy number, polished slightly by gallery echoes, wormwood and bergamot, forming a buoyant bridge to a grand stage of tradition whereby leather moonlights as a tenor to a tobacco floral, soaring seamlessly to creamy cozy seats of woody comfort, creased in varying degrees of sawdust, tar and musk; one concluding as a swooning, powdery bouquet of yore that wears equally pretty and handsome... This Luca Maffei composition guilelessly references the Austrian barbershop classics of the day, Knize Ten, though most compatibly with the mentholated green tabac flower of Alt-Innsbruck, alongside blurred hints from the 90’s tobacco road of Dolce Gabbana and Dreamer... Surely, this is a neo-classical concerto that conjures select eras to the senses, one luxurious and dreamy. ‘A Night at the Opera’ is a fine outing indeed!