I chose to call this opera blog and the others a "Gazetteer". The term refers to a "geographical dictionary" though in my definition it's a little bit more like an encyclopedia.
The word is an English corruption of gazettier, forged in eighteenth century France by L. Echard when he wrote his geographical dictionary. It came from the Venetian gazeta, a coin to by a gazetta or newspaper.
The original word -gaza- was carried long time ago by the Greeks across the Hellespont and is Persian in origin, meaning "royal treasure" (Webster's New World Dictionary, Random House, NY, 1988). The Gazetteer is thus, a labyrinth full of hidden treasure. It's geographical in nature because it moves from topic to topic, from Mozart to Puccini, from Baroque to Romantic, from a song to a libretto, like a traveler crossing a border, a river, or even an ocean. Finally it's also like the Venetian gazeta or gazette, a kind of newspaper...a blog, wouldn't you say?
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