Word: aida
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...opera, the most passionate and passionately debated musical form, the myth of the golden age remains potent. If opera is primarily about singing-sheer, glorious vocalism over all other elements-then these may be parlous times. Where today is a real Aida on the order of Emmy Destinn, an echt Siegfried like Lauritz Melchior or a true Norma such as Rosa Ponselle? In the Arcadian past, there were giants on the earth. How can contemporary opera possibly compete with its starry past...
WITH THE GROUNDWORK thus laid out. Herzog sends Kinski and his crew up the river. They chug in a rickety steamship chiristened the Molly-Aida--a name which contains the symbolic kernel of film. The yoking of Molly (Claudia Cordinate), a brothel madame, and Fitzearruldo's mistress, and Verdi's opera is a neon sign for the Juxtapostio of Prostitution and Art. It's Imperialism and the Musc, strolling in hand up into the old Heart of Darkness. Unfortuantely, this potentialty interesting irony is crushed by the film's mass. P>Early in journey upstream. Herzog achieves one scene...
...ship is indeed dragged across the land with help him the Indians who, having stepped out from behind their ominuos drumbeat, trurn to be disappointingly sullen rather than mysterious. For at least a half hour they pull the creaking ship through the slimy mud. By the time Molly-Aida gets to the other side. we,ve seen so much sweat and struggle that the achievementseem the inevitable trumph of enough muscle, rather than the culmination of a mythic journey...
Mitchell's triumph has come just in time. In any generation, the number of sopranos who can superbly handle the most demanding dramatic roles in the Italian repertory (Verdi's Leonora or Aida, Puccini's Tosca or Madama Butterfly) is always small; these days it is minuscule. Montserrat Caballe, 49, has the right combination of fire and ice to make for a memorable Tosca, for example, but she often cancels performances. Price, 55, still makes occasional forays into what was once her strongest territory, but she wisely no longer sings as frequently as she once did. Enter...
...singers. Her father, a Pentecostal minister, played a number of instruments by ear, and her mother, a nurse, was also a pianist. Leona inherited their musical gifts, singing in the church choir and dabbling with the violin. As a senior in high school, she once learned an aria from Aida by rote, since she could not read music. To please a teacher, she auditioned for the music department at Oklahoma City University; to her astonishment, she was offered a full scholarship. In those days, she recalls, "I thought Moon River was serious music. Honey, when you're from Enid...