Word: almavivas
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...Germany's Kleist Prize. But Hitler's rise to power aborted Horvath's career, and his reputation has | re-emerged only since the late 1960s. Figaro imagines the principal characters of Beaumarchais's 18th century farce The Marriage of Figaro thrust into a postrevolutionary modern world. Count Almaviva is a tyrant on the run, his wife a conniving businesswoman, the valet Figaro a nationalist longing to return to his newly free homeland, and his lady's-maid wife Susanna a loyalist clinging to the old social order...
...garret apartments that appeared, suffused with golden light, halfway up the back wall of the stage. This technical facility never overwhelmed the text. The finale, when Figaro (Tony Plana) returned to join the junta and declared that the real measure of progress would be if the life of Almaviva (Olek Krupa) was spared, was a simply staged moment of glowing humanity, edged with doubt about whether Figaro's decency would prevail...
DIED. George London, 64, commanding bass-baritone with a rich, dark-hued voice and the dramatic presence to convey the menace of Scarpia in La Tosca, the majesty of Wotan in The Ring and the elegance of Count Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro; after a long illness; in Armonk, N.Y. He found success quickly, with critically praised debuts at Europe's leading opera houses and New York City's Metropolitan. In 1960 he became the first American to sing Boris Godunov at Moscow's Bolshoi Theater. In 1967 a paralyzed vocal cord cut short his career; he turned...
...baritone to the part of Figaro, the mischievous valet who fears for his fiancee's faithfulness and suspects his master, the Count, of designs upon her. The finance, Susanna--sung by Eileen McNamara--complements him perfectly with a soaring soprano. In counterpoint to their stratagems and quarrels, the Count Almaviva (Mitchell C. Warren) and his wife (Elizabeth Walsh) accuse each other of infidelities, trap each other into admissions, and argue endlessly over the fate of the pageboy Cherubino, who adores the Countess...
WITH ALL the rushing around, the acting predictably deteriorates to stylization. Widened eyes and gaping mouths abound Dramatic moments or turning points often fall prey to a sort of lag time, as singers apparently realize several lines too late that they were supposed to change expression; Count Almaviva in Act III, for example, plunges into "Ah, My Joyous Heart Is Flying" with a touching show of grief left over from the previous recitation. The exception to the awkwardness is Hughes, who as Cherubino portrays first a lively teenage boy, then a boy masquerading as a girl, with limitless aplomb...