Word: aria
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...masterminds have been prophesying a speedy decline for the sentimental operas of the late Giacomo Puccini. Sensible critics,*however, have often pointed out that, though they may be bathetic, Puccini's operas are masterpieces of musical stagecraft, shaped by one of the surest hands that ever penned an aria. Meanwhile Tosca, La Boheme, and Madame Butterfly have been played incessantly wherever opera is given. During his lifetime, Composer Puccini made a fortune from them-a rare feat for a composer of serious music-and today they are still tops on the list of operatic bestsellers...
...recognition as the special big-name artists. In proportion to the pleasure which they give, the individual members of the orchestra, particularly those of the wind choirs, seldom receive their due. To my mind, there is as much beauty in a fine clarinet or viola passage as in an aria performed by a good singer. And as for the horn, the "poetry and passion" of that glamorous instrument is equalled only by outstanding operatic tenors...
Howard Mumford Jones, professor of English, is lifting his baritone voice in song fairly often these days. As critical judgement and undergraduate amazement at his recent performance of an operatic aria, the "Miserere" from a well-known opera, is dying down, word comes that he has turned to more popular musical fare to entertain his classes...
Operatic Tenor Giovanni Martinelli is a gourmet. Day after a delicious late supper of crab meat, the 52-year-old singer felt somewhat queasy, but did not allow his feelings to interfere with his duty: a matinee of Aida at Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera. But in the famed aria "Celeste Aida," Martinelli began edging toward the wings, speeding up the aria's sluggish phrases. In the shadow of the wings he collapsed of indigestion. Next morning the New York Herald Tribune printed a column of Martinelli's hints on Italian food...
...serrated profile against John Boles's open-mouthed full face in a battle of closeups, throughout most of the film, Miss Swarthout's singing interludes come through in furtive fragments. Her repertory includes the Berceuse from Jocelyn while Boles and Barrymore play a ticktacktoe; the Habanera aria from Carmen, shot through with closeups of Actor Boles asleep; and Rimsky-Korsakov's Song of India, during which she finally manages to get the camera's undivided attention. Best-staged sequence in the film, however, is her singing with Boles of the duet from Don Giovanni...