Word: aria
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...Constancy (Melanie Adams), who yearns unrequited for Dr. Daly (Joel Martin), Vicar of Ploverleigh. Constancy and Dr. Daly very nearly dominate the entire evening and to no ill effect. Miss Adams has plenty of ham and an admirable voice, she can leer lasciviously and make a mock-tragic aria sound like decent Mozart. Joel Martin sang more clearly and yet with more spirit than most people speak...
Menotti has not had time within the framework of a television hour to develop either characters or unity of mood, has tailored his libretto to the limitations of the picture tube. But musically, the little opera is somewhat more successful. One aria, sung by Metropolitan Opera Soprano Judith Raskin, is lyrical and haunting; left alone in the corridor while her hus band, played by Baritone John Reardon, darts off on one of his searches, she sings I Shall Never, Never See My Home Again, the vocal highlight of the performance...
Menotti himself sums it up best: "In Labyrinth, I tried to see how unoperatic an opera could be. I defy all operatic traditions-for example, there's a hero who never sings an aria. In opera the score meditates upon the action-what moves you is the song of what is about to happen, or what happened. Here I have musical comment while things are still going...
...fashion--and where in this instance the combination resulted in twenty minutes of nonsense. Yet a recording exists in which that is not true: the record's particular overlapping of the tapes gives the noises a consistent texture and rhythm and its addition of Cage's soprano Aria above them puts the sound to a real artistic purpose, making their strange noises and enigmatic direction seem perfectly chosen for the piece. As in the Schoenberg Trio, unusual sonorities appear out of nowhere, yet seem very much in place...
Instead of booing, a packed house in Milan last week greeted Von Karajan with eloquent silence as he threaded his way through the orchestra. After the Che gelida manina aria, a few hisses mingled with the applause. Von Karajan's slightly Wagnerian notion of Puccini had the audience stunned at first, and La Scala's new second-act setting looked more like the Place de la Concorde than Boheme's little Left Bank square. Still, it was a gripping performance of a great opera, and Von Karajan was honored with 18 curtain calls. "Viva, Karajan!" and "Bravo...