Word: arias
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...have to love opera to like Aria. In fact, knowledge of music drama may prove a liability in appreciating this anthology of ten short films by ten prominent directors, each one spitballing on themes from the opera repertory. If, however, you are a connoisseur of rock videos, with their images like Day- Glo wallpaper after a food fight, you will feel right at home. Watching three of the segments (based on hit songs from Un Ballo in Maschera, La Forza del Destino and Rigoletto), purists could sneer at Aria as MTV -- Movies Trash Verdi. But Producer Don Boyd...
...irresistible tale of the scheming Chichikov (the splendid high baritone Igor Morozov), who would "buy" dead serfs in order to build a bogus prosperity on their collateral, holds the stage splendidly. The handsome duplex set by Designer Valery Levental is a sky- above, mudslinging-below construct. But beyond the "aria portraits" that graphically limn each of the principal characters, Dead Souls contains every cliche in the state manual, including the obligatory lament for the suffering people that has been a staple at least since Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov. The opera has just enough technique to work and not enough heart...
...presidency with a flourish. "As they say in show biz," he urged his aides and appointees, "let's bring them to their feet with our closing act." But the State of the Union address that the President prepared to deliver this week was less a stirring aria than a medley of his greatest hits. It includes a ringing anthem to the Reagan revolution: the tax cuts -- including a call for new reduction in the rate on capital gains -- the five-year economic boom, the resurgence of patriotism. Then the President also planned an ode to the Nicaraguan "freedom fighters...
Individual soloists do emerge for the occasional aria. Notable among these is Dopey (David Frisch), a heroin addict who steps out of the diner and into the audience to explain the psychological motivations of other characters. There is also a chorus of drunks and junkies who offer a street rap about their lives, which consist mainly of waiting for the next drink or the next nickel...
...life as a struggle between black and white, between good and evil. A committee counsel came to ask North about the nearly $14,000 security system he had installed at his suburban Virginia house, a setup that was paid for by Major General Richard Secord. North delivered a magnificent aria in which he described how the Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal had targeted him for assassination. He told how Nidal's group had brutally murdered Natasha Simpson, 11, daughter of an American journalist, in the Christmas 1985 massacre at the Rome airport. "I have an eleven-year-old daughter," said North...