Word: beecham
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...British Broadcasting Corp. caught a blast from fiery Conductor Sir Thomas Beecham when it offered him a picayunish fee of $60 for a broadcast of "his arrangement of Michael Balfe's The Bohemian Girl. The "arrangement," wrote Sir Thomas, already a bit edgy from an attack of gout, "has involved the thoughts of 25 years ... at no time and nowhere in the course of a long career have I received such a preposterously inadequate, thoughtlessly impudent and magnificently inept offer from anyone." Thoroughly singed by the explosion, an abashed BBC hastily made a "substantially higher" offer, and Sir Thomas...
This time it was Britain's elegantly modern Royal Festival Hall that ruffled the terrible temper of Conductor Sir Thomas Beecham. Not in the past 350 years, Sir Thomas roared, had anyone seen "a more repellent, a more unattractive, a more monstrous structure...
Despite such voices as Robert Rounseville's in the title role, the impeccable playing of Sir Thomas Beecham and the Royal Philharmonic, and a charming first act in which Moira (The Red Shoes] Shearer dances as Olympia, the lifelike doll, the bulk of the picture is slow, obscure and pretentious. The script and direction, which borrow from Dali, Cocteau and Cecil B. DeMille, compound the vague symbolism of the Offenbach opera, leave the story line frayed and dangling. Whenever they are audible in the upper operatic range, the English lyrics sound banal. And the much-touted spectacle of Tales...
...elements of music and dance are very important in "Tales of Hoffmann." Sir Thomas Beecham conducts the Royal Philharmonic in Offenbach's familiar score. Robert Rounseville, as Hoffman, has a strong, clear voice that is excellent for the role. Most of the other voices are dubbed in, however, with generally good results. The dancing in "Tales of Hoffmann" is all good, but it suffers by being fragmented; Frederick Ashton's choreography consists chiefly of short interludes, beautifully danced by Moira Shearer, Leonide Massine, Ludmilla Tcherina, Robert Helpmann, and the Sadler's Wells Chorus. Miss Shearer's best work is shown...
...YOUR NOV. 27 LETTER FROM READER LEWIS WILLIAMS CONCERNING YOUR NOV. 6 REVIEW OF BEECHAM'S RENDITION MOZART: YOUR MUSIC CRITIC'S DEFINITIONS OF DIFFERENCE IN PLAYING BRITISH, FRENCH AND U.S. ORCHESTRAS ABSOLUTELY CORRECT. HAVING CONDUCTED MAJOR EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN ORCHESTRAS, I SHOULD KNOW. YOU CAN SAVE THE SOUNDPROOFING OF THAT WEST-NORTHWEST OFFICE. DANIELE AMFITHEATROF BEVERLY HILLS, CALIF...