Word: bellini
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...opened the show by dropping in a huge cobweb. This denial of a broad spectrum only serves to heighten the impact of the ensuing magnificent procession of Peers, fifteen strong, resplendently garbed and sporting rich velvet capes of different colors. The music itself not only parodies marches by Bellini, Meyerbeer, Wagner and Verdi but is also better than the pieces it satirizes. And the chorus of lords makes a full, lusty sound -- without the awful electronic amplification that mars most musical theater these days. These are Peers without peers...
What Zefferelli and Prokoviev did to Romeo and Juliet, Vincenzo Bellini did earlier. Bellini, an Italian composer of the early nineteenth century, found arias where Prokoviev later discovered pas de deux. The opera, I Capuletti e I Montecchi, according to Loeb p.r., is marked by "intriguing departures from the original plot to produce a reinterpretation of Shakespeare's timeless theme," The Capulets and Montagues return to their original Italian from Shakespeare's English in the early May production at the Loeb...
...shelves of possible Bellini and Donizetti operas must be getting bare; the new trend in vehicles for the box office sopranos may well be little-known French operas. Along with one fragile masterpiece, Manon, Jules Massenet wrote several operas that fit this description. After 87 years, one of them, Esclarmonde, has just made its Metropolitan Opera debut as a vehicle for Joan Sutherland. The title character is a Byzantine Empress with magical powers, and after hearing the music, one can only wish that she had used her sorcery to summon up a different show-Rigoletto, maybe...
...simply worries about whether, in their ceaseless circling, one may trip over the other's train. Lady Macbeth's wondrous sleepwalking scene is a long left-to-right stroll on a narrow ledge. The only problem is that Verdi was not interested in a high-wire act-Bellini took care of that very nicely in La Sonnambula-but in the play of Lady Macbeth's bloodstained hands. As Strehler directs her, Lady Macbeth (Verrett) has plenty of trouble keeping her balance, but in the wrong...
...Metropolitan Opera used to be known as a rich, acquisitive collector of the biggest stars available. There are not so many supersingers around now, and the Met has been hiring them less frequently. Last week in its first production of Vincenzo Bellini's I Puritani in almost 60 years, the company reverted to its grand old ways, presenting three top international singers-Joan Sutherland, Luciano Pavarotti and Sherrill Milnes. It made a particularly satisfying, old-fashioned night at the opera...