Word: birgit
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...truth, Barlow was a vibrant Isolde. Making the most of her ample bosom, well-turned hips and (rarity of Wagnerian rarities) trim waist, she played the Irish princess as an impetuous, headstrong woman. To New York audiences who have seen almost nothing for 15 years except Birgit Nilsson's cool, ruminative portrayal, Barlow's sexy Isolde came as a pleasant shock...
...balletic geometry. Soloists on stage cavort to solo instrumental moments from three Vivaldi concert! while the ensemble blends with orchestral passages. Plotless but pretty, the work does show off the almost Bolshoi-like muscularity of the Stuttgart's unusually strong male corps and the gamine pertness of lithe Birgit Keil...
Initials R.B.M.E. is unfairly titled and pompously annotated, but a joy to watch for all that. The initials stand for the first names of the Stuttgart's four leading principals - Richard Cragun, Birgit Keil, Marcia Haydée and Egon Madsen. In all justice, the title should include an H., for Heinz Clauss, who brilliantly partners Haydée in a soaringly romantic pas de deux...
Solti today has a depth, a broader grasp and surer hand than ever. Still intense and energetic by any standards, he nonetheless is mellower, more at ease. Birgit Nilsson, the supreme Wagnerian soprano, notes: "In his early days he was so energetic, so impulsive. He built one climax on top of another. You felt like you were going to explode. Now he knows how to relax...
...really made a showing. He presented the first major U.S. stagings of such operatic landmarks as Strauss's Die Frau ohne Schatten, Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream and Berlioz's Les Troyens. He was the first to put such now celebrated Europeans as Birgit Nilsson, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Geraint Evans on the American stage. He has also led in giving major roles to relatively unknown U.S. singers, among them Leontyne Price. Says the grateful Price: "I sort of grew up in San Francisco, both vocally and professionally. It's definitely equal...