Word: bolshoi
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...Count Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro; after a long illness; in Armonk, N.Y. He found success quickly, with critically praised debuts at Europe's leading opera houses and New York City's Metropolitan. In 1960 he became the first American to sing Boris Godunov at Moscow's Bolshoi Theater. In 1967 a paralyzed vocal cord cut short his career; he turned to arts administration, and was general director of the Washington Opera when a 1977 heart attack left him disabled...
...decades, Galina Vishnevskaya reigned supreme at the Bolshoi Theater. No other soprano could match her sumptuous voice and dramatic presence or challenge her vibrant interpretations of Russian opera...
Vishnevskaya joined the Bolshoi Theater in 1952 when Stalin still acted as the opera's imperial patron. Millions of rubles were spent on the opulent sets and costumes for spectacles like Prince Igor and Boris Godunov. Seated in a heavily guarded box, Stalin reveled in the gilt-and-rhinestone production numbers as he munched on hard-boiled eggs. He had no knowledge of music. Once at an intermission he summoned to his loge the distinguished Bolshoi conductor Samuil Samosud and told him strongly that the performance "is lacking flats." Samosud had the wit to reply: "Good, Comrade Stalin. Thank...
...generalissimo's taste in opera left a legacy that has thus far proved ineradicable. His concept of the genre as patriotic spectacle has hindered the development of a knowledgeable and devoted opera public. Today the state encourages Soviet visitors to the Bolshoi but, says the author, it gives them little help in understanding what they see. Without condescension, Vishnevskaya recalls one typical group of prizewinning collective farmers rewarded with tickets in the front row of the Bolshoi. A peasant woman directly behind the conductor grew restive during the overture. She leaned over the orchestra pit and bawled...
Beginning on the beam, Szabo lived up to her reputation, and confirmed the Rumanian dominance of the event, by stepping up cold and calmly nailing a 10. She not only performed risky maneuvers flawlessly but managed to make her narrow ground seem like a stage for the Bolshoi Ballet. At one point she rolled off four consecutive backward handsprings, one more than the beam seems capable of containing and two more than any other gymnast tried. Retton's performance on the uneven bars, on the other hand, was, for her, mediocre. The judges gave...