Word: buffa
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...bright sets, smooth and funny staging. The cast, mostly imported and mostly unknown in the U.S. (except for brilliant Mezzo-Soprano Giulietta Simionato). had been so ably picked by Impresario Kelly that the total effect surpassed the Met's memorable Don Pasquale, something of a standard for opera buffa. Said one opera veteran: "As of today, Dallas is on the map as an opera town along with New York, San Francisco and Chicago...
...introductory work, The Telephone, is a decidedly slight but pleasant little opera buffa which relates a young man's troubles in proposing to his girl. She, it appears, would rather talk into the phone than to him. Peggy Lapsley sings the role of the communicative young lady and Bruce MacDonald comes onstage to play the man. Though Miss Lapsley has a little difficulty in negotiating some of the higher notes, both, on the whole, are more than acceptable...
...concert concluded with Mozart's D-minor Piano Concerto, K. 466, surely his finest contribution to the medium. This is a work of tragic import, until the last pages of the rondo almost turn it into a gay ensemble from an opera buffa. The piano soloist was Kenneth McIntosh, who, versatile trouper that he is, played the French horn before the intermission. He approached the concerto with uncommon intelligence, and showed that he knew when the piano writing was mere accompanimental figuration for the orchestra, a feature many professionals would do well to note. His playing was effortless, unmannered...
...Under the firm and concise direction of Vienna-born Erich Leinsdorf, 44, who left the Rochester Philharmonic to become the City Center's new musical director, the brilliant score is beautifully played. The trouble with Orpheus is its new libretto, which seemed determined to turn this charming opera buffa into a crude opera boffola...
...albums represent the two current extremes of show styles: Lady is a descendant of Oklahoma! and South Pacific, with its pretty songs separated by plenty of action and dialogue. Fella comes from Italian opera buffa out of such frankly operatic efforts as Porgy and Bess -only 20 of its 140 minutes are filled with spoken words, a percentage which compares favorably with Mozart's Magic Flute. Putting such works on records required very special abilities, e.g., coaxing people whose first impulse is to mime and pose into playing entirely for the ear, and then creating in sound the invisible...