Word: casts
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...recordings of Orpheus and Eurydice break with tradition by casting a male singer as Orpheus, normally sung by a contralto. (Gluck himself wrote the role for a male contralto, later rearranged it for tenor in Paris, where castrati singers were frowned upon.) Of the two versions, Epic's (in French) is more authentic historically, but less effective, chiefly because Canadian Tenor Leopold Simoneau's silver-hued voice seems less moving in the role of the suffering Orpheus than the lyric baritone of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, imaginatively cast by Decca in its German-language version. The supporting casts...
...heavy Germanic reverence that sorts ill with the trustbusting, wit-snapping Shavian spirit. His scriptwriter, Novelist Graham Greene, has adapted Shaw's play to the screen almost word for word. The result is talk, talk, talk. And even when the talk is good Shawmanship, Preminger and his cast manage to make it bad acting. Indeed, the whole company plays with such clumsiness that the expert Sir John Gielgud, as Warwick, has to pick his way to histrionic success like a first-string halfback dodging through the scrub...
Michael Lewis' performance as the Duke of Kent, Edward's brother, was well-done, of course. I do think he was a bit poorly cast for the part, for one cannot help comparing his huge frame and towering figure with the quite smaller proportions of his kingly brother and wondering about their parentage...
...wisely allowed only one ten-minute intermission. And he insisted that there be no pause or lowering of curtain between scenes, a demand that fortunately Rouben Ter-Aruntunian's ingeniously mobile slatted sets and a precision-drilled stage crew have been able to meet. He moves his cast fluidly over the stage and the apron that projects into the audience; his blocking of characters is imaginative and tastefully unmechanical; and the "stage business" and byplay are always meaningful.S...
...libretto prescribed a cast of hundreds, including 70 elders, four "naked virgins," "dancers, supernumeraries of all kinds," and a golden calf. Vienna-born Composer Schoenberg's preoccupation with the Biblical story of Exodus paralleled his indignation at growing Naziism in Germany, his brooding about the Jews' new exodus. The opera's first and third acts are dominated by a philosophical dialogue between Moses and Aaron; Moses only speaks his part-a sign that, unlike the, glib, singing Aaron, the word fails him. Schoenberg etches the contrast between the hard but true faith of Moses and Aaron...