Word: ch
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...value-added tax, which collects anywhere from 5% to 33% on most commercial transactions. Like any sales tax, it implicitly discriminates against the poor, but the Socialist regime under President François Mitterrand is trying to balance that with special new taxes-on jewelry, yachts and country châteaus-that apply almost exclusively to the rich...
...tines haven't changed. Queen Elizabeth II was in the Western U.S. last week for a ten-day visit, before heading up to British Columbia and, this Friday, back home. Sumptuous feastings? There was everything from maple soufflé and rack of lamb (and 1966 Château Lafite-Rothschild) to a hot heap of chiles rellenos and refried beans. Banquets? In Los Angeles, the Queen ate papaya and heard George Burns tell jokes about octogenarian sex; at an official dinner in Golden Gate Park, goose-liver quenelles in pheasant broth were followed by the San Francisco Opera...
...Ring is more sophisticated and more imaginative. In selecting Chéreau, Bayreuth Festival Director Wolfgang Wagner, the composer's grandson, gambled that the French enfant terrible would inject bold ideas into the family opera enterprise. He was right. Chéreau began by setting the legend during the social upheaval of the Industrial Revolution. His Rhine maidens are a trio of prostitutes frolicking by a hydroelectric dam, and his Wotan is decked out as a rich capitalist. In 1976 audiences were outraged, but by the end of the run in 1980, when the production was filmed, the Ring...
...Chéreau Ring is perhaps even more effective on TV than in the opera house. What is sacrificed in scenic grandeur, such as the looming pile that is Valhalla or Hunding's chilly glass-paned palace, is gained in unorthodox but expressive detail that may be overlooked in the theater. In Wotan's sorrowfully reflective second-act monologue in Die Walküre, Bass-Baritone Donald McIntyre stands before a full-length mirror; tearing off the patch that covers his lost eye, Wotan searches for his soul and finds only an emptiness that foreshadows the twilight...
...years later; Chéreau's Ring seems less outrageous than adventurous, and it has influenced succeeding productions of Wagner at Bayreuth. Syberberg's daring Parsifal, on the other hand, is likely to become a curiosity. Truly cinematic opera remains a Grail-like goal, waiting for its own Parsifal to redeem the promise of artistic salvation...