Word: choruses
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...movement is fast but controlled, and the stage business is meticulous in detail and execution. Novick is especially successful in out-doing Gilbert's spoof of English attitudes, notably those toward the Orient which did so much to produce the Far-Eastern mess of the 19th Century. The chorus, which can really sing this time, is at all times a source of delight, whether they be joining in the sentimental ballad, or kicking around an imaginary chopped-off head...
...Composer Rodgers who meets the challenge best. With easy versatility, if no great distinction, he has written perky ditties and part songs for children, a lilting quartet for nuns, nice music for folk dancing, nice music for lovemaking, a swelling processional, a kind of hallelujah chorus. But, in general, the show's virtues are marred by its weaknesses. For one thing, Rodgers and Hammerstein do repeat themselves: governess, children and children's papa seem at moments the twins of The King and I. And The Sound of Music suffers badly by comparison, has less swing, less gaiety, less...
...first half of the evening found the Choral Society alternating between uneasiness and an unusually lacklustre manner, with even their dependable tone sounding either shrill or dead. By contrast, the second part exhibited the familiar spirit and high quality of the chorus, especially in three beautiful Welsh folksongs arranged with taste and imagination by the Society's conductor, Elliot Forbes...
There was an even greater disparity between the two halves of the dance section. The final work was an electrifying setting of Virgil Thomson's "Seven Choruses from the Medea of Euripides" choreographed by Amy Greenfield, who also danced the title role with just the right mixture of passion and inhuman wildness. As Jason, Gus Solomon combined a rigid discipline with a strongly rhythmical movement, producing an effective and intense characterization. The other dancers and the chorus were caught up by the highly charged emotion and supported the principals well. The choreography had about it a sureness and feeling...
...were rather dreary affairs. The first, and much the longest, was based on Thurber's "The Wonderful O." Read by an anonymous narrator, the story was fun to hear, but it was interrupted at intervals by dancing, much to its detriment. The danced portions were sung by a small chorus competently led by Emily Romney. Stephen Addiss' music contented itself for the most part with a two-part chanting of the text which was serviceable but monotonous, only occasionally relieved by moments of lyric freedom. The other two dances, "Emergence" and "Academic Allegory" were both abstruse, one serious, the other...