Word: christopher
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...hinder the progress of Farrell's career or silence the critics, who acclaimed her the U.S.'s top soprano. Finally, a year ago, Bing and the Met beckoned, and last week before a packed house Soprano Farrell, 40, made her Met debut in an English version of Christoph Willibald von Gluck's Alcestis. Soprano Farrell proved clearly that she belonged on the Met stage, but alas, there were also hints that her debut may have come a little too late...
...Georg Christoph Lichtenberg is one of many relatively obscure German writers who deserve respect in a literary world dominated by English and French authors. The reputation acquired by German writers even of the classic period of German literature has been one of an extreme stuffiness, and this reputation has naturally not aided German popularity. Lichtenberg as he is presented by Professors Mautner and Hatfield may in part dissolve this outdated notion...
...Handel to Christoph Willibald Gluck...
Gluck: Alceste (Kirsten Flagstad, Raoul Jobin; Geraint Jones Orchestra and Singers conducted by Geraint Jones; London, 4 LPs). This version of the opera, which Composer Christoph Willibald Gluck predicted would "please in 200 years," is distinguished by some stunning choral singing and a sumptuous, apparently effortless performance by Soprano Flagstad, recorded last year when she was 61. Her role: the legendary Greek queen who goes to death in exchange for her husband's life-Apollo has him booked for liquidation-but eventually so moves the god that he revives her. French Canadian Tenor Jobin as the king sings powerfully...
...first, on the 18th century's musical scene, Christoph Willibald Gluck seemed just another run-of-the-court opera composer. The threadbare romantic plots he used served mainly to give virtuoso singers something on which to string their purple-beaded arias. But Gluck became known as a daring revolutionary in 1762 when he wrote Orfeo ed Euridice, a work free of such "disfiguring abuses" as stock romantic situations and metaphorical arias. For years, he preached the virtues of Greek naturalism. After Gluck's death, better composers than he utilized some of his reforms, while Orfeo all but disappeared...