Word: courtesans
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PUCCINI: LA RONDINE (2 LPs; RCA Victor). Magda, Puccini's sad "swallow," is close kin to Verdi's Violetta, the "wayward one." Puccini's little courtesan also leads a gay, cynical life in Paris until she meets her one true love, with whom she flees to the peace of a country villa. Then, to the strains of a rending melody, she leaves her lover when she realizes that her scarlet past would shock his proper parents. Anna Moffo illuminates the most lyrical and substantial elements in her poignant role, and her characterization is nicely...
...seminude courtesan tries to seduce a hunchback as his image mocks him from three mirrors. Fashionable men and women strip to nearly topless leotards and pantomime a sordid orgy. A bearded astrologer chants about immortality while peacocks scream. In a gloomy garden, a man embraces a sculptured minotaur, seeing in it the face of his brother. Statues spring to life in an eerie dance...
...baton of New York City Opera Director Julius Rudel, the singers projected their parts with clarity and polish while threading their way through Ming Cho Lee's surrealistic settings. Mexican Tenor Salvador Novoa eloquently voiced the pain and weakness of the Duke, and statuesque Joanna Simon, as the courtesan, sang her seduction aria in a lustrous mezzo-soprano...
...Hindus never forgot that art was part of life, the field of holy Pursuit and Return. Yet the early Hindus, at best, saw the artist as a courtesan who made his occupation the knowledge and fulfillment of sensual pleasure...
...Hwang Jini, the most celebrated courtesan of 16th century Korea, composed dozens of exquisite love songs in sijo...