Word: coventionalism
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...found less in the singing than in the apposite theatricality of its productions, the innovative visions of its directors and the restless inquisitiveness of its approach to the whole range of the repertory, including infrequently heard works by Dvorak, Smetana and Janacek. Unlike the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, which is an international company featuring a rotation of globe-trotting star performers, the ENO is a frankly nationalistic company. It performs only in English, employs mostly British singers and conductors, and regularly champions British works. As such, it is probably a better barometer of the state of opera in Britain...
...London audiences of the early 18th century, Italian opera meant heroic plots, lavish sets and dazzling vocalism. It also meant a German-born composer with an anglicized name who had successfully transplanted a hothouse species to the neighborhood around Covent Garden...
After the curtain had fallen last week on the Royal Ballet's production of Giselle at London's Covent Garden, Dame Margot Fonteyn plucked a single long-stemmed red rose from one of her many bouquets and with a deep curtsy presented it to her young partner-ex-Kirov Ballet Danseur Rudolf Nureev. The young Russian lowered his eyes, sank to his knees and kissed the assoluta's hand. The audience exploded in an ovation that lasted through 23 curtain calls...
...sings in the major international houses, has never sung there. Somewhat ingenuously, Levine blames their absence partly on the Met's distance from Europe. Even in the Concorde age, he contends, they prefer to work closer to home, no more than a couple of hours' flight from Covent Garden, the Paris Opéra or Milan's La Scala, rather than take up extended residence in New York. Further, Levine says, the heavily subsidized European houses can afford to pay as much as 50% more than the Met's top fee of about...
...tenure. Since 1968, when he performed Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro at the Met, Giulini has turned down all offers to conduct opera in the theater. Accustomed to only new productions at such major opera houses as Milan's La Scala and London's Covent Garden, Giulini admits, "I was a little spoiled...