Word: coventionalism
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Except for notoriously bad equipment, nothing had threatened the prospects of Covent Garden's Coronation operas (TIME, May 3). Director Sir Thomas Beecham had engaged such guest conductors as Wilhelm Furtwängler, John Barbirolli, Francesco Salfi, Artur Rodzinski, Fritz Reiner. Eugene Goossens of the Cincinnati Symphony had been hired to conduct the world premiere of Don Juan de Manara, a bloodthirsty opera differing widely from Mozart's Don Giovanni, which he had composed for the late Arnold Bennett's libretto. He had succeeded in combining with his own company the Paris Grand Opera...
Aside from a surefire Ring, and sterling individual performances, critics found little to commend. They considered Otello "dull," "flat," "not up to the usual standard of Covent Garden." In the Sunday Times Ernest Newman pronounced Don Pasquale "an exasperation and a pain from first to last." When critics on the Evening News, the Manchester Guardian, the Star and the News Chronicle came out with adverse criticism of Cesare Formichi's singing in Falstaff, Covent Garden stopped sending them tickets. Even the Times was moved to protest the "disarrangement" of Orphée and Prince Igor, in which the Ballet...
...time has come to protest against scenery and production which are an insult alike to the eye and to the intelligence and which only help to make ridiculous the action of the opera. How may the artistic conscience of the authorities of Covent Garden be stirred...
...Covent Garden is grateful to Sir Thomas, for managing what should be its most successful opera season. For the first time in their history the Paris Grand Opera and Opéra-Comique will assist there. Metropolitan participants alone include Kirsten Flagstad. Gina Cigna, Kerstin Thorborg. Lauritz Melchior and John Brownlee as well as Tibbett and Martinelli. Sir Thomas once lost ?1,000,000 of his own in opera. Aloof, disdainful, he ignores summonses and hotel bills, brings audiences to their feet when he leads the London Philharmonic, estranges them when he calls Britons the most unmusical people...
...Boxes on the grand tier cost anywhere from $550 to $2.750 for the season. Those who cannot afford the Covent Garden productions will have their own Coronation season of operas at Sadler's Wells Theatre in North London. These will be sung in English, include Vaughan Williams' Hugh the Drover and Gertrude Stein's first ballet, The Wedding Bouquet...