Word: cuenod
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...that really provides the bang for the buck. Zeffirelli and Costume Designer Dada Saligeri offer a regal gold and mother-of-pearl panoply: high atop a throne in the far reaches of the cavernous stage perches the black-clad, thousand-year-old Emperor (Swiss Tenor Hugues Cuenod, making his company debut at 84). For the first time the Met stage, which has swallowed whole such formidable productions as Nathaniel Merrill's 1966 Die Frau ohne Schatten, looks cramped. As is its custom, the Met declines to reveal the spectacle's cost, but best guesses run to about $1.5 million...
...stumble across the treacherous obstacle course of risers and steps. As a result, Marton, born for the title role, was oddly tentative, the sturdy Domingo seemed distracted and ill at ease, while Soprano Leona Mitchell's hey-look-me-over Liu was too aggressive. Only Cuenod's crotchety Emperor -- a Swiss singing Italian the way he imagines a Chinese might -- hit the mark. James Levine conducted grandly, and the powerful choruses were declaimed lustily if not suavely...