Word: das
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...Wagner are the contradictions." So he has staged the Ring largely in the "modern dress" of 1876, the year of its first full performance. To that basic idea he has added touches of surrealistic humor. For example, the giants Fasolt and Fafner, who gain the magic ring in Das Rheingold in payment for building Valhalla, lumber around on the sagging shoulders of two local weight lifters hidden beneath their cloaks. This joke is painful fun, since Bass Bengt Rundgren, who plays Fafner, is 6 ft. 4 in. tall and weighs...
...Charles Wadsworth, piano and harpsichord; Gervase de Peyer, clarinet: Gerard Schwarz, trumpet; Columbia: $6.98). Two brilliant young American-born singers team up with a superior set of instrumentalists in a glowing recital of vocal music. The mood shifts in a varied repertory that encompasses Schumann's playful duet Das Glück as well as Chausson's haunting Chanson Perpetuelle, sung with grave beauty by Von Stade. Blegen's supple trills whirl with Gerard Schwarz's bright trumpet through Alessandro Scarlatti's aria Se geloso e il mio core...
...coming presidential sweepstakes. Bedtime for Bonzo is the attraction, starring non other than the former governor of California. Ronald Reagan is a college professor who raises a chimpanzee as his own son (or maybe it's the other we around). Sure to become a classic if the Death Valley Das Kid makes it into the Oval Office. The Orson Welles Complex also offers a treat for mystery fans on Friday and Saturday with a Raymond Chandler double feature of Farewell, My Lovely and The Long Goodbye. go and compare Marlowes (Mitchum and Gould...
Wagner knew exactly what he was doing at Bayreuth. Heard in quick succession, Das Rheingold, Die Walkure and Siegfried have a staggering cumulative effect. By the tune one settles in for the 4½-hour finale, Die Götterdämmerung, the ear reverberates with leitmotivs; and Wagner's gods, earthlings, dwarfs and dragons seem familiar, necessary, among the mind's permanent emotional reference points. One gasps at the death of Siegfried, even if he is the sort who will take a drink from anybody. One worships Brünnhilde as the lover and idealist...
Well, it is all academic, since most of the words-in any language-cannot be heard over the orchestra anyway. That seems to be more a problem of bad interpretation than anything else. At last week's Das Rheingold in Seattle, recognizable English phrases-"Help me, sister" (Freia), "Back to the mines" (Alberich), "What, yield my ring?" (Wotan) -were few and far between. But by Die Walkure, diction and audience comprehension had picked up considerably. How does the composer himself feel? Almost everyone who has ever gone on record about the matter, including Wagner, Verdi and Puccini, speaks desperately...