Word: debutitis
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...many effects before," said Grofé. But he had no cause to worry about his amateur specialists. The motorcycle policeman took the assignment in stride ("I don't feel much different; I can handle it") and the siren man was even more blasé about his symphonic debut ("Doesn't bother me; I used to be in the Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School Band"). Sally Herman, who does the barking, is a 25-year-old credit assistant at George Washington University Hospital. She landed the job unexpectedly by winning an audition over five real dogs...
...audible at times, but his few solos proved that the instrument can be used effectively in jazz. John Lewis' use of the conga drum was less novel perhaps-both it was "new sound" to many and very well received. For Alan Miller at the piano the concert was a debut, but his solo in Honeysuckle Rose was easily the highpoint of the afternoon. He had the Brubeck wit, slipping in tunes even from Country Gardens, but a general style very much...
...hands on an astonishing number of top-drawer singers when it has a mind to, filled the cast with stars: Hilde Gueden and Eleanor Steber as the pretty sisters, Blanche Thebom as their mother, Brian Sullivan and George London as the suitors. Ralph Herbert (in a creditable Met debut) was the father, and Coloratura Roberta Peters was an impudent little flirt. Newcomer Rudolf Kempe fanned the Met orchestra to a fine performance, but the playing was so loud that it recalled the time when Strauss himself shouted from the back of a rehearsal hall: "Louder! Louder! I can still hear...
Nevertheless, it was a loudly cheered debut. Majestically handsome and graceful, Soprano Tebaldi at first let her voice get hard and edgy in the climaxes. Even so, her phrasing was such a delicate tracery of lovely lights and shades that the other singers sounded colorless by comparison. In the last act, she finally showed why she is compared with such legendary sopranos as Galli-Curci and Claudia Muzio: she sang parts of Willow, Willow, the Ave Maria, and particularly her dying phrases, with ravishing warmth and richness...
Soprano Tebaldi's forte is her pianissimo. Daughter of a Pesaro cellist, she finished off her studies in Parma with famed Soprano Carmen Melis, who took her in hand and taught her how to float those vivid tones. She made her big-time debut the night La Scala reopened after the war, singing in a concert under Arturo Toscanini. Her specialty is igth century Italian pulse-bumpers, but Renata is a placid, hard-working woman who says she does not really like to sing passionate heroines. How will her Aida sound next week at the Met? Not too passionate...