Word: desdemonas
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...Moor again at the Shakespeare Memorial Theater, opening the 100th season of the mecca in Stratford-on-Avon. Free to roam since his eight-year U.S. passport ban was lifted last June, Fellow Traveler Robeson got an ovation from the audience, almost unanimous huzzahs from the critics, but his Desdemona, blonde British Actress Mary Ure, was rapped for her lack of pathos...
...enterprise, and with operatic recordings gushing forth in unprecedented profusion, the life of a globetrotting soprano has taken on a frenetic quality that would have astounded the great voices of a more leisurely age. Tebaldi will sing 22 performances at the Met this season (Tosca, Cio-Cio-San, Mimi, Desdemona and Manon Lescaut), will then take a swing about the country on a recital tour, move on to Havana, Rome, Naples, then make her Paris Opera debut, go on to the Vienna Opera. July will be given over mostly to new recordings in Rome. Tebaldi's pace would probably...
...jealous rage, never pausing to be subtle, kept the house ringing and the stage dark with passion. Baritone Leonard Warren as lago proved again his ability to soar dramatically or modulate to a mahogany pianissimo, invested his role with an air of sly innuendo that it often lacks. As Desdemona, velvet-voiced Soprano Victoria de los Angeles took her time warming up, but was in soaring form by the third act's grand ensemble scene; her heavy acting was forgotten as she gave the Willow Song and Ave Maria in Act IV a purity and emotional gloss that held...
...great physical and moral stature. A rich, sonorous voice is complemented by an extraordinarily expressive face as, going from calm imperiousness through tormenting doubts and jealousy to become a tragically pitiful uxoricide, the Devil's agent Iago gradually wreaks the havoc of his human lord and the heavenly Desdemona (see cuts on page...
Jacqueline Brookes is fine as Desdemona, "the sweetest innocent that e'er did lift up eye." Her handling of the moments when she is slapped and bewhored by Othello is deeply affecting, and her dying words most touching. Olive Deering does well as the loose Bianca. But Sada Thompson's Emilia is too Desdemona-like; she ought to be sharply contrasted with her mistress--less refined, more common and blunt, at times even vulgar. I suspect the result would have been better if the Misses Thompson and Deering had exchanged roles...