Word: donati
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...says Myles Connor, 54, a Milton, Mass., native who is in federal prison for interstate transportation of two paintings stolen in 1975 from the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College. Connor, who appears to have escaped from a Damon Runyon story, says he and a gangster named Bobby Donati, a longtime pal and partner in crime, checked out the Gardner around 1974. "Did I case it?" asks the 5-ft. 7-in., bushy-bearded Connor, who looks more like a visiting professor than a guy who has run with a crew of gangsters for 30 years. "I took a walk...
Christopher J. Crick is an awkward Rinuccio, gamely waving his arms. His roseate idealism is undermined by the outright mockery of his family. The production requires greater nuance here--the Donati should be skeptically indulgent of his lovesick earnestness. His paean to Florence, "Firenze e come un albero fiorito," is somewhat stilted, and his voice is strained in the upper register...
...musical surprise is thepiano accompaniment. While Musical DirectorJefferson Packer acquits himself admirably with adifficult transcription of Puccini's notoriouslytreacherous score, there are some serious losses,Important effects are lost, like the chirpywoodwind passage when Gianni dispatches Laurettato go feed the birds, or the pealing of the tocsinthat sends the Donati into a frenzy (the latter isespecially confusing since the characters refer toa bell while the audience only hear a note in thepiano's bass register...
Moreover, the effectiveness of the opera'srecurring motives is dulled. The whole score isassembled form a few thematic cells, such as themockplaintive descending second that suggests thefeigned lamentation of the Donati. The pianotranscription removes perhaps the most importantelements in this mosaic: Puccini's richorchestration...
Overall, the piece is a delightful success.Under the sure guidance and light touch ofSaccente's Gianni Schicchi, the opera rises to acomic crescendo. When Saccente appears alone onstage to beg forgiveness (and applause)--after hehas evicted the avaricious Donati from the housethey have unwittingly willed to him and united thehappy lovers--the audience is only too happy toenter a plea of "not guilty...