Word: duchessed
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...Sullivan: the story of the operetta, in true G. and S. style, is a convoluted tale of mistaken identities and star-crossed lovers that can only be understood when it is clearly and resoundingly sung by its main players. To summarize: it seems that years ago the Duke and Duchess of Plaza-Toro had promised their daughter Casilda to an infant heir who was subsequently kidnapped but later found to be living as a gondolier in Venice. The operetta opens as the Duke and Duchess bring their daughter to Venice to claim her husband, only to find that not only...
...line after line of patter-talk; they just weren't loud enough. Seth Fenton '01 as The Duke of Plaza-Toro seemed to have the "patter" down perfectly (try saying "celebrated, cultivated, underrated Nobleman" five times at breakneck speed and in tune), and his entire court (he, the Duchess, Casilda and Luiz) was pretty adept at dishing out the tongue-tying lyrics...
...both veteran Fenton and new-comer Lee Poulis '02 as Don Alhambra, the Grand Inquisitor. Fenton carries off the part of the enterprising, officious windbag with the perfect amount of dull pomposity and cornball silliness and is matched by Kristin Brouwer in the part of the saucy but snotty, Duchess. Poulis mixes equal parts stodgy bureaucrat, fiendish Inquisitor and lecherous old man to take the typical Gilbert and Sullivan "uptight official" role to new, uproariously deadpan heights...
Immediately, Diana supporters came roaring back. THE SMEARING OF A PRINCESS, read one headline; Diana's friend Rosa Monckton, her brother Charles Spencer and the Duchess of York all made statements bemoaning that anyone would accuse the Princess of wrongdoing now that she's dead. "Has Charles no shame?" wonders another royal biographer, Anthony Holden. Charles and Camilla were driven to the unprecedented move of issuing a joint statement insisting that they had not cooperated with Junor nor asked their friends...
...never fully engaged his energies. Politics consumed him. His father Lord Randolph Churchill was a brilliant political failure. Early in life, Winston determined to succeed where his father had failed. His motives were twofold. His father had despised him. Writing in August 1893 to Winston's grandmother, the dowager Duchess of Marlborough, he said the boy lacked "cleverness, knowledge and any capacity for settled work. He has a great talent for show-off, exaggeration and make-believe." His disapproval surely stung, but Churchill reacted by venerating his father's memory. Winston fought to restore his father's honor in Parliament...