Word: dyers
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Poet von Hofmannsthal's libretto, embroidered with the common myths of half a dozen cultures, concerns a beautiful empress who is unable to cast a shadow and hence to bear children. In search of a shadow, she persuades a dyer's wife to surrender her own, and thus renounce her power to bear children, for luxuries and an imaginary romance. In a mirage of symbolism about human and superhuman love, selfish and selfless love, the dyer's wife eventually realizes that she loves her husband, and the empress sees that she herself cannot buy love in exchange...
...bring Strauss's vision to the theater, opera designers decked the cast in blazing costumes, filled the stage with striking Daliesque sets. Standouts of a superb cast were California-born Mezzo-Soprano Irene Dalis as a malevolent nurse and German Soprano Marianne Schech as the dyer's wife. Conductor Leopold Ludwig whipped his orchestra through the complex, luxuriant score with a fine sense of surging lyricism, a deft feel for the opera's shadow-flittery moods. "No matter what may happen to the Giants," glowed the Chronicle's Alfred Frankenstein, "San Francisco won the pennant Friday...
...spite of Mr. Dyer-Bennett's obvious skill in singing what one observer called the "la de da" ballads, he becomes, after steady listening, as entertaining as a ten-year-old Irish tenor singing "Danny Boy" for a local talent show. Dyer-Bennett's voice, unfortunately, lacks that twist of lemon peel which, for example, made Hank Williams something more than another hillbilly singer...
Admittedly this is a debatable opinion; those who swoon at "Sweet Nightingale" or "Fain Would I Wed a Fair Young Maid" will contest strongly any attempt to shroud Dyer-Bennett with the critic's cloak of scorn. Yet for one who seeks in a folk singer a versatility extending beyond repertory, including a versatility of personality, Dyer-Bennett falls short of being engaging...
...cannot, of course, quibble with Dyer-Bennet's success at mastering his craft. For an age that thrives on contrived noise misnamed music, he insists--successfully--on preserving the integrity of the music he sings and plays...