Word: egk
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...current St. Paul season ranges from a Carmen in French to a Siegfried in English. Last week the company offered the American premiere of Engagement in San Domingo by Germany's Werner Egk, 73, whose music tends to be grandiose and wildly varied. Engagement is a kind of Caribbean Aida set in what is now Haiti during the black natives' overthrow of the French colonists at the turn of the 19th century. The heroine is the mulatto Jeanne, who falls in love with the French officer Christoph, though her revolutionist mother Bobokan is plotting his death...
...story is a natural for opera, set by the composer in a style that can only be called Egk-clectic. The blues, dashes of Strauss and Puccini, an occasional roll of voodoo drums-all these are woven into a skillful pastiche. If hardly innovative, it is easy to listen to and, at key moments, appropriately bravura. Never mind such questions as why Egk chose the blues to evoke a Caribbean mood, instead of a music more indigenous to the West Indies. Music Director Igor Buketoff led a crisp, idiomatic performance that drew the most from Egk's acrobatic orchestral...