Word: elfin
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...tall and a trifle overweight. His face is an elfin caricature, the pale cheeks almost submerged under a wide mustache, the profile dominated by a prominent nose and an outthrust jaw. Yet he radiates an unmistakable air of authority, along with an infectious good humor. Working a crowd, he displays the charisma of a natural leader. Said a Gdansk woman worker after hearing him speak last week: "He is the right man at the right tune. He was able to give us hope...
...several of his musical numbers, however, Emmons sheds his elfin aspect; in addition to his wonderful first duet with Elsie, he shows flashes of strong, satisfying comic talent in the "Creeping, Crawling" duet with Wilfred in Act Two. He also shines in the operetta's finale, bursting on the scene singing movingly the last refrain of "I Have a Song," and perishing. His actual death is regrettably melodramatic, but again, this is perhaps O'Neill's fault...
...World War I, and one of the casualties was the servant mentality; the upper class no longer had a lower one to lean on. The country house survived a little longer, and even had a renaissance during the '20s and '30s, when the Evelyn Waugh crowd made elfin sport amid the topiaries. World War II and all that followed it, most notably extortionate taxes and the declining British economy, finally put these gay places to rest. A book like this, which has pedestrian prose but enchanting pictures, is perhaps the best memorial to these architectural idyls...
Maxi Gnauck, 15, an East German sprite with closely cropped hair and a tiny chassis (4 ft. 10 in., 71 lbs.), went first on the vault. Her robot-like consistency cracked under the pressure, and she had to settle for a 9.75. Next up was Yelena Davidova, 18, an elfin Soviet with a Dorothy Hamill haircut, on the parallel bars. Only 4 ft. 8 in., 75 lbs., she had scored a stunning 10 in the floor exercises the night before, mixing rubber-body tumbling and kiddie-porn dance routines (hip grinding to a snake charmer's song...
...never equalled -- his score for Iolanthe. The overture is one of only two that are fully developed pieces of music (Yeomen of the Guard has the other), in contrast to the usual potpourri of tunes, often stitched together by another hand. Sullivan's orchestration is delectable, especially all the elfin woodwind writing appropriate for a fairy world. And nobody has ever demonstrated more variety and skill in setting the English language to music, whether for solo or ensemble singers. The first-act finale of Iolanthe is one of the largest, richest and most ambitious he ever penned...