Word: erda
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Though Wieland is still considered an "irreverent traitor" by oldtimers, he is venerated by all who work for him. Says Contralto Lili Chookasian, who sang Erda in Rheingold: "I would do anything for him. Why, I even took a curtain call wearing that black leather costume that opened up to display two enormous leather breasts with threeinch nipples. And I didn't even blush...
...principals achieved the contrasts so important to the opera, the witches, the Socerer, and the Spirit did not. The witches may be comical, but the Sorcerer is actually a woman's part, demanding the majesty of the Ring's Erda. But Harvery Mole discarded all stature and gave his voice a harshness which was supposedly villainous but instead was merely ugly. Neither he nor the Spirit, Michael McDonald, knew how to pronounce properly either for diction or sonority: McDonald was so ineffective that Aeneas seemed the more powerful when the Spirit told him to depart. And the witches could...