Word: falstaff
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
HITTING THE MARK: What turns a top-notch opera singer into a full-fledged star? The perfect part and director can't hurt. Take baritone Mark Delavan in the New York City Opera's pratfall-packed production of Verdi's Falstaff. His sly acting and fat-bottomed voice--supported by Leon Major's lickety-split staging--have opera buffs buzzing about why he's not singing at the Met. Who cares, when you can see him in the role of a lifetime right...
...underlined that reappear in the masterpieces. For example, the declaration "I am that I am" from Exodus 3: 14 is found not only in a letter De Vere wrote to his father-in-law in 1584 but also in "Sonnet 121." In The Merry Wives of Windsor, a Falstaff speech refers to a "weaver's beam," two words highlighted in the Bible (II Samuel 21: 19). Oxfordians can cite scores of other examples linking De Vere's Bible to Shakespeare's texts...
...when I met her. As the editor of PEOPLE magazine, I was charged with covering every move she made, and one night some years ago, because the magazine had made a substantial contribution to whatever charity it was, I was Princess Diana's "escort" to a benefit performance of Falstaff by the Welsh National Opera. When I first met her that night, I thought I'd cut the ice with a little self-deprecating humor along the lines of how it was I who had perpetrated such insanely thorough coverage of her in America. So as I shook her hand...
...recalls, "Our first meeting was funny. He was so young and so big. I thought, 'This big, big baby could be my son."' Bondy learned that Terfel "is not a guy who is pretentious and insists on his own way." On Terfel's wish list are parts like Falstaff, Nick Shadow in The Rake's Progress and Escamillo in Carmen. His first Wagner, probably at the Met, will be the comparatively light role of Wolfram in Tannhauser, with its lyrical ode to the evening star -- cat's cream to a baritone with Terfel's plush tone...
Through various cinematic techniques, Branagh alludes to and illuminates Henry's affinity with the lower classes of England. We are treated to a series of oneiric sequences in which Henry turns in on his past life. Here we see the dissipated life he led under Falstaff's tutelage. The bacchanalian rollicking of yesterday contrasts sharply with the cold reality of the present. The film brilliantly captures these ironies of Henry's transformation. In one tense scene, Henry orders one of his old thieving comrades, Bardolph, to be hanged. The poor man looks straight at Henry and as the young king...