Word: felsenstein
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Died. Walter Felsenstein, 74, director of East Berlin's Komische Oper since 1947; of cancer; in East Berlin. One of the century's most influential operatic impresarios, Vienna-born Felsenstein was a demanding perfectionist who sometimes rehearsed for 36-hour stretches. Once, when a reluctant chorus member declined to jump from a 7-ft.-high perch, Felsenstein made the leap, broke his arm and returned 45 minutes later waving his cast and demanding "Now will you jump?" Felsenstein retained his Austrian citizenship and commuted daily from his home in West Berlin to the East, where he turned...
Those familiar with Friedrich's background might have expected the unusual: an honored member of the East German Communist Party, he is deputy to the unorthodox Walter Felsenstein at the famed Komische Oper in East Berlin. Yet nobody seemed prepared for what appeared when Conductor Erich Leinsdorf lowered his baton for the overture. Tenor Hugh Beresford wandered over a barren wooden platform; instead of a balletic orgy, there was a huge human brain populated with frightening, dim figures miming psychiatric problems ranging from infantilism to sadomasochism. Venus arrived looking like a Reeperbahn stripper...