Word: first
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...something of a child himself. The frequent bassi (festivals) of his capital and the boat races on the Mekong River were always irresistible, and fishermen rowing by the palace often stopped to listen to the music from the King's khen pipes. But five years ago sickness fell-first rheumatism and then a malignant tumor on the neck. Last August King Sisavang Vong finally turned his duties over to his eldest son, Crown Prince Savang Vatthana, 52. Last week 21 can non volleys thundered over Luangprabang, and the fires in the temples burned all night...
Tempestuous Diva Maria Callas gave her first U.S. recital of the season in Kansas City, Mo., showed a celebrity-studded white-tie S.R.O. audience that she is as great a performer as she is a singer. Told that a bomb may have been planted under the stage of the Midland Theater, Callas sang a Don Giovanni aria before she allowed Governor James T. Blair Jr. to shoo her fans outside, kept to her dressing room nearby while cops searched high and low for half an hour, finished her program after the bomb scare was pronounced a hoax. After a thunderous...
...hope to be here next year," said Pope John XXIII, 78 this month, as he celebrated the end of his first year on the throne. "But if the Lord should call me, I am ready." The Pope greeted 162 villagers from Sotto il Monte, his birthplace in northern Italy, told the 15,000 gathered in St. Peter's that the year had "passed like a day," then prayed for peace...
...last week-Beethoven's "Appassionato," Sonata, Schumann's Fantasy in C Major, Stravinsky's Sonata, Brahms's Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel-was studded with wrong notes and blurred acrobatics. But it also had the kind of galvanizing effects that only a first-rate musical mind and heart can convey to an audience. Richter-Haaser's approach, particularly in the "Appassionata," was heroic, his tone boldly ringing, his rhythmic drive irresistible. In the Stravinsky piece, he may have lacked the proper corky bite, but his Brahms had a propulsive, thunderous intensity that...
...musical performance itself, as everybody agreed, was first-rate. Guided by Conductor Erich Leinsdorf, Principals Lisa Delia Casa, Cesare Siepi, Mildred Miller and Regina Resnik sang with the security and style that comes from long experience. Of the two singers making their debut, Finnish Bass-Baritone Kim Borg (as the Count) was adequate, but Swedish Soprano Elisabeth Soederstroem (as Susanna) was a silvery voiced delight. The sets by Designer Oliver (Rashomon, House of Flowers) Messel were superbly elegant: a boudoir whose rose-colored silk panels and drapes glowed with a kind of faded splendor, a formal garden suffused with...