Word: first
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...visit consisted mostly of works passed down through the company's musical heritage directly from those composers' hands. There was Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, premiered in Vienna in 1786 with Mozart himself conducting from the keyboard. There was Beethoven's Fidelio, also first produced in Vienna with the composer presiding, in 1805. From the 20th century there were Salome and Ariadne auf Naxos, the latter premiered in Vienna in 1916 and both composed by one of the State Opera's long line of distinguished directors, Richard Strauss...
...crown of the first week's operatic offerings was the Figaro-tender, witty, effortlessly buoyant. The spectacle of servants outwitting their masters, so inflammatory in Mozart's day, was given charm and point by Baritone Walter Berry, as a rather phlegmatic Figaro, and Soprano Lucia Popp, as his pert fiancee. Baritone Hans Helm and especially Soprano Gundula Janowitz, as the count and countess, played along with aristocratic good grace...
...there an opera house in the world that boasts a better orchestra than Vienna's? Whether in the iridescent pulsations of Salome or the silky, intimate lyricism of Figaro, or the architectural sweep of Fidelio, the orchestra played like a first-rate symphonic ensemble - which, of course, is what it is. When not in the opera pit, it is the renowned Vienna Philharmonic. With Bernstein again on the podium, it excelled last week in a highly dramatic, virtuoso performance of Beethoven's Ninth. Bernstein tended to heighten what needed no heightening, but by the time the final movement...
...Viennese are going through transition too. Shortly before the company left Vienna, it announced that Director Egon Seefehlner, 67, would retire and Cleveland Orchestra Music Director Lorin Maazel, 49, would take over in the 1982-83 season. Maazel is the first American to be entrusted with the company's treasured legacy. Possibly his appointment signals a desire by the Viennese to open up that legacy to new influences. One hopes so. The operas brought to Washington are all great works; but they are also cultural totems, safe and certified, and this reflects a basic conservatism in the company...
...since August. Nor would the assistance be chintzy. The Carter Administration had decided to back a federal loan guarantee of $1.5 billion, which was twice what Miller had indicated he would support only last September and a full $500 million more than the company had asked for in the first place. As a result of a confluence of economic and political imperatives, the White House had decided to proceed with the biggest U.S. corporate bailout ever, one that would far exceed the $250 million in loan guarantees extended to Lockheed during the Nixon Administration...