Word: francos
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Having raised up the Castel Sant'Angelo from the depths of the Metropolitan Opera in Tosca and put half of Paris onstage for La Boheme, Franco Zeffirelli must have felt some pressure to top himself with his new production of Giacomo Puccini's Turandot. Curious first-nighters, proud holders of the toughest opera ticket of the season, entered the Met last week wondering how far the director's passion for outsize verisimilitude would extend. Would he cut off the Prince of Persia's head and stick it on a pole? Build the Great Wall of China? Or (gasp!) actually respect...
...tend to mistrust radical interpretations. Europeans, more at ease with their own heritage, feel freer to experiment with it. Those seeking a bold approach in the U.S. will rarely find it in the big houses. In New York City, the Metropolitan Opera favors conservative productions, sometimes elephantine ones like Franco Zeffirelli's La Boheme and Tosca, that reinforce the company's role as a musical museum. Occasionally, the rival New York City Opera makes a cautious foray into modernism, often with indifferent results -- Frank Corsaro's tepid Spanish Civil War version of Carmen, for example...
Except for the international set that frolics on its Mediterranean beaches, Spain has long been anything but an In country. It was something of a pariah for decades under the dictatorial rule of Generalissimo Francisco Franco. Suddenly, however, it has become one of the hot spots on the international business scene. Just one year after Spain won full-fledged membership in the European Community, the country's economic growth is accelerating, its stock market is surging, and foreign capital is pouring across its borders at a record rate. Spanish businessmen are already looking ahead to an expected bonanza from...
Recent Met stagings -- notably Franco Zeffirelli's spacious La Boheme from 1981-82 and his Tosca, for which Rome was rebuilt, two seasons ago -- also have marooned their casts in movie sets. Presto: singing pygmies. Now comes this extravagant Fledermaus with singers who become a backup chorus to the brocade and the woodwork. Rosalinde (Soprano Kiri Te Kanawa) gets lost in the crowd during Orlofsky's drinking party in Act II, and the vengeful Dr. Falke (Baritone Michael Devlin) blends nicely with the patterned wallpaper and the potted ferns...
...Abraham Lincoln Brigade, actually a battalion, was organized by a group of Americans in the 1930s to fight on the side of Spanish partisans against the fascist Gen. Francisco Franco...