Word: frenchness
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Debussy's music provides an iridescent veil which sensitizes each syllable and gesture of the poem. His music illuminates the music from behind. The recitative vocal line partakes of the elastic undulations of the French language in an effort to more naturalistically express character. As he writes, "The feelings of a character cannot be continually expressed in melody. Also, dramatic melody should be totally different from melody in general." Only in a few places, such as Melisande's song at the beginning of Act III and the love duet in Act IV, scene iv, does the melody become genuinely lyrical...
...Arkel was the finest singer of the evening. Cheryl Bibbs as Yniold effectively delivered the crucial line "I must go and tell something to someone," and Jan Curtis as Genevieve provided unfailingly pleasant work. All of the singers had to contend with the ungrateful task of singing idiomatic French vocal lines in translation. The Conservatory orchestra was simply superb, marvellously negotiating the conversation of timbres and rhythms...
...French newspaper...
...unexpected Saint-Gobain defense prompted BSN accusations that the company itself had illegally financed the purchases. Although Vogüé denied any wrongdoing, French Premier Maurice Couve de Murville ordered two quiet government investigations. No matter what the outcome of the inquiries, the battle itself has put French businessmen on notice that the old days of secrecy, silence and short-changed stockholders have faded. From now on, even the most tradition-steeped French managements will have to produce results in the profit column or face the possibility of another such flamboyant takeover attempt...
...narrator's real name is never known, although he assumes names such as Lou Garrou, a play on the French word for werewolf. But beginning with his park-bench encounters and reveries -which are somewhat reminiscent of James Purdy's Malcolm-both narrator and reader are plunged into the dark underside of a surrealist life as lived by some decidedly improper Bostonians. Altogether betrayed by his faithless wife and conniving business agent who tricks him into painting the Da Vinci forgery, the narrator complains that he has been tipped into a "maelstrom of false marcheses, mercenary Bergamese whores...