Word: gardens
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...rivaling Wagner's marathons in sizecould not be performed in much less than seven hours. Berlioz himself heard it only in truncated form, and since his death it has never been given a full stage performance in a single evening. Last week Britain's Covent Garden bravely trundled Berlioz huge century-old Trojan horse onto the stage again. To everybody's pleased surprise, it proved to be a thoroughbred...
...Aeneas. The Berlioz libretto is warmed-over Virgal shot through with a Shakespearean flavor (Berlioz described parts of it as "stolen from Shakespeare and Virgilianized"). To give the sprawling work a proper production and still hold it to a manageable 4½ hours (with only minor cuts), Covent Garden prepared lavish sets and drew on all its artistic and mechanical resources. Sir John Gielgud got his first crack at opera direction. Mezzo-Soprano Blanche Thebom (with all six feet of her hair unwound) was cast in the ear-rending role of Dido, Queen of Carthage, and Conductor Rafael Kubelik presided...
...long arms chopped the smokeless air of Manhattan's Madison Square Garden and the bone rigid forefinger jabbed at the TV screen. "Right in your living room," came the muscular Southern voice, "right in your bedrooms, right in a bar-you can let Christ come in." Wearing TV blue but no makeup, Carolina-tanned Billy Graham was bringing down the third-act curtain on the first live U.S. telecast of his New York Crusade. But as Billy continued his "invitation" ("just get up quickly and come right on down"), he was drowned out in a cue mixup...
...Titans Jackie Gleason and Perry Como. (Said Perry: "Very fine rating." Said Jackie: "No comment.") That meant (if the rating systems can be relied on to calculate audiences) an audience of about 7,000,000, biggest single congregation in the history of U.S. evangelism and enough to fill the Garden every day for a whole year. By week's end more than 35,000 favorable letters ("I found God last night on TV") had poured into Crusade headquarters, and Billy, both "surprised and gratified," exulted: "Many viewers wrote they made decisions for Christ-right in their homes...
...still going strong last season against I Love Lucy, Revivalist Graham returned to the TV pulpit this weekend more streamlined and confident than ever. Eschewing the hell-fire-and-brimstone theatrics of his historical predecessors, he pitched his sermon just as he had for 24 consecutive nights to huge Garden crowds. He also added to his TV experience this week with Sunday appearances on Meet the Press and Steve Allen's Sunday night vaudeville hour. Explained Billy: "There is no difficulty being an evangelist and using TV at the same time...