Word: ghosting
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FALLA: LOVE, THE MAGICIAN AND THE THREE-CORNERED HAT (Deutsche Grammophon). Loren Maazel, conducting the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, streaks through two famous ballet suites with much of Falla's own theatrical genius, and Grace Bumbry, as a girl chased by the ghost of her dead gypsy lover, gives an exuberant, shoes-off performance in her brief role. All hands seem to have caught the spell of old Andalusia...
Conrad Susa's incidental music is mostly just a series of sound effects. When Caesar's ghost appears to Brutus, Tharon Musser's eerie lighting makes it quite unnecessary to add the off-stage roll on the cymbal. And must we have another crude cymbal roll when Brutus runs on his sword? As a background to the aura of death at Philippi, Susa has also introduced on the harp an ostinato pattern from the Dies irae plainchant, which recalls the identical ostinato near the end of Rachmaninoff's tone-poem Isle of the Dead. At any rate, I suspect that...
...screen or stage, Author Albee's catalogue of the games people play tends to become repetitive, larded with Freudian case history, and building to a fairly preposterous climax. When George and Martha agree to lay to rest the ghost of their nonexistent teen-age son, there is solemn talk about the sterility of illusions, but the real issue appears to be a playwright's need to make his verbal fireworks add up to something...
...Lowell House production seen in preview Wednesday night is a success, although credit must go to the score more than to anything else. The versatile set by William Buckingham manages to evoke a feeling of Victorian dinginess and boasts a high tower for the ghosts to appear on. The lighting, by director Daniel Freudenberger, gives us some chilling moments when the ghosts do appear. These scenes are also blocked effectively, but at other times blocking is clumsy and even ludicrous--as when the children play a halting game of hobby horse. Much of the dramatic tension of the script...
...singing sometimes adds to the splendor of the music. James Paul, as the ghost Peter Quint, can evoke lurking evil, great power, and blinding charisma with his smooth tenor, and gives a truly frightening performance. The governess, Jean Marshall, has an accurate, pleasant voice that is sometimes too weak; but it is her acting, not her voice, which makes us care about her even more than we do about the beautiful, corrupted children. Their main difficulty is that their voices aren't quite strong enough; and in the chimes scene, where their hymn deteriorates into a satanic chant, the horrifying...