Word: giocoso
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...work, cast in three movements, was performed without pause. Despite the contrasting tempi given for each movement (allegro, adagio con moto, allegro giocoso), there was little sense of actual formal differentiation--partly due to the tempo changes within a given movement, partly to the overall consistency, almost to a fault, of the instrumental texture. The texture was dominated by the churning lines of the strings, the quartet often moving in the same manner but isolated registrally. Added to this was the occasional punctuation and melodic quote announced by the remaining choirs of the orchestra, nearly always regulated to a marginal...
Even by the famously hot-blooded standards of opera, last week's passionate dramma giocoso at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City was positively -- well, operatic. In the fiery lead role was the mercurial lyric soprano Kathleen Battle, renowned for leaving a trail of ill will in her wake wherever she goes. Opposing her were the forces of decorum and rectitude, represented by Met general manager Joseph Volpe. The denouement was catastrophe. Volpe, citing "unprofessional actions . . . profoundly detrimental to the artistic collaboration among all the cast members," summarily fired Battle from this week's production of Donizetti...