Word: glucks
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...girl, France's Queen Marie Antoinette took music lessons from Composer Christoph Gluck, may have tried her hand at composing herself. One little number, Chanson de Marie Antoinette, based on a melody supposedly by the Queen, has long been part of the standard vocal repertory. Last week, revarnished and renamed My Heart Cries for You, the Chanson had become 1951's first big hit. Its sprightly tempo had been slowed by Conductor-Composer Percy Faith to a lazy waltz, and its elegant tale of pastoral courtship changed to a monotonous lover's lament.* Result: the song...
...Unlike Gluck's Orfeo, Haydn's opera has an unhappy ending: Orfeo's beautiful singing is not enough to bring his Eurydice back from the dead; Orfeo himself is poisoned by the Bacchae. Enthusiastic Robbins Landon, who recorded Orfeo with singers, chorus and orchestra (cut to a Haydn-prescribed 40 pieces) of the Vienna State Opera, was ready to predict that "it will hold its own alongside [Mozart's] Don Giovanni. We don't believe in resuscitating something from the dead unless it's really a killer. And this...
...given Met audiences many a performance they might not have seen but for him: the Met's first Abduction from the Seraglio of Mozart, the first Alceste of Gluck, Mussorgsky's Khovanchina. He had resurrected the dusty Marriage of Figaro (now one of the Met's best performances and biggest hits), Boris Godunov, Otello, Falstaff. He brought the best of Europe's singers to the Met, but he made his era the era of the American singer too: in this year's roster of 108 singers, more than half are U.S.-born...
...singers and musicians and the Dutch loved it. At war's end, they decided to keep it. Last week, at Holland's third annual music festival in Amsterdam and Scheveningen, music lovers saw the decision magnificently justified. The new Netherlands Opera gave as fine a performance of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice as had been heard in years. The cast got a dozen curtain calls and a standing ovation from happy Am-sterdamers and their visitors. Minister of Arts F. J. Rutten exclaimed in relief, "It's really quite all right...
...have a familiar Euridice opposite her: U.S. Soprano Ann Ayars, who had sung the role with her in England and on records.#&134; But Conductor Thomas K. Scherman's Little Orchestra (38 players) and 40 singers from the Westminster Choir got into the graceful spirit of Gluck's music with the overture, and stayed in it to the last gaily triumphant note. It was, however, the dramatically restrained passion of Kathleen Ferrier's singing, in a voice that is even and full through its two-octave range, that carried the show. Few had ever heard the familiar...