Word: gounod
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
When little English Soprano Maggie Teyte first got the idea of doing a new version of Gounod's Faust, she had Hitler in mind: "I wanted to show how Hitler, too, was a Mephistopheles, pulling wires and moving people around just as such men have through history ... I thought the Faust story would be a powerful...
Maggie made her mind up about another detail: there must be a shorter and more understandable way to tell it than the lengthy and oversweet Barbier and Carré book to which Gounod had set his music. So she picked out the best of Gounod's arias, commissioned English Poet Stephen Spender to write a narration "more in the spirit of Goethe" that would tell the story clearly and bridge the gaps. Last week, a summer audience in sport shirts and bright silk prints packed the sweltering little white frame playhouse at Stockbridge, Mass, for the first performance...
...Gounod: Faust (Georges Nore, tenor; Roger Rico, bass; Geori-Boue, soprano, and others; the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, Sir Thomas Beecham conducting; Victor, 32 sides). Faust, with its razzle-dazzle choruses and radiant arias, brought instant fame 90 years ago to French Composer Gounod; this performance adds to Beecham's. Recording: good...
Arising with Drums. In the early 1900s, on every Easter morning, an orchestra hired for the occasion would roll into a kettledrum crescendo which just about lifted the roof off the Middletown (Conn.) Holy Trinity Church. It was Gounod's St. Cecilia Mass. The choir chanted: "I believe in one God . . ." Anda skinny little substitute crucifer, home from boarding school, would tell himself tremblingly: "Boy, I sure...
Swiss Composer Arthur Honegger had successfully set to music everything from Greek legends (Antigone) to steam engines (Pacific 231) and sports (Rugby). Then he bit off a chunk that many a musical better-Verdi, Gounod and Tchaikovsky, among others-had broken a tooth on. He began work on an oratorio on Joan of Arc. French Poet (and onetime Ambassador to the U.S.) Paul Claudel provided a mystical, introspective text...