Word: isabella
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...CORE of the play is Angelo's realization of his sexuality. He presents a deal to Claudio's sister, Isabella, a strictly moral novice, who is called from her convent to argue on her brother's behalf. He tells her she can prostitute herself to him in exchange for her brother's life, or she can allow Claudio to die. Isabella never actually chooses between the alternatives. The Duke has been nearby all the while masquerading as a friar. He helps Isabella trick Angelo, furthering his own purpose of determining "if power change purpose...what our seemers...
Unfortunately, these themes of hypocrisy and sincerity, sex and love, so strongly introduced, are left dangling. The 19th century setting is as much an imposition and as little a genuine idea as the nickelodeon. Part of the problem is Jennifer Marre's interpretation of Isabella. If only it had been a little less inexplicable, more seemingly affected by the thought of sexual violation or even by the threat of her brother's execution. Isabella is not necessarily selfishly chaste; especially in the setting of this production, Marre might have been directed to make evident that it is a different sort...
...will appear in her last new Met production, Donizetti's Don Pasquale. Two composers are writing operas for her, which are due to be introduced in the spring of 1979. They are Gian Carlo Menotti's Juana la Loca, about the mad daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, for the San Diego Opera, and Dominick Argento's Miss Havisham's Fire, based on Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, for the New York City Opera...
...Isabella Walton Cannon, newly elected mayor of Raleigh, N.C., explaining why, at age 73, she went into politics: "I'm an active person-I couldn't sit still. I retired at 65 from the business office of the North Carolina State University library, and I figured I'd live to be 90. That's a good chunk of time. I'm not the book-club type...
...rest of the evening is much lighter than "Isabella," though no less intense. Swados selected the pieces from her workshop at the Lenox Arts Center without enough alteration to properly fit the stage. Numbers like "Bestiario" and "Dibarti" are merely actors' exercises, delivered with spitspewing intensity. Successful theatre must rely on something more and something less than shouting to move and involve its audience...