Word: leonora
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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When Hays accepted the medal from Rudenstine,he thanked his wife, Leonora L. Hays...
Thankfully, Sondheim gives audiences a guide to understanding A Little Night Music right from the beginning. The wheelchair-bound matron Leonora Armfeldt (Lucy MacPhail '01) explains to her granddaughter (Kari Gauksheim '01) that people fall into three categories: the young, the fools and the old. MacPhail does a wonderful job with her elderly, jaded character, providing perspective on the play by holding the rest of the characters in brazen contempt. The Leibeslieders, a kind of Greek chorus, add another narrative layer to the work. Each of the singers parallels a character and performs occasional scenes based the plot, though...
...Despite her age, Desiree has not lost her charms, and their ensuing rendez-vous stands out as the most artfully staged and intriguing scene in the play. The audience watches the pair's lovemaking silhouetted through a screen. At the same time, on a different part of the stage, Leonora appears to reminisce about her youth spent manipulating aristocrats and complains that her daughter's methods of seduction lack style. This commentary transforms the couple's reunion into a pathetic act and infuses the play with the odor of decay and loss...
...cast. She combines her strong, powerful voice with a memorable performance. When, for example, Malcolm sends Charlotte to tell Anne of Frederik's adultery, Baal evokes real sympathy from the audience as a woman caught between loving her husband and hating his infidelity. When the action moves to Leonora's country villa, Baal's poignant misery continues to stand out as her love for the Count drives her to ridiculous lengths...
...less) successfully before the curtain falls, but one can hardly leave Gfaller's production with the feeling of having seen a romantic comedy. The resolution comes unexpectedly, and most of the characters remain wistful even in the arms of their lovers. This drama remains under the spell of Leonora's cynicism and the chorus's surrealism, just as the characters remain in the perpetual twilight of the Swedish summer...