Word: librettist
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Down in the Valley, a one-act "folk opera" by Composer Kurt Weill and Librettist Arnold Sundgaard, had become a sensational hit on the campus theater circuit all over the U.S. Written a year ago, it had already had some 80 separate productions. Last week its latest one was the biggest hit in the three-year history of Manhattan's zestful Lemonade Opera company...
...royalties from the piece: "There are little opera companies all over the country which are crying for just this sort of thing ... If I had three of these one-act operas to make a full evening's entertainment, they would make a living for both composer and librettist...
...chorus: the Night Song, in which the audience is divided, for singing purposes, into owls, herons, turtledoves and chaffinches. After they had joined gleefully in the final Coaching Song, there was nothing left to do but applaud themselves and the opera's makers. Curly-haired Composer Britten and Librettist Eric Crozier (who also wrote the book for Britten's third successful opera, Albert Herring*) had to take a dozen curtain calls...
...Grimes" is not a very good argument for opera in English, and it cannot fall back on the translation excuse. The fault lies with librettist Montagu Slater. He doesn't seem to think in musical terms, so that there is a lot of pretty tedious recitative, much of which is superfluous. The verbosity has apparently proved too much for Britten, for his music, though following thought and mood, does not fit the words very skillfully. This failing was exaggerated Thursday night by poor diction on the part of both soloists and chorus...
Love Life (music by Kurt Weill; book & lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner; produced by Cheryl Crawford) can boast the Best of Everything-the producer and the librettist of Brigadoon, the composer of Lady in the Dark, the director of A Streetcar Named Desire, the choreographer of Finian's Rainbow, the leading lady of High Button Shoes, the leading man of Annie Get Your Gun. But whether so many top-notchers are like too many cooks, or whether some of them have slipped a notch or two, Love Life is not really a good show; it is only a show...