Word: libretto
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...always misses, without ever swinging. Beaton's costumes are a slight modification of the timeless Edwardia that he prefers to inhabit, and scarcely reflect the spare Mondrian modern that is the mark of Chanel. Lerner's book manages to suggest a rough draft rather than a finished libretto. He must be somewhat chagrined that the biggest laugh of the evening comes when Hepburn spits out the short word for excrement...
...know about bats? (To be honest, I was able to recall a snatch of lvric from Il est Side Story that sang about bats out of hell, but I hardly thought that would see me through.) However, halfway through the second act, it became somewhat clear that the Eledermans libretto isn't about bats at all. No, it is all about unfaithful husbands, masked balls, hermaphrodite princes, and all the other staples of what we have come to know and love as I ligh Camp. I breathed a proverbial sigh of relief...
...show was then redesigned to Gleason's order. The title song, originally a ballad for Richard, was changed to a superfluous (if nice) rouser that Gleason could handle. A weak director was hired and the libretto's somber tinge was submerged in fireworks. The show ran for a year, but had another producer (such as Hal Prince, whose West Side Story had revolutionized the Broadway musical the year before) besides Merrick done it. Take Me Along's life would surely have been much longer. (It is interesting to note that co-author Stein went on to write two great serious...
When it opened on Broadway 18 years ago, Paint Your Wagon was slowed by a static book and a production as badly in need of girls as its miners. On paper, Lerner's improved libretto-and a score with some new music by Andre Previn-seemed to hit the mother lode. But that was before the director made it a fool's Gold Rush. Lee Marvin has done what he could to give the wagon a push onscreen. But the only motion that can give this Loganized vehicle velocity is promotion...
...Olympics or the English Channel. For an actor it is Hamlet. But for a coloratura soprano, the pinnacle and challenge was and is Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia de Lammermoor. It is an opera whose trills, turns and top tones defy the deftest voices. The stilted dramaturgy of the libretto can reduce the most colorful actress to a drab cardboard gray...