Word: librettos
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
What's onstage, however, is anything but stuffy. In a tryout last July at California's La Jolla Playhouse, the first act moved like a rocket, while the second act sputtered. So composer-lyricist Pete Townshend and director Des McAnuff rewrote the libretto again, added new music and clarified -- purists would say changed -- the underlying message. Now the whole production hurtles forward with visual excitement and emotional clout worthy of the score...
...piece was "devised" (there's not enough dialogue to constitute a libretto) by Sondheim and directed by Julia McKenzie, who starred in London and on Broadway in Side by Side. The emphasis on courtship means six songs from Company and four from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum but little from more venturesome shows -- one song each from Into the Woods and Sunday in the Park with George, none from Pacific Overtures. For aficionados, that shortcoming is balanced by five numbers from the short-lived Merrily We Roll Along and two items, never before heard...
...used to try to crack down on the slaves, and the Black ones were worse than the white ones. So I've had them. Some of it's been fun, because I always think of myself in the image of the fugitave slave. Now I'm doing opera--a libretto that's been commissioned by the San Francisco Opera, so they have to follow me in the thicket of Tosca and all these different operas. I'm writing in Japanese, so they have to learn that...
...will come from. Hardly anyone does as much about it as Theatreworks/USA, a touring troupe specializing in new musicals. During three decades, it has played to more than 20 million children in every state but Hawaii. Its new HANSEL & GRETEL blends Humperdinck's opera music (ably arranged) with a libretto that softens the grim story by making it a pageant staged by a Salzburg family. The highlight: David Gallo's sets, which are sturdy enough to travel, versatile enough to become a forest or a witch's lair, and ravishing...
...contrast to the cinematically luxurious Greed, the libretto of McTeague -- by Bolcom's longtime collaborator Arnold Weinstein and director Robert Altman -- relates the action in spare, simple prose. McTeague (tenor Ben Heppner), a powerful brute who has set up shop as an unlicensed dentist in San Francisco, falls in love with his best friend Marcus Schouler's girl, Trina (soprano Catherine Malfitano, in a marvelously sensual performance). After Trina wins $5,000 in a lottery -- and McTeague's practice is ruined when the jealous Marcus (baritone Timothy Nolen) reports him to the authorities -- the relationship sinks slowly into a morass...