Word: lucretia
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...Thomson-and many another opera fan-had what he asked for: modern, medium-sized opera. On Broadway, where Gian-Carlo Menotti's terrifying but tuneful The Medium (TIME, June 30, 1947) was holding spooky seances for sellout audiences, Benjamin Britten's pocket-sized opera, The Rape of Lucretia, opened in Billy Rose's Ziegfeld Theater...
Billy did not produce it. But with all his shelved ideas for speeding up the ponderous Met (TIME, Sept. 6), he could hardly have improved on Agnes de Mille's staging of The Rape of Lucretia or on John Piper's handsome sets, imported from Britten's Britain. Dark-eyed Kitty Carlisle looked ravishing as Lucretia and sang almost as well. George Tozzi (as Tarquinius) sang a fine baritone. As demanded, it was a quality operation, even if it fell short of being a quality opera...
...pseudo-nut, he is greeted by the most revolting collection of relatives in recent movie history. Monty Woolley does a tremendous take-off on the Easterner who hates California ("Wonderful climate for a grape, which I am NOT!"). Ilka Chase plays a cousin with whom Woolley favorably compares Lucretia Borgia, and her son is a particularly apt caricature of a professional ladies...
Paulette Goddard was all set to play Lucretia Borgia. Producer Lester Cowan was about to go ahead with a film version of the late F. Scott Fitzgerald's Babylon Revisited. The Broadway hit of 1927, Burlesque (a hit revival on Broadway in 1947-48), had its title changed to When My Baby Smiles at Me. There would be a remake of Little Women, with June Allyson, Elizabeth Taylor, Margaret O'Brien and Janet Leigh as the four March girls. A sequel to The Jolson Story was announced; this time Al Jolson would play himself...
...enthusiasm overcoming his shyness, begging his singers to act their parts instead of grimacing and posturing. There were few in the Met's cast who didn't realize what they were up against. Soprano Regina Resnik is a Britten veteran: she had sung in his Rape of Lucretia in Chicago last year (TIME, June 9). But Tenor Frederick Jagel, who sings the leading role, was worried: "This is so tough dramatically that it becomes tough musically. If I don't watch my step, I end up with my tongue on my chest...