Word: lyric
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Noble flop or neglected masterpiece? The question has followed Mozart's opera Idomeneo almost since its birth in 1781. Last week in Chicago the Lyric Opera voted for masterpiece, shoring up its case with the kind of virtuoso singing and playing that has made the company synonymous with excellence...
...Ponnelle production, originally conceived for the Cologne Opera and brought to the U.S. this season jointly by the Lyric and San Francisco operas, displays a unit set of striking originality. The rear wall consists entirely of a huge head of Neptune. On a series of short steps leading down from his face the play unfolds. Occasionally Ponnelle overstyles that drama: Idomeneo (skillfully interpreted by Swiss-born Tenor Eric Tappy) and the court freeze their poses, while Ilia laments the apparent loss of Idamante. But such effects are redeemed by the cast-and by the brilliantly inventive lighting. In Gilbert Hemsley...
Early in its 23-year history, the Lyric Opera earned the nickname La Scala West because of its incessant staging of Italian operas with Italian casts. The so briquet stuck, and today Founder Carol Fox, 51, has no regrets. "I just hope we're as good as La Scala," she says. As a child, Carol spent summers in Italy, soaking up the native language and music. In the role of general manager, she still returns there to audition singers. The indomitable Fox will be back next year even though her most recent reception was worse than a bad opening...
Another Part of the Forest--Lyric...
That seems to be the idea behind Lillian Hellman's "Another Part of the Forest," now at the Lyric Stage in Boston. The Hubbards are a juicy enough bunch: the miserly patriarch with a shadowy past; his wife, a religious fanatic; one son who schemes ruthlessly; another who whines and steals; and a daughter who compares unfavorably with Scarlett O'Hara. While Alabama in 1880 isn't a Danish castle, at least it provides a set of usefully poor neighbors and the Ku Klux Klan...