Word: lyrical
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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DIED. Jaroslav Seifert, 84, Czechoslovak poet and winner of the 1984 Nobel Prize for Literature, whose lyric verse celebrating everyday life and the love of women was warmly admired in his homeland but little known elsewhere; in Prague...
...Swallow) may be finding a perch in the major opera houses. La Rondine (pronounced Ron-dee-nay) is not yet a repertory staple. But in 1984 the New York City Opera staged a bubbly version that revealed the many charms of the seductive score. Now in Chicago, the renascent Lyric Opera is proving that treated with respect, the little bird can soar...
...most famous aria, is sung first by the poet Prunier, a sadder, wiser Rodolfo, whose prominence at the opera's beginning sets the tone for what is to come. The gradual transformation of the lovers' duet into a full-blown chorus in the second act is a magical lyric moment. There is even wit: a sly quote from Richard Strauss's Salome when Prunier describes his ideal woman, and a love duet that deliberately recalls the end of the first act of La Bohème. The melodies are supple and strongly defined, and there is none of the manipulative abuse...
Aside from a somewhat shaky performance from Rumanian-born Soprano Ileana Cotrubas, who sings Magda, the Lyric's handsome, glittering production is cast with young Americans. Originally presented in 1981 at Pisa's Teatro Comunale G. Verdi, it is directed by Giulio Chazalettes, who might have made more of Rondine's disillusioned subtext and in so doing brought out its richer texture. But as performers gradually realize the opera's possibilities, harder-edged interpretations will no doubt follow...
...That the Lyric Opera should take part in Rondine's restoration comes as no surprise. Founded in 1954, the company has always been a prime exponent of Italian opera in the U.S., a kind of La Scala West. Under Carol Fox, its late founder and general manager, Maria Callas made her American debut in a sizzling Norma, and the Lyric became home to such 1950s and '60s legends as Soprano Renata Tebaldi, Tenor Giuseppe di Stefano and Baritone Tito Gobbi. By 1980, though, economic troubles had put the company $300,000 in the red, and Fox was forced to resign...