Word: lyricized
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Died. Beniamino Gigli, 67, famed lyric tenor, an Italian shoemaker's son who took over Caruso's roles at the Metropolitan Opera in 1920, sang and acted with a peasant's gusto ("as naturally as a gamecock fights"); of pneumonia; in Rome. Refusing to take a salary cut during the Depression (other Met stars did), Gigli huffed off to Mussolini's Italy, predicted "something like a civil war" for the U.S. (he later denied it all), sang for top Germans during the war ("What would you have done?"). In a triumphant 1955 return...
...Seeger has a major failing, it is not his voice, but a restricted repertory, a failing common to most American folksingers, including Odetta, Woody Guthrie, and even Leadbelly. Seeger is fine with any hard-driving, rhythmic and fast-moving song, but he seems confined by any lyric more tender than The Wreck of the 97. This is a pity, because it means he must be either cut off from a great body of relatively sedate folk songs, or perform them somewhat below the level of their potential. Seeger generally choses to attempt them, but he is a complete success only...
...lies in color especially, which she handles in a varied yet subtle and consistent manner. Her brisk, incisive drawing seems equally personal, although there are instances in which the idiom becomes conventionalized, overwhelming rather than serving the fundamental idea. In any event, her paintings and woodcuts are all fresh, lyric and full of spirit...
...also guaranteed Frankie complete jurisdiction over his material. Frankie's material was narcotic. Using what the psychiatrists call "the melodic striptease," he peeled yards of satin from Bewitched, I Get a Kick Out of You and The Lady Is a Tramp−smearing nostalgia and responding to each lyric with subtle emotion. It was Frankie's guest crew (Kim Novak, Peggy Lee, Bob Hope) who somehow failed to return the charm and sincerity he oozed, though Hope was spasmodically funny: "The State Department is sending me to Asia to spread the American flu." Frankie Boy's most...
Matisse asserts his own lyric manner in top form. As large a chef d'oevre as the Piano Lesson shares in common with the brilliant little Seated Odalisque an extraordinary clarity and extreme purity of expression...