Word: madwoman
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...just a bit-less far out. This time he turns on Soprano Martina Arroyo, backed by 13 instrumentalists and four choral groups equipped with sticks and boxes. The resulting hour-long piece is wild stuff all right; at times it sounds like a crowd clapping and hissing at a madwoman who jabbers and trills like a bird. The accompanying explanatory notes, formulas and diagrams are most scholarly...
...Singewald must be one of those 60-year old Cliffies who pitter into an English history course two minutes late while the professor indulgently holds up his lecture. Somehow the boys at Kirkland House talked this nice old lady into assuming the title role of The Madwoman of Chaillot, a despicable effort to save some money in make-up and costumes...
Despite wayward lighting and some shaky scenery, all eyes remain on Amy Singewald in The Madwoman of Chaillot. And when the evil people are banished from the world, when pigeons fly again, air turns to crystal, grass sprouts on pavements, and perfect strangers hug each other, the shaking scenery seems part of the celebration...
BRITTEN: CURLEW RIVER (London). On a sojourn to the Orient in 1956, the composer was delighted by Japanese No plays, and one of them, Sumidagawa, is the inspiration for this one-act opera. It tells of a madwoman searching for her son, and her encounter with a boatman who explains his tragic death and shows her where he is buried. Scored for five male soloists, a chorus of nine and an orchestra of seven, Curlew River is a fragile work indeed, more tone poem than opera. Yet in a sedate, masquelike way, it has considerable melodic charm...
...male cast, headed by Tenor Andrea Velis as the madwoman, masterfully performed Britten's difficult, often eerie sing-speech style of vocal writing. The score was as delicate and intricate as a spider web, interlaced with the chatter of small untuned drums and plunking strings reminiscent of Oriental music. The most impressive achievement was that, in mixing such disparate elements as modern dissonances, a morality play and No drama, there was no clash of styles but rather a smooth melding into what is a new and wholly engaging musical form...