Word: maurel
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...great Giuseppe Verdi's only well-known comic opera, written when he was 80, based on Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor, has long been regarded by many critics as his best. But ever since its first performance in 1893, with the late great Baritone Victor Maurel in the title role, it has tended to be a flop at the box office. The reasons are several. As drama Falstaff is sketchy, gentle, lacking in emotional intensity. As music, Falstaff is a tapestry of lacy subtleties, so fragile that only the finest opera companies can perform it without tearing...
...finest was Victor Maurel. Since he introduced the role at Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera, it has also been sung there by the late Antonio Scotti and by Lawrence Tibbett. Last week the Met presented its fourth Falstaff: big, pudgy 33-year-old Leonard Warren, whose suave baritoning was the hit of last summer's opera season at Buenos Aires' Teatro Colón (TIME...
Critics did not compare him with Maurel. But they did admit that vocally Warren had an edge on Tibbett's now rather threadbare version, and that the newcomer made Shakespeare's amorous fat man a likable and believable character. It looked as though the Met's fourth Falstaff might reign for some time...
...which made Wagner sound like a merry-go-round. Tommy listened to it by the hour, vowed he would devote his life to music. Beecham's Pills made possible a musical education at home and abroad. Tommy learned much as accompanist to the late great French baritone Victor Maurel. But the pills were not always an unmixed blessing. When, after an inconclusive term studying law at Oxford, Tommy Beecham cut loose and bought himself his first symphony orchestra, he called it the Beecham Philharmonic. British wags dubbed it the "Pillharmonic" and laughed him off the podium...