Word: melchior
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...passionately debated musical form, the myth of the golden age remains potent. If opera is primarily about singing-sheer, glorious vocalism over all other elements-then these may be parlous times. Where today is a real Aida on the order of Emmy Destinn, an echt Siegfried like Lauritz Melchior or a true Norma such as Rosa Ponselle? In the Arcadian past, there were giants on the earth. How can contemporary opera possibly compete with its starry past...
Expectant mothers in New York "shop" among traditional hospital delivery rooms, "birthing suites" and house-call midwives to find the method that best suits their attitudes. While most obstetricians welcome their well-prepared new patients, some think the fertile fringe has gone too far. Says Dr. Melchior Savarese, an obstetrician at Columbia Hospital for Women in Washington, D.C.: This group of women comes into my office with lists of questions. 'Am I going to have an I.V., an external monitor, an enema?' They set down guidelines. It causes minor confrontations. They're overly prepared." Says William Simon, professor of sociology...
Spring's Awakening, which Wedekind subtitled "A Tragedy of Childhood," concerns the sexual awakening of adolescence, "the first stirrings of manhood," the unleashing of the dogs of sex. The protagonists--Melchior, Moritz, Wendla, and Ilse--feel these stirrings, and are confused by them, and find no direction from a daft and hypocritical matriarchy. Left to fend for themselves in the erotic floodtide, some swim, others drown. This, for Wedekind, is the central point; the sexual impulse is merely a force, and as a force has no moral content; it should be recognized as such, and neither hidden nor judged...
...exalting the set, I don't intend to demean the actors, for most of them are at least good enough, and several are outstanding. In the role of Melchior, James Bundy gives a thoughtful and convincing portrait of age-in-youth. Daphne de Marneffe is chillingly effective as Mrs. Bergmann, particularly on the video screen--then she is a ten-foot-tall female gargoyle, and it is clear that all hope for these children is lost. De Marneffe's triumph, though, comes later, when she plays the 14-year-old nymphet Ilse. Here she is as enormously seductive as only...