Word: mezzos
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...making. Only a few -not including the Met's new General Manager Rudolf Bing-had been told the details. Last week, with a gala New Year's Eve audience settled in their seats for Fledermaus, the Met's bubbliest new production in years (TIME, Jan. 1), Mezzo Rise Stevens uncorked the surprise...
Waving a ludicrous 18-in. cigarette holder in her role of Fledermaus' bored, bemonocled Prince Orlofsky, Mezzo Stevens strutted center stage, put one foot on the prompter's box and waggled the holder at Box 23 of the Met's Diamond Horseshoe. Then, as Manager Bing winced in his box, she sang a switch on her song, Chacun a Son Gout...
...waltz-time score, the Met orchestra never sounded better. As Dr. Falke (Fledermaus), the source of the operetta's intrigues, suave Baritone John Brownlee sang and acted with aplomb. Dressed to the teeth in a scarlet and white uniform and waving an 18-in. cigarette holder, Mezzo Soprano Risë Stevens brought the house down in her entrance as the bored host, Prince Orlofsky...
When a group of highstrung American Legionnaires in Dallas heard that Mezzo-Soprano Jennie Tourel was scheduled to be soloist in the cantata Alexander Nevsky, a eulogy to a 13th Century Russian patriot, they stirred up civic feeling against the lyrics. Everybody was happy after the word "Russians" was changed to "people," "Russian soil" to "fertile soil," "Russian valor" to "native valor...
...which Aitken projected so magnificently that it almost sounded "at home" on the piano. This was Beethoven in black and white, a Beethoven of great contrasts and climaxes, altogether a gigantic conception of a gigantic work. Some details of the performances appeared faulty. The volume level never wont below mezzo forte, so there could hardly be any distinction between forte and fortissimo. Some of the phrasing was so taut that it resulted in rhythmic distortion, and the first movement particularly seemed too choppy. Aitken held consistently to his "black and white" interpretation in the very long slow movement, where...