Word: mezzos
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...stage, giving it a disarming, storybook two-dimensionality. There is the wolf-suited Max (Soprano Karen Beardsley), a youthful holy terror who hangs his Teddy bear and decapitates his toy soldiers. There is Max's snug bedroom, where he is commanded to repair without supper after his mother (Mezzo Mary King) loses patience with his antics. Just as in the book, the room blossoms into an enchanted forest and is, in turn, transformed into a broad ocean upon which floats a bark named Max that takes the boy to the volcanic land of the Wild Things. Even the smoke-snorting...
Vocal quality was high throughout: Tenor Rene Kollo's sturdy Siegfried, Bass- Baritone Walter Berry's crafty Alberich, the ripe Fricka of Mezzo-Soprano Hanna Schwarz in Das Rheingold. A delightful bonus was the Walkure Fricka and Gotterdammerung Waltraute of Vienna-born Mezzo Helga Dernesch, who some years ago was an important Isolde and Brunnhilde. Combining her still considerable power with a riveting dramatic presence, Dernesch gave a lesson in Wagnerian artistry. Conductor Edo de Waart was too often cautious when he should have been impetuous, but he roused himself in Gotterdammerung to deliver a reading of surge and sweep...
...never, it is safe to say, has it been cast as it has been in this version: Soprano Kiri Te Kanawa and Tenor Jose Carreras are Maria and Tony, the doomed lovers from rival gangs; Mezzo Tatiana Troyanos is Maria's friend Anita, who feels that life is all right in America; peerless Mezzo Marilyn Horne makes a cameo appearance singing the gentle ballad Somewhere; and, surprisingly, Bernstein conducts his full score for the first time. Far from being a vanity production with a group of slumming opera stars, however, the performance is convincing and vital...
...communicate either that lady's sultry eroticism or her ambiguous moral nature. Better is Bass-Baritone Simon Estes' dignified, sympathetic Porgy, though his voice is not as robust as it should be. (Injured during the dress rehearsal, he played the crippled hero on real crutches.) Individual honors go to Mezzo-Soprano Florence Quivar as the soulful Serena and the dashing Gregg Baker as the villainous Crown. The production, designed and directed by Robert O'Hearn and Nathaniel Merrill, is handsome, if not as spectacular as Douglas W. Schmidt's Radio City triumph. Arthur Mitchell, director of the Dance Theater...
...Nelson Riddle orchestra. The gala's tone of red-blooded glitz was set by Country Singer Mac Davis' show opener, God Bless the U.S.A., complete with marching band and back-up vocals. At the request of ! Nancy Reagan, organizers added a touch of highbrow to the program by scheduling Mezzo Soprano Frederica Von Stade, who sang an aria from Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots...