Word: missing
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...production Susan Larson as the Princess might have been called on to exercise the comic talents which she hinted at. Jacqueline Meily, the scheming Lady Blance, would have done better with firmer direction, for she apeared a trifle timid on stage. Barbara Menaker had more success as Lady Psyche, Miss Menaker being another one of those whose acting was twisted into an excessive show of will. Musically the show was a tour de force. The score is interesting enough to justify a detailed treatment impossible here, for it is at once one of Sullivan's most clever (witness the parody...
Wednesday night Miss Wilsen presented a recital for soprano remarkable for its originality. Instead of the usual chronological sequence of song groups by Schubert, Schumann, Faure, Wolf, Debussy, and so on, her program was divided between Cantata No. 51 of J.S. Bach ("Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen"), setting by various composers of Goethe's "Rastlose Liebe" and Paul Verlaine's "Clair de lune," along with the cycle On This Island by Benjamin Britten to poetry of W. H. Auden...
...Miss Wilsen's voice (her "instrument" as vocalists in the know might say) is basically as lovely as her appearance, though it can have an unpleasant choked sound in the lower register. Her performance at Holmes unfortunately revealed serious technical problems in handling the music. The Bach solo cantata was the closest to coloratura the Master ever came, and is a tough order for anyone to handle. Wednesday night Bach's elegant roulades were indistinct and slow; the tempo dragged at every soprano entrance. The accompanying trumpet, string quartet, and harpsichord, though. perfectly competent, was unconducted and therefore had major...
...historical and compositional reasons. Besides the staples Schubert, Faure and Debussy, they gave hearing to such out of the way composers as C. F. Zelter, J. F. Reichardt, Robert Franz and Josef Szulc. The art song is probably one of the most difficult musical media to perform well. Miss Wilsen's effort was noble, but in a sense she was trying too hard. Her tone was often forced and she had trouble with breath control...
Relaxation is the hardest, but also the most necessary quality for a performer to attain. It was only in the Britten, where Miss Wilsen did not have to struggle with a less-than-familiar language, that her performance got off the ground and even ended the program with a lively, humorous flair. All in all it was an admirable maiden recital and I am sure those who were there look forward to hearing from Miss Wilsen again...