Word: moone
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Francisco's War Memorial Opera House last week, the Ford Foundation got the first dividend on its $950,000 grant to U.S. composers for 18 new operas: the premiére of Norman Dello Joio's Blood Moon. Judged by critical response, Blood Moon was a bad bargain. "It does not send you out singing," complained the Chronicle's Alfred Frankenstein. The Examiner's Alexander Fried was more biting. Blood Moon, said he, hovered "between an ambitious grand opera manner and light-opera clich...
...immigrant Italian organist, Dello Joio likes to think of himself as a spiritual descendant of Verdi. Blood Moon tells the story of Ninette Lafont, a beautiful octoroon actress who flees New Orleans on the eve of the Civil War to forget her doomed love for Raymond Barlac, a Southern aristocrat. The wide-ranging plot, based on Dello Joio's own scenario, gave Designer Rouben Ter-Arutunian ample scope for lush sets that imparted a sense of grandeur to the opera's five scenes. American Soprano Mary Costa, who played Ninette, sang beautifully but seemed lost in the schmalz...
Dello Joio had his own opening-night forebodings about Blood Moon. "Conservative people will think it's too modern," said he, "and modern-minded people will think it's too conservative." He got no argument. "I don't like any opera in English," huffed one white-tie traditionalist, and most critics were upset that Dello Joio had used a 19th century idiom. Still, the opera had its redeeming features. If the music lacked the strength of a Verdi opera, it was consistently melodious, at times truly lyrical. If the plot was melodramatic, it gave hints of Dello...
...landing a Soviet astronaut on the moon: "It is not a question of mooning him but of demooning him. Our national emblem is already on the moon, but we don't want to place a coffin beside...
...Sabbaths. All non-Buddhists are guaranteed religious and political protection, but Buddhism will be taught in state schools and teacher-training colleges. The biggest change: Buddhist sabbath days, which roughly correspond to the four phases of the moon, will be official holidays during which offices, schools and all bars must close...