Word: moth
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Moth Confesses is a record because Saussy wanted to write an opera more complex than an audience could understand in a single live performance. This "phonograph opera" becomes more resonant and eloquent with each replay. The style eludes easy description, except by comparison to MacArthur Park by Saussy's friend Jim Webb (whose influence is evident in The Moth's "Midsummer Night"and "Morning Girl," available out of context as a single). Both composers create serious and elaborate structures by joining an array of classical forms with borrowings from the sentimental popular music written for Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett...
...result is an open and flexible style, allowing The Moth Confesses to range from lyric tone poems through lavish transitions to mild rock. The Neon Philharmonic-an ad hoc "chambersized orchestra"composed of members of the Nashville symphony, local jazz groups, and talent used by Bob Dylan (drummer Kenny Buttrey)-is terrific, brightly expressing the Saussy intelligence and exuberance...
...compensate for the absence of visual cues and staging of live opera. The instrumental music also has to describe narrative movement and background, since the vocal part is simply a single voice which defines a stage in the maturing of its sensibility in each of eight arias. "The Moth Confesses is a condensed opera, "say the jacket notes, "with variations on a single literary theme: desperation...
...Moth Confesses is a sensitive characterization by Gant, a beautiful performance by the Neon Philharmonic and a brilliant production by Saussy. The album has a spendid cover and a salutation-"Borges forever"-to one of Saussy's literary heroes...
...Little Foxes (1939) and The Skin of Our Teeth (1942) and Hollywood's Lifeboat (1944). Yet even to the flops she brought the kind of fierce power and impish delight that captivated friend and foe alike. Tennessee Williams called her a cross between a tiger and a moth, and her performance offstage was the true measure of the actress. Lavish beyond redemption, garrulous beyond recall, Tallulah chain-smoked, talked and caroused like a longshoreman. She was known to romp around her apartment in the nude drinking planter's punch-and sometimes greeted friends at the door...