Word: nero
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...floor shows) cleansed and entertained vacationing senators and consuls. The place acquired a highly questionable reputation. The dramatist Terence wrote: "At Baiae one never knows what the night will bring," and the poet Propertius warned his girl friend that "The waters of Baiae lead to immoral love." At Baiae Nero built the biggest bath, and a vast covered pool. Here he also tried to drown his mother...
...Nero invited his mother Agrippina to Baiae. On her way home she narrowly escaped death when her ship, obviously sabotaged, sank from under her; after she got home, Nero-egged on by his mistress Poppaea, who disliked the lady-used the surer method of having Agrippina clubbed and stabbed to death...
...Coronation of Poppea (Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, chorus and soloists conducted by Walter Goehr; Concert Hall, 3 LPs). Monteverdi's last opera (1642) and his most affecting score, rich in musical compassion and credible characterization. The story, which might have trouble with contemporary film censors, tells how Poppea, Nero's mistress, ousts the rightful empress and triumphantly takes her place on the Roman throne. The recording is notable for some superb singing by Soprano Sylvia Gähwiller and Contralto Maria Helbling in a fine cast...
...Nero (Niccolo Theodoli; Italian Film Export) is the first of what may be a cycle of foreign films ribbing American movies.** This Italian production, with English dubbed in, is a satire on the type of superspectacle exemplified by Hollywood's Quo Vadis. If Quo Vadis was one of the costliest ($6,500,000) movies ever made, O.K. Nero is certainly one of the silliest. It has knockdown clowning, pratfalls, songs, dances, and an existentialist ballet. Constantly rowdy, it is only intermittently funny...
...sightseeing in the Colosseum and dream that they are having all sorts of misadventures in ancient Rome. Among the picture's low-comedy highlights: the voluptuous Empress Poppea (Silvana Pampanini) taking a milk bath that out-DeMilles De-Mille; the sailors engaging in a pocket-billiard contest with Nero (Gino Cervi); gladiators waging a savage football game in the Colosseum with a Grecian urn as a pigskin; a Roman orgy with jitterbugging; a frenzied chariot race in which one of the vehicles is driven by Hopalong Cassius...