Word: octavian
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...major asset: Bernstein had persuaded Mezzo Christa Ludwig to abandon her accustomed role as the youth Octavian for the lead role of the aging Marschallin, usually sung by a soprano. Ludwig's vocal prowess, womanly softness and pathos proved her a perfect choice. Said Bernstein: "She was so marvelous in the last scene that I cried watching her." And that was no Viennese exaggeration...
...subjects of Miss Murdoch's examination are met at a charming summer house in Dorset by the sea. The house belongs to Octavian, a fat, well-placed government official who loves his wife Kate (despite an occasional lapse involving his secretary), and cheerfully allows her to take in a widow with son, a divorcee with twins, a Dachau survivor and Latinist, and Octavian's brother, a failed India hand. The couple's dear friend, John Ducane, is a constant visitor, a wealthy bachelor lawyer who is so far gone in his infatuation for Kate that stolen kisses...
...Then bolder more ferocious, death slipping through your fingers, how could you go aboard Octavian's galleys...
While hardly ranking with the parley between Marc Antony, Lepidus and Octavian in a tent near Bologna at which they created the Second Roman Triumvirate, the meeting of the three little men under a tent on Laos' Plain of Jars certainly rivaled it in security precautions.* Amid fluttering truce flags, the only outsiders allowed within 100 meters of the tent were one unarmed bodyguard for each principal, and two servants. Between 100 and 300 meters away were stationed ten unarmed guards for each side, and in an outer circle stood 330 more soldiers...
...years later, when Cleopatra flees the battle of Actium, Antony runs after her. He abandons his legions, abandons his empire at a woman's whim. Back in Egypt, he falls on his sword as Octavian (Roddy McDowall) approaches, and Cleopatra receives from an indifferent asp the famous kiss of death...