Word: opera
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Handle. In Olcott, N.Y., a Mr. Ten Brook, who was christened in 1876 (the year of the Philadelphia Centennial) for one Judge Hodge (owner of the opera house, manufacturer of gargling oil and supporter of Samuel J. Tilden for President), gave his name as John Hodge Opera House Centennial Gargling Oil Samuel J. Tilden Ten Brook...
When one thinks of Don Giovanni, the lady-killing Spaniard, one invariably also thinks of Ezio Pinza, in whose hands the Met's production of Mozart's opera has become a perennial success. Thursday evening was no exception: the Opera House was packed to the ceiling and Pinza stole the show. Or rather, Pinza made the show. It was unfortunate that with the exception of the rotund buffoonbass Salvatore Baccaloni, who sang Leporello, the supporting cast did not quite click. Charles Kullman as Don Ottavio gave an adequate performance of some of the best music of the opera...
...such a masterpiece as "Don Giovanni," and Messrs. Pinza and Baccaloni sang and clowned their way through three hours of Mozart with great success. With unique genius "Don Giovanni" portrays the interplay of two most fundamental of life's forces: religion and sex. In the cataclysmic conclusion of the opera, when the statue accepts the arrogant nobleman's invitation to dinner, we realize that it can be only a supernatural power which will bring Don Giovanni to his doom. Behind the opera's dramatic end is one of the greatest portrayals of right's ascension over wrong...
...wonder, then, that "Don Giovanni" has earned its rank as first among operas. Fritz Busch, another grand old name around the Met, did a magnificent job with his orchestra. Particularly commendable was his handling of the dance scene in Act II, when three small on-stage orchestras are playing a waltz, a gavotte, and a minuet, all combined with the pit orchestra in an ingenious contrapuntal pattern. Opera orchestras are not always as skillful as they might be, but this week has shown no deficiencies along that line...
...still have broadcasts of the Boston and NBC Symphony Orchestras, the Detroit Orchestra, the Orchestras of the Nation Series, and the Metropolitan Opera," he added. "But others of this kind have of late been abandoned in favor of advertisers or jazz orchestras...