Word: opera
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Beefy Wagnerian gods . . . snorted and bellowed"; "the Met's soggy chorus would need a shot in the arm"; ". . . stable of posturing actors-make opera more gross than grand"; and to be final, "the stylizing makes more for convenience than conviction" [TIME...
...people who love the opera for itself . . . object to the sneering and leering of those who choose (shall I say to be charitable) to be so damn superior. . . . The singers do not "snort and bellow!" If they did they would find themselves out of a job-but quickly! And one does not attend the opera to see acting. Get that straight! One goes to hear . . . the ecstasy of the human soul in song...
Prokofiev didn't show up in person to recant his sins. He was ill, the meeting was told. But he was already at work on a new opera about a Soviet pilot who learned to fly again after losing both legs. He promised to follow party directives, and use plenty of Russian folk songs. So did the other six composers spanked by the party. (The promise came easiest to Aram Khachaturian, who has always borrowed freely from Russian folk music.) Two other composers-one was Dmitri Kabalevsky -who were not even named in the decree, confessed their errors...
This week Kenton moved into Chicago's Civic Opera House for a one-night stand; the 4,200 seats and standing room had been sold out for two weeks, and 3,000 ticket-buyers had been turned away. (It was no trouble at all to get seats in advance for the Metropolitan Opera's famed Ezio Pinza that afternoon...
Metropolitan Opera (Sat. 2 p.m., ABC). Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci...