Word: opera
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...makeup and flashy jewelry, resembling Priscilla or Davis' girlfriend, Karen Master. They chew gum and file their nails during the proceedings. During the recesses, they talk of their fondness for the various participants, especially the darkly handsome Davis, as if they were favorite characters on a television soap opera. Says one spectator, Mrs. Texas Methven, a middle-aged retired secretary: "I'm praying for him. He's a good businessman and looks nice. He'd be a good Christian if he could settle down with Karen." One popular pastime is comparing Karen, 29, who nervously smokes...
...centuries, opera librettists snubbed The Duchess of Malfi. The cut was unkind, since her tragic tale is the very stuff of grand opera. John Webster's play, published in 1623, is admirably lurid and complicated. There is the Duchess's secret and forbidden marriage to her steward Antonio. There are her two evil brothers: Ferdinand, who is driven mad by incestuous passion for her; and the Cardinal, who schemes to be Pope. After her marriage is discovered, the Duchess is imprisoned and tormented by madmen. At the end, everyone dies violently...
...opera has embraced Webster's gory drama in a big way, with not just one Duchess of Malfi but two. The Santa Fe Opera company, which has presented 20 American and world premieres in its 22 seasons, has just produced the American premiere of The Duchess of Malfi by British Composer and Librettist Stephen Oliver, 28. A second Duchess has simultaneously been staged at Wolf Trap Farm Park for the Performing Arts, outside of Washington, D.C., this one a world premiere by American Composer Stephen Douglas Burton, 35, and Librettist-Conductor Christopher Keene, 31. Strikingly different?one discordant, the other...
Santa Fe's production, performed in the company's handsome redwood and adobe outdoor theater, is squarely in the 20th century tradition. Oliver's opera is a chilling psychodrama, a story of madness and perversion. Instead of a palace, the set is a surreal structure, an external symbol of the brothers' twisted passions. Against this fantastical backdrop, shapes and shadows mingle grotesquely. Soldiers resemble insects in their shiny black armor and luminous round helmets. Members of the court, dressed in garishly striped costumes, are a hideous masquerade, a parody of splendor...
...points. If you want to enjoy your week, do it this way. Arrive a little bit late, at the risk of being stuck with the living room or the misfit in your rooming group. Yeah, that's right, the 400-pound sumo wrestler from East Schneck who listens to opera real loud, and picks his nose...