Word: opera
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Vienna is one of the few companies in the world able to claim that such figures move among its ranks as animating spirits. Opera in Vienna goes back to the early days of the form, when the city's cultivated imperial courts began attracting major composers, starting with Gluck. Today the company can work from scores personally annotated by Strauss and another former director, Gustav Mahler. Such authenticity in itself is no guarantee of quality, but to the performances last week in Washington it added a living spark of history. Washington, as history-minded a city...
...there an opera house in the world that boasts a better orchestra than Vienna's? Whether in the iridescent pulsations of Salome or the silky, intimate lyricism of Figaro, or the architectural sweep of Fidelio, the orchestra played like a first-rate symphonic ensemble - which, of course, is what it is. When not in the opera pit, it is the renowned Vienna Philharmonic. With Bernstein again on the podium, it excelled last week in a highly dramatic, virtuoso performance of Beethoven's Ninth. Bernstein tended to heighten what needed no heightening, but by the time the final movement...
...Berlin's Deutsche Oper, the Vienna visit turns out to be the final coup of his tenure. Internal conflicts have led the center's board to redefine Feinstein's status as of Nov. 30, retaining him thereafter only in the less powerful role of director of opera and ballet. The impact of this change on future visits by foreign companies is unclear...
...Music Director Lorin Maazel, 49, would take over in the 1982-83 season. Maazel is the first American to be entrusted with the company's treasured legacy. Possibly his appointment signals a desire by the Viennese to open up that legacy to new influences. One hopes so. The operas brought to Washington are all great works; but they are also cultural totems, safe and certified, and this reflects a basic conservatism in the company's outlook. It would have been refreshing if one production had been set aside for something offbeat, to show what the company...
...motive power behind this prime-time soap opera, but there is no slighting of the six other deadly sins either -particularly avarice. The ranch house could pass for the Southfork Hilton, and it must take a tanker and a half to fuel all those Mercedes in the driveway. The lovely Ewing ladies flop around the house in designer dresses, and when the good ole boys go hunting, they don't pile into a pickup. They whir away in a helicopter...