Word: operas
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Wieland and Chereau proved, a radical Ring will ultimately be accepted if it is presented with dramatic force and intellectual coherence. Each new Ring director has the obligation to seek the spirit, not necessarily the letter, of Wagner's four-opera cycle, and Kupfer, director of East Berlin's Komische Oper, is no exception. He presents a cinematic rethinking of the myth that projects the action far into a grim, post-nuclear-war future, in which gods, dwarfs, giants and humans stumble through the detritus of a lost civilization in a futile search for salvation. As stern as a Lutheran...
...first few scenes are klutzy; Romero has never been the subtlest director of actors. But once he gets past the early exposition, he takes energized control of the subject (his script is based on Michael Stewart's novel) and gets a tough-minded turn from Beghe, his soap opera-handsome young star. Beghe must show all Allan's suicidal anxieties, homicidal anger and heroic resourcefulness while strapped in a wheelchair. His finger can hardly move, but his performance does, splendidly...
...there a busier contemporary composer than Philip Glass? The prolific minimalist seems to be everywhere these days, churning out operas, film scores and instrumental music with the tireless industry of an 18th century Kapellmeister. Unlike Haydn, though, Glass has no Prince Esterhazy to keep him in livery, only his appetite for work. In May his The Fall of the House of Usher, based on Poe's grisly tale, opened in Cambridge, Mass. Seven weeks later, the Houston Grand Opera premiered his operatic setting of Doris Lessing's novel The Making of the Representative for Planet 8. Now, and most spectacularly...
...task of realizing M.'s altered states fell to Sirlin, whose credits include, in addition to opera, Madonna's 1987 "Who's That Girl" tour. The Viennese venue was striking: a section of Hangar No. 3 at Schwechat International Airport. "We looked at a couple of beer halls, but we needed a bigger space," says Sirlin. "Then someone said there was plenty of space at the airport...
...vapid books and recycled songs. The portrait of Showman Flo is slack and bland, the glimpse of Churchill in wartime likely to appeal only to those with nostalgia for buzz bombs. In the wings: mostly revivals, including Can-Can and Brigadoon. Bemoans Producer Cameron Mackintosh (The Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables): "It's Mausoleum Alley here." In part, the West End is the ironic victim of its own past successes. Fourteen shows now running in London have been playing for a year or more, and ten of those have already been seen on Broadway. Cuts in government funding have...