Word: operas
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...when he left his briefcase in the back of a Gotham taxi. Driver Kobina Wood turned in the case, which contained family pictures, copies of the prayers Domingo says before each performance and the score of the show he's currently performing. The tenor sent the cabby tickets. Another opera fan is born...
When the curtain went up on the Boston Lyric Opera's "L'Elisir d'Amore," everyone was amazed. The lighting evoked Bellini's "The Feast of the Gods," or the video to "Losing My Religion." Aggressively rustic patchwork dresses and apple baskets, along with a frail red wooden ladder, made certain that this Donizetti comedy would not suffer from any absurd modern setting. The simple but handsome picture frame around the luscious stage set was a perfect touch. Anything so beautiful as all this, one thought, promises to be entertaining...
...plot of the opera needs no emphasis here because the production didn't emphasize it either: like almost every other opera buffa, "L'Elisir" has a lot to do with jealousy, wine, and a lot of coincidences. The details of Felice Romani's libretto are hardly indistinguishable from those of most of Donizetti's more than 30 other comedies, save for the introduction of a pharmacy on wheels. Here's all you need to know: Uniforms are sexy, but enough money can make anyone seem lovable. Bordeaux is worth whatever you pay for it. People are really, really stupid...
Though the finale of Act I, where a duet becomes a trio and then a quartet, is the opera's grandest moment, there are more musical gems in Act II. This is true partly because the orchestra's role becomes more important: it offers sympathy for the lovelorn Nemorino. Adina's emotional volatility is manifest in ever-higher notes and ever-wider leaps. Turay and Saffer, by far the most talented singers in the production, were brilliant throughout. His rendition of "Una furtiva lagrima" got more applause than any other aria; her passionate confidence in the panacea...
...didn't. Instead, recalls Charles Rosekrans, then the choirmaster at the opera, Applewhite "felt the part was too much for him. It was a difficult role and required more voice than he actually had, and he had personal problems." Rosekrans vaguely remembers Applewhite's handing him a letter from a psychiatrist before withdrawing from the production. Thus, through crumbling ambition and the denial of desire, the easy affability of a young Texan from Spur, who loved to perform in lavish productions like Oklahoma! and South Pacific, was transmogrified into the troubled charisma of a cult master in Rancho Santa...