Word: operas
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
George Peppard was signed to play the superrich Blake Carrington in Spelling's Dynasty, but "creative differences" led to Forsythe's replacing him at the last minute. A nighttime soap opera about an oil family, Dynasty was indebted to the hit series Dallas, but Spelling brought his high glitz, and Forsythe his gravitas. Joan Collins played Blake's first wife Alexis and Linda Evans his second wife Krystle. The show cemented network TV's hold on serial drama, hooking millions of viewers week to week, long before HBO filched the franchise with The Sopranos...
...like all classical music institutions, is trying hard to find ways to engage new audiences, and particularly young audiences. Part of the allure of a lively, fun production like the WNO “Ariadne” is its ability to introduce opera to casual or first-time listeners without condescension or elitism...
With irreverent glee, the WNO production transforms the “harlequins” of the original opera into a sort of rock band, dressed up in leather, tour T-shirts, and faded jeans. The Composer and his cadre become manifestations of the typical “classical establishment”: all ties, fine clothing and preening. They stick faithfully to Strauss’s score—no insertions of guitars or anything like that—but the context makes it clear that they’re talking less about the relationship between the comic and the serious...
...second act consists of the opera proper, the Composer’s “Ariadne auf Naxos.” The audience in the opera house implicitly becomes the audience in the house of the nobleman. The popular/classical concept of the Prologue seems to get dropped in the Opera; the harlequins stop being band members and become, somewhat disappointingly, actual harlequins (although one does wear sunglasses). The Opera itself could be substituted in any other production of “Ariadne auf Naxos” without much loss of continuity...
...Opera works well enough on its own, which actually might in the end be healthier than forcing a particular production vision beyond its natural limits. Marjorie Owens’s stately, poised Ariadne provides a well-measured foil to Gilmore’s sprightly, impish Zerbinetta. The opera is, in effect, a showcase for the two very different types of sopranos—dramatic and coloratura—and each takes full advantage of the opportunity to have fun. Owens’s sturdy, firmly rooted rendition of the aria “Es gibt ein Reich?...