Word: operetta
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...bitterest books ever written, Candide is also one of the gayest-its razor-edged, wit-propelled story generally galloping at such speed as to make its fantastic pile-up of catastrophes almost as hilarious as they are horrifying. Converting Candide into a "comic operetta" is perforce a major operation. For the whizzing variety of incident must be duplicated by musical, visual, verbal, choreographic variety of treatment. Seldom, thanks to Scene Designer Oliver Smith and Costume Designer Irene Sharaff, has calamity been more glowingly or sumptuously caparisoned; such things as the stage set of Lisbon and the Guardi-like Venetian figures...
Although the males in the cast carry most of the operetta, perhaps the standout is Alison Keith as Queen of the Fairies. Wonderfully arch, she carries off everything she attempts, even mixed lines. Though Elizabeth Peterson confounds none of her lines, nor in fact does anything foolish, she somehow conveys a less satisfactory impression. She is said to have a good voice, but I find it, and the seriousness with which she takes it, irritating. Her part, of course, will not permit the clownishness of the others, but still one wishes that she would consent to do mere Gilbert...
Cortright said that the new group was formed to give singers here an opportunity that they have formerly lacked: "the chance to sing in grand opera." He claimed the recent operetta productions given here do not fulfill this need...
Coinciding with this improved academic performance is the growing interest, part of a general Harvard awakening, of Winthrop men in their two annual plays: the House play given before the Christmas recess and the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, which this year will be The Mikado. The latter production, currently being rehearsed, has obtained expanded theatrical facilities and as a result will be a much more ambitious and lavish undertaking than operetta in previous years...
...such Monday-to-Saturday decisions that a man's Sunday religion is tried in the balance, and often it is found wanting-a well-known fact that does the cause of religion no good. Last week the National Council of Churches, on the occasion of a television operetta on ethics, plugged a new idea for attacking this perennial problem. Its good grey flannel name: the Living Right...