Word: operetta
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...PRODUCTION ITSELF, while spirited, lacks the innovative choreography that distinguished Patience and made it spectacle as well as operetta. Iolanthe is in some ways a more conservative production--there are no daring tricks, no point when all the stops are pulled out. Only two changes in the text were made--one of them an update of a now long-forgotten reference to a London firm, the other a hilarious interjection into the outstanding number of the evening, "Faint heart never won fair lady." Zax, Lewis and Crowley collaborate in a dance number of staggering virtuosity whose best parts...
...start things rolling, the Kinks will be appearing tonight at the Orpheum where they will perform the uncut version of their latest rock operetta, Schoolboys In Disgrace, or The Making of a Despot a la Gilbert and Sullivan. This is a marvelous opportunity to trace the psychological components which led directly to Mr. Flash's demise and at the same time enjoy one of the finest rock/theater troupes in the business...
...Broadway musical, operetta or grand opera itself, the musical stage has few works as innocent and pure as Treemonisha. Joplin called his work an opera and structurally it is one. He wrote his own libretto and decked it out with orchestral preludes, choruses, solos, duos, even a quintet, in a way that indicated he probably knew the works of Weber and Flotow. The spirit of the work, though, hovers somewhere between operetta and masque. The use of ragtime is limited to exhilarating dance finales: Aunt Dinah Has Blowed de Horn at the end of Act I and A Real Slow...
...fondness has produced masterpieces - The Nutcracker, for example - but it can also lead to muddled fables like L'Enfant et les Sortilèges (The Boy and the Sorceries). Described as a "lyric fantasy" and based on a story by Colette, L'Enfant is as much an operetta as a ballet. It requires a chorus, a quintet of singing narrators and a boy soprano. He plays a naughty child who escapes from his studies into a fantasy world of cavorting armchairs, dancing teapots, and a veritable zoo of cats, bats, frogs, squirrels and dragonflies...
...doesn't pay to get worked up about the sexist slant of Princess Ida because, like any G. and S. operetta, it is, after all, a period piece. And that is exactly how the play is handled in this production--which, thank God, doesn't try to get funny with any embarrassing 20th-century gimmickry. There are plenty of slapstick embellishments, but--from the opening blast of "God Save the Queen" to the fake 19th-century programs, this production remains true to the spirits of Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan themselves...