Word: operetta
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
David Bachrach and Ruth Harcovitz are most familiar to Harvard audiences for their operetta roles. This Sunday they change styles and are the soloists in two of the better Bach secular cantatas, the Peasant and Coffee. K.T.H...
...companion piece on the Symphony recording is the overture Di Ballo. Despite brilliant engineering and adequate musicianship, it remains a mediocre work. Curiously enough, it is the only large non-operetta of Sullivan's that has survived straight through in the repetoire from its composition. It may still be heard occasionally played by the Boston Pops. But it remains an inferior piece, especially when contrasted to the better examples of a form in which Sullivan excelled. The record of Di Ballo and the E-minor Symphony is avoidable for all but the most avid students either of symphonic history...
...Records did a grave disservice by releasing only instrumental sections of The Tempest. Cutting the vocal sections was an obvious budgeting move that was grossly inartistic. The songs were essential to the work. They are embarrassingly similar to operetta and their beauty is just as impressive...
...week's end there was no clear-cut evidence that Constantine had any knowledge of the attempt to overthrow the junta, which government spokesmen initially brushed off as an "operetta" involving "a handful" of men, including two retired admirals. But shortly afterward, 32 senior naval officers were arrested and presumably will be tried on charges of treason. Then 31 other navymen, led by the commander of the destroyer Velos, mutinied and were granted asylum at the port of Fiumicino in Italy. Then the government admitted that the "operetta" had been a serious attempt at revolution...
...rare chance to see and hear where it all began: Sullivan's first operetta, Cox and Box, was written at age twenty. Though played with only three characters, the genius that flowered in Ruddigore and Gondoliers is already evident. A contemporary (1862) critic noted in the journal Fun, "Mr. Sullivan's music is funny here and there, and grand or graceful where it is not funny." The man who offered that opinion was W. S. Gilbert before the fateful meeting. Also on the South House program to fill out the evening is Mozart's Impresario...