Word: operettas
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Adapting classic Viennese operetta to dance has been the dream of Sir Robert Helpmann, 67, the Australian Ballet's director for 50 years. The idea is a seductive one. The operetta, of course, has dancing in it. The score is filled with mellow waltzes and Hungarian folk tunes, complete with mandolins and castanets. The trap for a choreographer lies in Lehar's melodies, which enhance the voice like exquisite garments that are no longer made. No steps danced to Vilia are satisfying, because memory hears a soprano singing...
Pirates of Penzance. The very model of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, featuring one of their most famous patter songs and centering on the paradoxical plight of poor Frederick, a young man only five years...
Pirates of Penzance. The very model of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, featuring one of their most famous patter songs and centering on the paradoxical plight of poor Frederick, a young man only five years old. Presented by the Boston Light Opera Company, at Madeleine Lee Theatre, 140 Clarendon St., through March. Performances Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday...
...moon, the visual impact of Pacific Overtures is ravishingly beautiful. The screens and sets (Boris Aronson) and costumes (Florence Klotz) transport one hypnotically into the realm of ukiyoe, the "floating world" of the Japanese print. The shape and tone of the show is that of a Kabuki-styled operetta. It is audaciously ambitious and flagrantly pretentious. Pacific Overtures attempts to portray the Westernization of Japan after the arrival of Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry's trade mission in 1853. The appearance of Perry's battleship is the evening's showstopper. First the prow with two baleful headlights looms...
...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...