Word: outset
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...those of 150 hopeful young singers. Bespectacled and wrapped in a colorful shawl, the celebrated tenor spent the past two weeks judging the finals of the second Opera Company of Philadelphia/ Luciano Pavarotti International Voice Competition. "If you win this competition," said Pavarotti at the outset, "it promises you an opportunity. But more important, if you do not win, it doesn't mean you will not have a career." Still, the expansive Italian could not designate many losers. The day the competition ended, Pavarotti celebrated with an early cake for his 50th birthday and announced he had decided...
...Harvard physicists who signed a petition pledging refusal of so-called "Star Wars" research funds. The political intent here is clear--through denial of their skills, these scientists hope to deter the federal government from pursuing this research, or, failing that, simply to undermine the effort at the outset. The physicists may say that they're doing it just for "moral" reasons, that in fact their individual refusal does not constitute policy by default. However, their urging of their colleagues to follow their example belies any such stand...
...effort was jinxed at the outset because of her choice of Narada Michael Walden as producer. Walden (who worked with Jeff Beck and helped turn the legendary ax man on to the panacea of disco) here has so little faith in Franklin's raw talents that he keeps drowning her vocals in a sea of special effects. The tracks on Who's Zoomin' skitter back and forth between different styles, from pop to soulful sassiness to coolly hip. The emphasis is always on Walden's pyrotechnical studio tricks...
...particularly political. The wry, absurdist humor recalls Beckett, and the inchoate sense of menace parallels Pinter. The candor of the final confessional between the brothers is Fugard's own. At Yale, as in the original, Fugard has directed and plays the half-derelict, fair-skinned brother. At the outset he seems fragile, ineffectual, on the border of madness. As the narrative focuses on the implications of his relative whiteness, he gathers strength and wisdom. Zakes Mokae, a 1982 Tony Award winner for Master Harold, engagingly re-creates his original performance as the darker, earthier, more mercurial...
...America gives us yesteryear's headlines with a dollop of conventional wisdom to serve as analysis. Since essay-writing appears to absolve him of the requirement to report, Henry can opine that "the most antagonistic major news organization was CBS, which had challenged Reagan's approach almost from its outset." He can make sweeping generalizations like: "Something ungiving, downright mean, seemed to have slipped loose from the darker corners of the nation's soul." Henry, to his credit, does take some risks. In an excellent analysis of Mario Cuomo's convention keynote address, for example, Henry dispenses with the rhetoric...