Word: pattering
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...information that could be used to track Saddam's security team and provide details on possible bombing targets. But it provided no more than incremental help. After all, the U.S. was already focusing massive intelligence resources against Iraq, so the contribution of a few small taps was like the patter of raindrops on a lake. Explains a senior intelligence official: "There was useful information, but it helped us only moderately." Anyway, asks another senior spy, if they happened to pick up something interesting, "are we supposed to put our fingers in our ears...
...Note to the orchestra: although the singers are the focus of the operetta, you are in no way exempt from this urging to pump up the volume: you're a moderatesized band that sounds equally wonderful playing cheery patter accompaniment or swoony love-arias, but can the second-guessed entrances and just...
...worse, Casilda is passionately in love with Luiz, the lowly drummer-boy of the Duke and Duchess and cares nothing for her predestined husband. The operetta is spent unraveling all this insanity and making sure everyone ends up happily with the person they truly love, as conveyed by various "patter" songs--bouncy, often silly songs with rapid-fire tongue-twister limerics...
This speedy "patter," which is at the heart of all of the famed British duo's operettas, is effective only when it's done clearly and loudly. From the looks of it, all the singers in The Gondoliers seemed perfectly capable of spinning out line after line of patter-talk; they just weren't loud enough. Seth Fenton '01 as The Duke of Plaza-Toro seemed to have the "patter" down perfectly (try saying "celebrated, cultivated, underrated Nobleman" five times at breakneck speed and in tune), and his entire court (he, the Duchess, Casilda and Luiz) was pretty adept...
...gondolieri and their lovely contadine brides, however, leave something to be desired. Although seeming to understand the carefree pitter-patter spirit of the show with their twirling skirts and appropriately suggestive smiles, this band of love-stricken Venetians could use a little more "cha-cha" in their "Cachucha" dance, and once again, a few more lessons in being louder and more boisterous. Maneuvering 16 singers (Marco, Guiseppe, their wives and 12 of their closest friends) around the tiny Agassiz stage is difficult and requires clockwork choreography and impeccably-enunciated singing, but this cast has the potential to make it work...