Word: philomela
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...jubilee, 58-year-old Composer Hendrik Andriessen, director of The Hague's Royal Conservatory, had written a new score for an old drama. The grisly story, adopted by Dutch Poet Jan Engelman from one of the episodes in the Metamorphoses of Ovid, tells how pure-voiced Philomela is raped by Tereus, her brother-in-law, who cuts out her tongue to enforce her silence. The sisters get revenge by feeding Tereus the remains of his slaughtered son at a banquet. At that point the gods intervene and change all three into birds-Philomela into a nightingale, whose singing...
Composer Andriessen's score was straightforward and melodious, underlining the rising tension of the plot. And he gave his two first-rate Dutch sopranos, Louise de Vries (Philomela) and Greet Koeman (the sister) singing roles that were powerful, dramatic and sometimes rhapsodic. When the curtain came down, the jampacked audience was not quite sure whether it had seen the dawn of a "great national school." But, said one Amsterdam University professor: "This evening was very encouraging...