Word: piras
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Verdi: "Di quella pira" from Il Trovatore (Tap). This album, as its cover proudly proclaims, presents one aria rendered by 40 tenors, containing 80 high Cs. As written by Verdi, Di quella pira ("From that pyre"), from the third act of Il Trovatore, had not a single high C in it, but Tenor Enrico Tamberlik (1820-89) started inserting one in the middle and one at the end-and they have been there ever since. The 40 tenors sing in six languages, and generally bleat, screech, bawl and scream in a manner calculated to make any listener sympathize with Rossini...
...took a bit of doing, but at last it had come about-a Mediterranean peace conference at which Europeans, Israelis and Arabs would demonstrate their unity through "their common faith in one God." For months La Pira, 54, the dedicated but visionary former mayor of Florence, who once brought his city to the edge of bankruptcy by his lavish program of public works, had worked night and day to compile his volatile guest list. When the conference began in Florence's 600-year-old Palazzo Vecchio. just about everyone invited was there, including eleven ambassadors. Even Italy...
...Idealism," sighed one delegate as the conference broke up, "has been wrecked on the rock of reality." Last man to learn of the wreckage was Organizer La Pira himself. At the very first session, he collapsed from overwork, for two days lay exhausted and comatose, while his delegates talked on but found no peace...
...vitamin pills. At the end, the Florence audience cheered through 17 curtain calls. After two years of mediocre Musicales, including a somewhat ragged Ring cycle last year, the May Festival had recouped its artistic losses, again ranked with the best in Europe. Said Florence's Mayor Giorgio La Pira, brushing aside news that two scheduled operas would have to be canceled because the Musicale had run out of credit: "We have no money now, but we have music...
Many Florentines, possibly including La Pira himself, were convinced that this dramatic gesture would shock the Social Democrats into submission. But when the city council met again last week, the majority of its members proved ready and eager to find another mayor. Unfazed, La Pira pulled another card out of his sleeve: along with 24 Christian Democrats and two right-wing Liberals, he resigned from the council itself. By so doing, he hoped to make it impossible for the city government to function and thereby force new elections-elections in which he might hope to win a majority...