Word: raked
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...Australian outback, has forged a passionate yet never preachy style that expresses its activist instincts in elemental terms. Propelled by jagged guitar riffs and a buoyant rock beat, the 11 songs seethe with apocalyptic images derived from urban nightmares and primordial dreams. Dust storms, hurricanes and infernal conflagrations rake the world in a kind of New Age Armageddon. In the eyes of Midnight Oil, Mother Nature has been violated, and she's looking for revenge...
Consumer watchdogs say overseas-job scams rake in at least $100 million a year. No one, not even the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), knows for sure. But the trade is so lucrative that even a small-time boiler-room operation with just three phones can take in $5,000 a day. Fly-by-night operators flourish in Florida, where policing is spotty at best. In the past year about 100 employment agencies have sprung up in the state to peddle overseas jobs. Half have already closed...
Altman, whose only previous operatic staging was a 1983 Rake's Progress at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, proves to be an ideal directorial choice. Especially noteworthy is Trina's erotic soliloquy as she lies in bed showered with her gold pieces, a latter-day Danae. And surely the opening scene of Act II, in which the maid Maria (mezzo Emily Golden) hymns the joy of wealth while experiencing the joy of sex up against a fence, is an operatic first...
...Wife, Jack and Cinderella. This is artfully done and a good contrast to the wide open stage of the "forest" where the rest of the action takes place. The tree panels are on a fine line between abstract and unrecognizable; Rapunzel's tower is downright weird. The rotating rake in the center of the stage is put to good use in indicating scene changes and the director only once gives into the temptation of staging a "Les Miserables"-like turning sequence. Bovine Engineer Margaret Chou also deserves credit for creating a stupid looking yet loveable cow that gets more applause...
...hands has all the gleam of a gold-rush prospector's. "In a few months," chirps Shingler, "this precious baby will be worth $6,000." It will take $20,000 this year alone for her to care for 20 ostriches and their offspring, but the farm stands to rake in between $300,000 and $500,000 selling the chicks to other investors...