Word: rococo
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...furniture as in architecture, the 19th century's fanciful adaptations of traditional styles often masked new concepts in design and construction. The sinuous curves and scrolls and extravagant ornamental carving of J.H. Belter's rosewood chairs and tables were based -however remotely-on 18th century French rococo precedents. But the S-shaped Tête-à-tête chair that seats two people facing one another was a strictly Victorian innovation...
...vaudeville was once king, burlesque was the nation's raffish, rococo old queen. Sixty years ago this week, Baltimore's New Monumental Theater featured "Divorceland: A fantasy of song and jest, with sumptuous scenic environment and an ensemble of beauteous femininity, prodigally clad in costly raiment." Throughout the '20s and '30s, pratfalls and epidermis at Minsky's warmed the Broadway night. From Boston's elegant Old Howard Theater to the vulgar palaces of Midwestern river towns, innocently dirty old men of all ages whistled and stamped at the sultry writhings of Gypsy Rose...
...essence of bel canto is making the vocally difficult sound delectable. Long, lung-stretching phrases, rococo trills, breathtaking leaps of voice slide into the air and ear with soft, summery ease and grace. The quintessential bel canto role is Norma, the most taxing female part in all opera. Giuditta Pasta, the first singer to try the part after Bellini created it in 1831, found it so difficult that the violins had to play out of tune deliberately to disguise her failures...
...Chateaubriand and early Coward. Such deliberate flatulence and obvious double-entendres make for bright, brittle repartee but also a total lack of focus. The film first spoofs Fairbanks-Flynn epics. Then it attempts to satirize Byzantine court intrigue and ends in boudoir farce. In his overzealous attempt to create rococo madness, Producer-Director Bud Yorkin ignores comic economy. Orson Welles' opening narration is gratuitous, and his appearance at the end creates an anticlimax that almost guillotines the movie...
...Rococo Invective. For a practicing iconoclast, however, Mencken chose surprisingly feeble icons of his own. As a young man, he fell for Nietzsche and his doctrinal fantasy of the Ubermensch. As misread by Mencken, Nietzsche provided license to despise the human race and delight in all things German-as epitomized by beer and Brahms. Politicians were rogues. The church was only a racket. People in general were boobs. Such were the underpinnings of Mencken's rococo invective. But when serious matters were involved, his philosophical resources were meager and his thinking often callow and jejune...