Word: rosenshein
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...proper right down to the last parasol. There wasn't a bumbershoot of any description on the Lyric stage. No fans either. They were replaced with tokens and totems of the new pan-Orientalism: signs that blink out Sony, Seiko and, inevitably, Coca-Cola; NankiPoo (Tenor Neil Rosenshein), the wandering minstrel, transformed into a rocker with a red guitar; Yum-Yum (Soprano Michelle Harman-Gulick) in a flared short skirt and visor cap, giggling and jawing gum like a Tokyo Valley Girl; and the Mikado himself (Bass Donald Adams), arriving onstage, with all appropriate ceremony, in a Datsun...
Rochberg has done his best to flesh out the unpromising material. The opera, his first, is filled with striking set pieces: a lyrical duet for China (Tenor Neil Rosenshein) and his wife Annabella (Soprano Sunny Joy Langton); an ominous interview between China and his moneyed friend Orchis (Tenor Michael Fiacco), whose threatening nature is underlined by a snap-pizzicato line in the low strings; a good-natured, bibulous ensemble lauding the joys of wine. In his handling of the choruses, Rochberg is especially skillful; indeed the final chorus, extolling the virtue of confidence, recalls the Falstaffian spirit of Verdi...
| 1 |