Word: scala
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Scala's Claudio Abbado, 34, is a stern, urgent pursuer of the long musical line, a Toscanini-like stickler for both fine-mesh detail and overall coherence. Imperious and intensely concentrated, he spurs an orchestra on with a clean, incisive beat, often achieving a surging pulse and crackling inner tension. He excels with the original texts of operas, giving them what one critic calls an "electric-shock treatment...
Died. Victor de Sabata, 75, longtime (1929-53) artistic director of Milan's La Scala Opera; of heart disease; in Santa Margherita Ligure, Italy. Conducting, he once growled, "is a beastly profession." But no one approached the podium with more single-mindedness than this long-armed maestro who treated orchestras to operatic rages and audiences to athletic conducting, ever disdaining-like his predecessor, Toscanini -the use of a score...
Belting Their Best. La Scala's two Verdi productions, Il Trovatore and Nabucco, illustrated the company's faults-and how it turns them into virtues. Both performances tended to be concerts in costume. Nicola Benois' massive, upward-sweeping sets were effective in a traditional vein. Nabucco, in particular, had moments of rousing stagecraft, especially when a 35-ft. purple statue of Baal split down the middle and the surrounding temple exploded, filling the stage and auditorium with steam. But mostly the singers forgot about the drama and one another, turned toward the audience, and simply belted...
...Scala's novelty for this tour was Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi, a bel canto relic that the company recently revived after a century of relative neglect. A retelling of the Romeo and Juliet story that owes little to Shakespeare, Capuleti, with Bellini's intimate scale, pervading sweetness and utter predictability, is a distinct contrast to Verdi's powerful, primitive themes and vaulting imagination. But the company -notably the two leads, Tenor Giacomo Aragall and Soprano Renata Scotto-traded the flawed gusto of its Trovatore and Nabucco performances for restraint and quiet artistry, making...
...Scala struck a magnificently old-fashioned note at Expo. In this age of realistic music-drama, far-out staging and intellectual musical analysis, La Scala's reaffirmation of the Italian faith in the power of positive vocalizing was both quaint and oddly persuasive. The company may never fully awake from dreams of its own past glory, but the question is, does anyone really want...