Word: serail
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Chronically poverty-stricken Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wanted to be married, decided to compose a light little Singspiel to pay the bills, titled it Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio). To make it popular, he set it in a harem. He filled it with "Turkish style" music and costumes which were fashionable in 18th Century Europe, gave the heroine his future wife's name Constanze. After the Vienna premiere in 1782, Emperor Joseph II said: "Too fine for our ears, my dear Mozart-and much too many notes." Despite the imperial reservation, Die Entf...
Above Beirut's Place des Canons last week R.A.F. planes roared and caracoled. Before the Grand Serail (Vichy Government headquarters) was drawn up a guard of British cavalry and Free French marines, all spit & polish. Inside, in the reception room, besides the conquering Allied generals waited 20-odd foreign consuls; native political leaders; sheiks in wimples; religious dignitaries from the country's many Moslem and Christian sects. They waited in vain for Admiral Pierre Victor Gabriel Gouton (acting for General Henri Fernand Dentz, Vichy's High Commissioner) to come out and say goodby...