Word: shepherdesses
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...distributed to the poor in Detroit several months ago, people lined up to wait hours before hand. Many went away with nothing. The point is that Reagan Administration officials have engaged in activities reminiscent of Marie Antoinette. She pretended every once in a while that she was a peasant shepherdess. But she had perfumed sheep and a huge villa. Reagan officials pretend that they're poor and try to live for short periods on assistance payments. They comment that they didn't think they were going to make it in the end but the poor really do get plenty...
Rebecca Downs plays the shepherdess Phyllis, with whom all the peers fall in love. She has a petulant soprano voice that warbles beautifully while she reveals her character's spoiled naivetes. She spins a web that entraps not only the nobles and the half-mortal, Strephen (Jay Kelly), but also her aged guardian, the Lord Chancellor (Dennis Crowley...
...Kelly's Strephon is a better actor than singer, most likely because his voice seemed strained from too many performances. His excellent portrayal of the confusion of being half-mortal and half-fairy is most poignant as he croons for his bellowed, shepherdess. Phyllis, Julis Friedi's Iolanthe is delightful, although she spends little time on stage. When she does appear, her rough also blasts out, revealing an unusual voice that contrasts well with the others...
...Renard the choreography this time by Richard Dickinson is simple and sure. Its few gestures toward stylization sit a trifle uneasily on Jeanne Jones as Persephone, who looks exactly like a China shepherdess; she also looks a little time like she's watching herself in a minor and her voice errs by a fraction of a timber towards stiffness. But Gide's beautiful words gradually enable her to relax her delivery and precise ensemble work by the nymphs further softens the effects...
Above all, Sellars's updating never interferes with the music. In fact, many of his innovations involve clever exploitation of the Handel score. The bouncy rhythms of Dorinda's first-act aria on the ineffable nature of love--she's the beach bunny, nee shepherdess--become the excuse for an hilarious mock-disco strut. Later in the opera, when Dorinda sings of love's bitterness, it is Sellars's inspiration that she pour herself a stiff drink between repetitions (all Orlando's arias consist of six or eight lines repeated again and again), with the result that her octave leaps...