Word: singer
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...name is Sinatra, and he considers himself the greatest vocalist in the business," remarked the bandleader Harry James, alternately amused and astonished by the young singer he hired in 1939. The crooner turned out to be a shrewd self-appraiser, and what he said about himself 45 years ago still stands. In Sinatra: An American Classic (Random House; 251 pages; $29.95), Music Critic John Rockwell deftly analyzes the Chairman of the Board's technical proficiencies, and his examination of Sinatra recordings of One for My Baby is a nice combination of a scholar's observations...
These are the same pranksters who four years ago made a rowdy success of the lovable Gilbert and Sullivan warhorse The Pirates of Penzance. Then as now, Papp was the producer, Wilford Leach the director, William Elliott the music supervisor and conductor, and Pop Singer Linda Ronstadt was boss soprano in charge of provoking doleful predictions that she could not possibly handle an operatic lead...
...that onlookers misted up not for Ronstadt but for another Mimi, tiny, strawberry-blond Soprano Patti Cohenour. (Lead duties are divided; Cohenour sings four of eight weekly performances; Ronstadt three, and another Mimi, Caroline Peyton, the remaining show.) The sweet-voiced Cohenour and her surprisingly strong Rodolfo, Country Singer Gary Morris, seemed lyrically in love. The other leads, a fine Marcel (Howard McGillin) and a brilliant Musette (Cass Morgan), took fire from them. The night before, Ronstadt and her Rodolfo, David Carroll, had sung at and past each other without making contact, and the rest of the cast...
...silvery high notes without shifting gears awkwardly in her uncertain middle range, where most of Mimi's singing is done. It seems doubtful that her deficiencies are readily curable. She must have known early in rehearsal that the experts had been right to say that a pop singer could not make the leap to Boheme. She might have quit then and sunk a production that depended heavily on her name. That she stayed to take her critical lumps may have been arrogance, or it may have been a rare act of gallantry. ?By John Skow
...chat with the dead Henry David Thoreau: "Sex can be messy; art can't. That's why I've always preferred it." Then just about everyone shows up in Montana, where Louisa falls for General George Armstrong Custer, and Charlotte dallies with a Dietrichesque saloon singer who is really a man. They all die at Little Big Horn and go to heaven. And in the wink of a REM, the dream is over...