Word: singer
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...must have meant iconic. For what is a diva but a singer -- Callas in opera, Garland on the screen -- whose mission is to suffer, and to interpret suffering, for her faithful? Last we heard, Lennox was agreeably married, but that's not our business; besides, it's irrelevant to the authenticity of the pain in her strong and subtle alto pipes. What she has done in Diva is to marry that voice to a sheaf of memorable songs that map the doleful soul of a modern woman. This is angst for art's sake, something she can believe...
LIBRETTOS HAVE BEEN CONSTRUCTED out of some unlikely material -- Gertrude Stein's poetry, ancient Sanskrit texts -- but never have the words been so, well, unwordy as those for Atlas, a new opera by the minimalist composer- singer-dancer MEREDITH MONK that was performed last week in Brooklyn. La la la and Hay yo, Hay yo are just two of the "arias" in this tale of an ! explorer named Alexandra (Monk), who travels to the roof of the world with a handful of intrepid companions and finds both adventure and, in the end, herself. An offbeat but sophisticated hybrid of simple...
...MUCH OF THE PAST TWO DECADES, jazz singer SHIRLEY HORN abandoned the recording studio in favor of domesticity. But since signing with Verve in 1988, Horn, 58, has been making up for lost time, collaborating with her favorite musicians and recording her best work yet. Her latest release, Here's to Life, fulfills a lifelong ambition to record with composer-arranger Johnny Mandel. Elegantly orchestrated with strings and winds, plus Horn's delicate piano, the album features ballads, like the title track and Isn't It a Pity?, in which Horn's velvety voice virtually coos in the listener...
Leading slut is more like it. For The Blue Angel is the tragic (if now faintly risible) story of the sadomasochistic relationship between a nightclub singer and a middle-aged high school teacher who becomes obsessed with her. The callousness of Lola-Lola's manipulations was memorable, but not more so than the soon-to-be-famous legs that walked all over her victim. Von Sternberg returned triumphantly to Hollywood, and Dietrich followed...
...South Carolina coast. In the time- honored tradition of teacher-student tales, this man whom the kids call Conrack enriches not only their lives but also his own. Spurning conventional curriculum and methods, he gets his young charges to enthuse about his hero, Beethoven, and his other hero, soul singer James Brown. He instructs them to take pride in America's history and also in Africa's. Touchingly, he lifts the self-esteem of even the slowest...