Word: somberness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Last week "Frau Professor" Wallmann's 127th production, a three-act spectacular, Clitennestra, by Italian Composer Ildebrando Pizzetti, had its world premiere at Milan's La Scala. Musically, the work was something of a dud-somber, repetitive, unnecessarily difficult to sing. But as exciting theater, the bloodthirsty Agamemnon legend is hard to beat, and Wallmann did not try: instead she moved her chorus in a plastic combination of Greek tragedy and modern ballet, guided Star Soprano Clara Petrella in a performance of icy majesty, and won unanimous critical acclaim for what Milan's Corriere d'Informazione...
...seemed always the same, suspended for a brief moment, only to shift into new combinations, new designs, new moods. Scenes of high and solemn moment, as in the oath taking, swiftly changed to crowded dance floors, to prancing horses and strutting drum majorettes, to humming cocktail parties, wriggling teenagers, somber prayers, to ear-shattering brass bands endlessly playing Hail to the Chief, to laughter and cheers, to sentimental squeezes and unashamed tears...
...most Washingtonians, that was an unsettling prospect. The Washington Post labeled the building's style Aggressive Eclectic, "because it has a surfeit of everything." A more apt description might be Mussolini Modern. It squats, like a huge, somber, white-marbled mausoleum, on an 8.3-acre plot, 700 ft. distant from the House wing of the Capitol. Four stories high, it is H-shaped, flat-roofed, contains three-room office suites for 169 Congressmen and their staffs (the other 266 Congressmen are housed in the old New House and the old Old Buildings), as well as nine standing-committee rooms...
...futility of the world, Buddhism has been powerfully active in the world before. It has known warriors and politicians, god-kings and bonzes who whispered the advice of the pagoda into the obedient ears of the palace. Its variety is attested by the countless images of Buddha?smiling or somber, frail or vigorous, regally enthroned or easefully reclining. Yet nowhere, so far, has there been enshrined an image of Buddha on the barricades, of the Enlightened One with a hand grenade...
...even the somber Chinese seemed to be displaying a sense of humor in the matter of Albania. Peking's People's Daily declared that the "comradeship in arms" between China and Albania "is as deep as the Adriatic and as sublime as the Himalayas." The Himalayas are sublime, all right, but the Adriatic Sea, which washes the shores of Albania, is notorious for its shallowness...