Word: sopranoes
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...when the music began, the sound was a far cry from Sousa. Separated by staccato commentaries from the cathedral's pipe organ, densely dissonant sonorities clashed and blended over the listeners' heads. Full-throated blares, splintery muted phrases, the crooning tones of the soprano trombone, the rumble of its contrabass relative-all seemed to accelerate in a circular motion, spinning into the cathedral's 190-ft. cupola like an earthly echo of the music of the spheres...
...disjointed monologues. In one skit a piano accompanies actress Irene Worth, responding to the natural cadences of her voice as she relives a traumatic childhood experience. The culmination of this tension between the actor and instrument occurs in the last piece when the voices of violin, piano and high soprano clash in an expressionistic fury...
...would be a mistake to confuse an actor's shortcomings with the author's intent: to argue that the audience is simply misconstruing Kim's-and ultimately Beckett's-purpose. Worth struggles at points with the difficulties of her script, and her monologues sometimes appear awkward and belabored. Soprano Jane Bryden fails completely. Her words are inaudible...
DIED. Marjorie Lawrence, 71, Australian-born soprano who resumed her career in a wheelchair after being stricken by infantile paralysis in 1941; of a heart attack; in Little Rock, Ark. Lawrence specialized in Wagnerian roles and after her illness made a triumphant comeback at the Metropolitan Opera in 1943 singing Venus in Tannhauser while seated on a divan. She detailed her struggles with illness in her 1949 autobiography, Interrupted Melody, and in subsequent years taught opera at several U.S. colleges...
Richard Strauss: Salome (Soprano Hildegard Behrens, Mezzo Agnes Baltsa, Tenor Karl-Walter Bohm, Baritone Jose Van Dam, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan conductor, Angel; 2 LPs). With Karajan, the orchestral music comes first, even in opera. Here he conducts a vibrant, sensuous performance of Strauss's lurid opera. Behrens as Salome may lack the cruel edge of Birgit Nilsson's performance on London. But Behrens' pure voice contrasts chillingly with Salome's lust, while Van Dam's ringing Jochanaan is a saintly counterpoint in a savage world...