Word: sopranoes
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...somber judgment scene from Aida unfolds. Portraying the Egyptian princess Amneris is a singer identified in the program as ``Carmelita Della Vaca- Browne,'' a burly Puerto Rican ex-soprano whose voice (since giving birth to triplets) has darkened to a take-no-prisoners mezzo. In the role of the doomed warrior Radames, all-American tenor ``Tex Stolto'' can't seem to resist handing out glossy photos of himself. And as Ramfis, the high priest, Russian bass ``Boris Pistoff'' doffs his headdress to reveal himself as a Conehead...
This is Aida? Well, yes--as staged by a New York-based all-male company called La Gran Scena. This rare--and rarefied--troupe recognizes that opera thrives on the tension between the sublime and the silly. After all, when a 90-kg soprano trips down the castle steps trilling like a half-kilo canary in the mad scene in Lucia di Lammermoor, should one weep at her character's insanity or howl at the absurdity? La Gran Scena's answer is: both. As they see it, loving opera and laughing at it are one and the same thing...
...Sulpice scene from Manon, a passionate encounter between lovers in a monastery, brings on the prima donna ``Vera Galupe-Borszkh,'' a.k.a. ``La Dementia.'' Wearing a colossal red fright wig and more lipstick than Lucille Ball, she commands the stage like Bette Midler on Benzedrine, casting her stratospheric soprano to the bleachers as it veers between ear-splitting fortissimos and never-ending pianissimos...
...Soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy, who visited and performed at Harvard last spring, remembers how difficult it was to gain critical and social acceptance for Taylor's musical innovations. "We had almost the whole world against us," said Lacy, "we had more rehearsals than gigs, and there were about two, or three, or four people that would follow us around from gig to gig. That was our public, really...There were musicians who would walk off the bandstand when Cecil would walk in a club...
...earliest recordings that will be broadcast during the orgy, those from the period 1955-1960, Cecil Taylor sounds approximately like a jazz pianist on acid. He performs with the standard format of a jazz combo: piano, bass, drums, and a hornman, in this case, soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy. The group records several versions of tunes from the standard jazz repertoire. Hearing Taylor perform the Duke Ellington-Billy Strayhorn composition "Johnny Come Lately" has almost the shock value that hearing Jimi Hendrix's version of "The Star Spangled Banner" must have had ten years later. The familiar jazzman's repertoire turns...