Word: sopranos
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...THEATRE Centre opens its season with Jack, or The Submission and The Bald Soprano by Ionesco, two plays with a spooky flux between motion and verbiage. Harnessing the two elements for full impact calls less for enthusiasm, which these productions have in quantity, than for measured coordination of stage blockings. In the HTC program notes, Director-Producer Rosann Weeks asserts an ideal commitment to "vital, direct, and positive communication with our audience." Somehow or other, their good intentions get tripped up in a confusion of artistic priorities, which leaves the first play choppy, the second slow-paced and staid...
None of the singers have flawless French diction, but otherwise the Philips cast seems nearly perfect. Tenor Jon Vickers' heroic-sounding Aeneas has both muscle and gentleness; Mezzo-Soprano Josephine Veasey sings Dido with a burnished-bronze quality that can range from love to outrage. As Cassandra, Soprano Berit Lindholm is splendidly equipped to trumpet the doom of Troy, even if her voice is a bit too high for this low-ranging role...
...hapless Verona policeman once ticketed a misparked car belonging to hot-tempered Diva Maria Callas. His action touched off a string of unearthly trills and cadenzas. The soprano was fined for only a traffic violation, but Opera Manager Alberto Tantini was able to fix things with Police Chief Aldo Ballarini. A third gentleman of Verona, the magistrate, saw it all quite differently. He initiated a new charge against Callas of insulting a public official and even escalated the affair by accusing Tantini and Ballarini of bearing false witness and failing to report a misdemeanor. All that happened back...
...Cantata No. 51, Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen, is one of the most consistently popular of the sacred cantatas. The purity of its vocal settings, when performed by an adequate soprano, places it among the most starkly beautiful of Bach's vocal works. Benita Valente, Monday night's soloist, is a perfect Bach soprano. She has a clear, pure voice, without any of the excess floridity or overblown style which is fatal in a Bach performance. Miss Valente and the orchestra gave a highly correct interpretation of the work, yet no one devoid of feeling. The work, originally composed...
...that Leonard Bernstein conducted Beethoven's Fidelio in Vienna, a son was born to U.S. Soprano Olive Moorefield of Vienna's Volksoper and her husband, Dr. Kurt Mach. "Love and congratulations," Bernstein wired, "for Oliver Kurt Fidelio." The parents were delighted and added Fidelio to the boy's name. "Think of the poor baby's fate," mused an Austrian TV commentator, "if Lenny had conducted Die Meistersinger von Nੜrnberg that evening...