Word: spontini
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...Trained as a naval engineer, Corelli did not start studying singing until he was 24 and learned most of what he knows by listening to recordings of famous singers. His professional career was begun 'by pure good luck' when he got the chance to sing opposite Maria Callas in Spontini's La Vestale on a La Scala opening night. For a while Corelli's extracurricular antics?he punched a spectator he thought had insulted him, stabbed basso Boris Christoff with a stage sword?drew attention away from his sizable gifts as a singer ... In Italy bobby-soxers periodically...
...each generation has the right to its own repertoire, if only it will exercise it. Classical music need not be so unrelentingly obsessed with its place in history. "Think of forgotten music that was played in the past with gusto and pleasure," says Luca, perhaps recalling the ghosts of Spontini and Spohr. "I am willing to take a chance that someone down the road will decide one day not to play the piece." And instead of a war-horse, play something...
...plaster. Scenes from plays like Goethe's Faust and Lessing's Nathan der Weise adorn the doorways; in the auditorium, the gilt chandelier is topped with the crest of the old Saxon monarchy. It illuminates a mid-19th century musical pantheon that includes Mozart, Beethoven, Gluck, Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer and Spontini...
Ginger is no old bag. She maintains her excellent figure with exercise and ensures a degree of mental stimulation with such ticklish malapropisms as "He's quite a piston," "defoliating" virgins, and (referring to bisexuals) "AM-FM." When Dolly divorces Smackenfelt for Zap Spontini, an advertising man and lousy Sunday painter, Blodgett is rewarded. Smackenfelt marries his aunt-in-law and settles down to an excellent relationship, sexually and otherwise. Ginger pays the bills, leaving the unemployed actor time to sharpen his theatrical skills...
...most chivalrous act is to spare the feelings of Zap Spontini, who has painted an abstract mural...