Word: stage
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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This small, jolly opera might well get lost in the majestic spaces of the Met. But Viennese-born Stage Director Herbert Graf and Rumanian Scene Designer Jonel Jorgulesco, besides framing the production with its own curtain, brought the four brightly-colored sets as far down stage as possible. Ladislas Czettel designed gay costumes to match Lily Pons's, which was run up by famed, high-priced Dressmaker Valentina. To the military in the original libretto Director Graf added 24 high-stepping vivandieres, explaining: "You cannot think of a regiment with Lily Pons in it without having more female soldiers...
Lily studied piano at the Paris Conservatoire, took a prize at 13, later went on the Paris stage. Her extraordinary vocal cords contrived few public beeps, and no acrobatics at all, until after she was married-to August Mesritz, a wealthy, middle-aged Dutch lawyer and journalist. Husband Mesritz resolved that Lily should sing, took her to Alberti di Gorostiaga, an elegant Spaniard who ignored French gender but knew everything about bel canto singing technique. Exclaimed di Gorostiaga: "Mlle. Pons, he is a charming, a gentle lady, he is the most hard-working pupil of my life...
Wodehouse has been at it almost since Queen Victoria died, does not quite remember whether he has written 40 or 50 books. He is always just the same, usually just as good. Some critics attribute this titillating timelessness to the fact that he has raised the stage Englishman to the dignity of literature. Others have called him an acute social critic, professing to see the blunderings of Munich foreshadowed in the maunderings of Bertie Wooster...
Died. J. Harold Murray, 49, handsome hero of Ziegfeld's Rio Rita, many another Broadway musical of the '20s, who retired from the stage in 1935, bought himself an interest in a Hartford brewery; at Killingworth, Conn...
Piscator feels that Lear's picture of the ravages wrought by the power lust is especially relevant nowadays. It is. Whether or not Piscator's or others' stage inventions can add to Lear's bitter power, Piscator's Lear is a stimulating...