Word: sung
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Goodman, the Cambridge-based poet, writes vigorous, stark verse whose impact is almost physical. "My father's house was razed/ In nineteen forty-eight/ When the Israelis passed/ Over our street" are the first words of the opera, sung by a chorus of exiled Palestinians; later the Israelis get equal time. Goodman combines flights of fancy with earthy images and expressions -- this must be the first operatic libretto in history to employ the word asshole and the Yiddish meshugaas. Yet, as in Marilyn Klinghoffer's homey pieta, Goodman can soar. "I have only a short time," the widow sings after...
...opening number, Paul Simon's "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes, was sung too low for Nara Garber's lead, making the much anticipated start anticlimactic. And the Callbacks's rendition of the Supremes' "You Can't Hurry Love," despite humorous staging, died in the middle of the song and then dragged on uncomfortably. Other songs, such as "Human Nature," featured strong lead vocals but soon grew tire-some. This was more a reflection of the songs themselves than the way they were performed...
...craves the quiet. "I'm a vampire now, full fledged," she says. When she speaks her mind, she has the unguarded passion of someone talking to herself late at night. Her thoughts on everything from photography to the gulf conflict are spoken as her songs are written and sung: in a tone of quiet asperity, but with public emphasis. "If this is a holy war," she muses about the gulf, taking a drag on one of her frequent cigarettes, "God is pissed at us, and damn right." Just goes to show: a little dissonance does no harm...
...blind to racism; no one who has heard the word "nigger" uttered in anger can be. I'll never forget how the lone Black student in my local high school one year was taunted with the nickname "Spot," after a ditty sung to the tune of The Police's "King of Pain": There's a little black spot on the road today. A Black boy got in a white...
...couldn't dance. He didn't sing. And he bungled jokes. His malaprops and mannerisms endlessly inspired comic impersonators. "Let's hear it for the Lord's Prayer," he once croaked, after a tenor had sung it. During a lavish encomium to the Supremes he forgot the trio's name and concluded lamely: "Here are the girls." Looking somewhat like a Great Stone Face transplanted from Easter Island to Broadway, he would rock back and forth onstage, hands across chest or clutching his kidneys, while in baleful voice he introduced a succession of comedians, jugglers, rock bands and animal acts...