Word: svengalis
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...sang along with the orchestra, or exhorted, bullied and implored, he could make performers redden with shame, burn with rage, or soften with sympathy for him. And with uncanny and unerring instinct, he knew which would wring a surpassing performance from each of them. Over the years, he played Svengali to hundreds of Trilbys. After listening to a recording of her singing in Toscanini's 1947 broadcast performance of Otello, Soprano Herva Nelli (Desdemona) exclaimed...
...Cork for Svengali. The time is after Stalingrad; the place is the Black Sea area. The German situation is hopeless, and the task of Corporal Rolf Steiner's wounded platoon is near-suicidal. Its job is to stay behind as a rearguard while the rest of the battalion withdraws. In the fluid state of the front, this means only one thing, that the hapless platoon will soon be a cork abob in a sea of Russians. The platoon has small faith in its chances, but believes mesmerically in Corporal Steiner, who has assumed command from his wounded sergeant. Steiner...
...visitor to Greater Miami who wanted to be hypnotized could be, at the Svengali Club; he could determine his destiny through the auspices of a modest "life reader" ("I don't claim to do miracles") named Madame Avon; he could see clumsy girls competing in an amateur strip-tease contest or watch Seminoles wrestling alligators. Within the white walls of Miami Beach's Saxony Hotel the lazier man could maneuver round the clock from the Hulahut through the Bam-Boo-La Lounge, the Veranda Room, the Tropical Room, the Chuck Wagon ("All You Can Eat for Only...
...Students'] minds, and those of their parents, have been poisoned by the insidious cloud of anti-intellectualism which hangs over this country like a great shroud . . . Somehow, science has become identified in the minds of a great many people as a sort of super 'Svengali,' responsible for all our dilemmas...
...romance between Artist Morgan and Hildegarde strikes its first snag when he is horrified to discover her posing in the nude for an art class: its second, when Morgan's mother begs Hildegarde not to ruin her son by marrying him. Hildegarde, who has been using Svengali's hypnotism as a sort of aspirin treatment for her headaches, is so unnerved by this classic gambit that she falls completely under Svengali's power. His fell purpose: to make a world-famous diva of her. Morgan searches madly for his lost love until, kicked by a horse...