Word: tales
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...children. But such an objection came from the monthly Bulletin of the Council for Basic Education, a cranky, flea-sized (16 one-column pages) publication that subsists on what it bites from the hide of fuzzy-thinking educators. Among the pre-chewed classics cited by Editor Mortimer Smith: A Tale of Two Cities, from which, in the Globe Book Co. edition, "nonessential parts of the plot" are excised, and "long descriptive and philosophical passages" are abridged. One of the nonessential parts: Dickens' ringing opening sentence-"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...
Melville's dark, brooding tale has been boiled down to a tasteless mash, and Ahab's ranting Shakespearean soliloquies are gone altogether. The scraps of dialogue that remain are largely Melville's, but they rattle unconvincingly in the mouths of hollowed-out characters. Writes the editor: "The sentence structure and punctuation have been simplified. In some instances, for the sake of clarity, rearrangement of the Moby Dick sequence of events was made. Words of infrequent use and unfamiliar terms were screened; questionable words were checked in Thorndike's The Teacher's Word Book...
Orff: Der Mond (Rudolf Christ, Hans Hotter, Karl Schmitt-Walter, Helmut Graml, Paul Kuèn, Peter Lagger; the Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch; Angel, 2 LPs). German Composer Carl Orff's second opera (1938) is a modern retread of the Grimm fairy tale about four villagers who steal the moon from neighbors, carry it to their graves, finally lose it to St. Peter, who hangs it in the sky to light "the men who still wait in the little garden of the earth." The fragmented, intermittently lyrical score contains snatches of gutbucket jazz and such...
...Flood) is a 14th century miracle play that Britten set to music by stitching in three oldtime hymns, including the Rev. John Bacchus Dykes's powerful Eternal Father, Strong to Save. The original text, retained by Britten in all its gamy Middle English splendor, closely follows the Biblical tale of Noah, with the startling exception that Mrs. Noah is portrayed as a drunken old bawd, unwilling to enter the ark without her unsavory bevy of gossips...
...master's doxy. When he mistakenly suspects that his bride's inclination is still to the manor bed, he at first considers stabbing her, later hits on the happier solution of strangling the landowner and loping back to the hills with his wife in his arms. This tale is set to an expansive, thickly melodic score which rarely bears any relation to the frenzies on stage but occasionally strikes some fine Straussian and Puccinian sparks. Recorded by a top-notch cast (including Dutch Soprano Gré Brouwenstijn, Tenor Hans Hopf, Baritone Paul SchÖffler, Bass Oskar Czerwenka...