Word: tenors
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Force One carried Ronald Reagan and his top aides away from a balmy vacation in the West and back toward the duties of running the Government from Washington seemed out of sync with the stiff challenges ahead. Chief of Staff James Baker turned his Texas tenor loose on country music that only he could hear through his earphones. Communications Adviser David Gergen, fresh from an outing in the Tetons, could not resist the beat of the Supremes. He grabbed the hands of Margaret Tutwiler, Baker's top assistant, and danced through the cabin...
...Overhead fans languidly attempt to rearrange the air. Late afternoon heat seeps through the Venetian blinds. A tenor sax investigates the upper registers of despair. Ned Racine (William Hurt) drags voraciously on a nonstop series of cigarettes. He wears a Clark Gable mustache and a Zachary Scott hat. And one night, as a Dorsey-style orchestra plays That Old Feeling, a sleek, tanned woman in white emerges from the darkness of the band shell and into the rest of Ned's life...
...even a form of fanaticism, a way of connecting (spuriously sometimes) to the Absolute. Knights, crusaders, saints and opera singers are forever swearing: it is a lovely plot device. Ahab swears his vengeance on the whale. In Don Giovanni, Ottavio vows to avenge the Commendatore by raising his fruity tenor to Donna Anna: "Lo giuro, lo giuro/ lo giuro agli occhi tuoi/ lo giuro al nostro amor" (I swear it, I swear it/ I swear it by your eyes/ I swear it by our love). Was there ever a prettier oath? It is a form of hero's brag...
Freni is familiar to American audiences from several excellent popular opera recordings-La Bohème and Madama Butterfly with Supertenor Luciano Pavarotti, Aida and Don Carlos with Tenor José Carreras, all conducted by Herbert von Karajan-as well as from films of Bohème and Butterfly shown here in 1965 and 1976. She captivated audiences at her U.S. debut as Mimi at the Metropolitan Opera in 1965 with her technical accomplishment and winsome vocal timbre. But Freni's talent still far outshines her American reputation. Her career has been primarily European: between...
...that I could do this, and he put on the record for my father. He said, 'Please, Mirella,' and they discovered I had the voice." Two years later, she won a national competition with her singing of Puccini's Un bel di. One of the judges, Tenor Beniamino Gigli, advised her not to rush her career. Said Gigli: "You are young. Don't force your voice." Wisely, she waited until 1955 to make her formal debut...