Word: theda
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...price in lack of performances. Yerma needs a soprano who can act like Maria Callas and sing like Leontyne Price. In Santa Fe it had Mirna Lacambra, a young Spanish soprano with a red-velvet voice but an acting style that seemed to have been derived from old Theda Bara movies. As a result Yerma, who should have seemed tormented and tragic, often appeared merely a terrible...
...measure of a masterpiece is the amount of abuse it can take. The hit tunes from dozens of operas have been ragged, jived, jazzed, boogied, swung and popped-and most of them have emerged little the worse. Carmen, especially, has survived countless transmutations. Geraldine Farrar, Theda Bara and Rita Hayworth all vamped their way through screen versions; Bea Lillie mauled it at the Met. Maya Plisetskaya danced it to an orchestration including 47 percussion instruments. Oscar Hammerstein's Carmen Jones gave Bizet's gypsy girl a surname and set her to work packing parachutes in the Deep South...