Word: tots
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...wonderful that TOT can do this. It is perhaps even more wonderful that its members want to, and are willing to put up with almost any touring mishap and slap-happy road-company misfortune in order to let people in places far from regular opera companies sample a little Puccini or get a glimpse of Rossini's Cinderella. In characteristic down-home fashion, a TOT invitation for that work urges, "Come see Cinderella win out over her two grasping stepsisters. Come see her wed the handsome Prince." Notes the Houston Grand Opera's general director, David Gockley: "Opera...
...best of the young performers - all but one of the singers are under 30 - can expect to join other TOT-trained artists who have gone on to big-city companies, which do not hire inexperienced singers. Says Philadelphia-born Conductor Louis Salemno, 28, explaining why he joined TOT: "It's all in your head until you get a chance. They gave me a chance. At Chicago's Lyric Opera, they want Toscanini...
With a performance early this week in Austin, the company winds up a 29-day swing through 18 cities and towns in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana. Among the stops: Temple, Stillwater, San Marcos, Eagle Pass, Seguin and Harlingen. At times on such jaunts, a TOT engagement looks less like a brush with Parnassus than a rest stop at Parris Island. "I think it's like the Olympics," says Mezzo-Soprano Susanne Mentzer. "You have to sing, act, put on makeup and ride the bus on top of everything else." A measure of flexibility in casting is required: Galbraith sings...
...eastern Arizona, some members of the company had to relieve themselves on the snow. Even when plumbing is provided, timing is vital. Portable toilets were installed in Lubbock, Texas, for company convenience, but they were located right inside the theater doors so that, as one TOT stalwart reports, "if you had to go during the show, you had to go during a loud part...
...occur with, say, Bayreuth frequency or density. The company for the latest tour included 14 singers (starting salary: $280 a week), a 23-piece orchestra, a conductor and assistant and five-member crew, all of whom have got into costume for the productions. Audience taste tends to restrict TOT'S repertory to the best-known works, which are sung in English. Says Company Manager Jim Toland, 36: "What else can you bring to someone who has never seen opera before but the great ones?" There is a little experimentation: Donizetti's Don Pasquale will be reset in modern...