Word: tristan
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...musical hero of Salzburg last week was Conductor Bruno Walter. This able Jew had arrived ailing from the effects of a Vienna performance of Tristan wud Isolde at which Nazi bullyboys threw stink bombs, ending the opera with the plump Isolde (Soprano Anny Konetzni) lying mute and gasping on Tristan's body while the orchestra wabbled through the Liebestod. To Walter at Salzburg was allotted Tristan, Mozart's Don Giovanni, Gluck's Orptmis and Eurydice...
...from side to side, his left hand raised for every pianissimo, quivering over his heart when he wanted special feeling. From Wagner there was the Meister singer overture, given such verve that the audience shouted its enthusiasm. In sequence came the gentle Siegfried Idyl, the prelude and finale from Tristan und Isolde, a performance of The Ride of the Valkyries with shadings so subtle, with force so dynamic that it really seemed like a preternatural flight through the skies...
...great lovers of history met with difficulty. Romeo, who wooed so swiftly, found death so soon. Tristan, who wooed unwisely, found death unmerciful. Juliet could not live without Romeo, and Isolde swooned upon the corpse of Tristan and breathed her last. And Launcelot swooned (Ye Gods, how they swooned!) when Guinevere was placed in her grave, and he sickened and pined away...
...horse, actually galloping from the stage in accordance with Wagner's ambitious directions. The other was Sweden's Gertrud Wettergren, who proved herself a sure singing actress, strode the stage regally as Amneris in Aïda, personified devotion when she sang Brangäne in Tristan and Isolde. One of the season's highlights was when Wettergren sang Carmen (in Swedish), her reward for standing by to pinch-hit for Rosa Ponselle. The U. S. soprano worked like a demon to impersonate the Spanish gypsy. Box-officially she succeeded but critics were unimpressed...
...inept, a handicap to real enjoyment. In the first act of Madame Butterfly it is obvious to any onlooker that Pinkerton is making love to Cho-Cho-San. Curving melody flows from the orchestra while he sings, "Just like a little squirrel are all her pretty movements." To many Tristan would seem foolish delivering a literal translation of his part in the exalted love duet. The music would be reaching its grandest climax while he would be singing, "Thou Isolde, Tristan I. No more Tristan, no more Isolde...