Word: understanding
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...difference between conditions in Saudi Arabia and Iran helps explain why the entire crescent can be so difficult to understand and predict. Unlike the Shah, a stern, remote and isolated figure, the huge Saudi ruling family, with its estimated 5,000 princes, has its roots in the lives of its people. Its members are married into the families of commoners all over the country. They take their places in the chain of command below nonroyal superiors in the civil service. Saudi rulers take their "desert democracy" seriously: even the lowliest citizen can approach King Khalid or Crown Prince Fahd with...
...march through Africa, with Cuban troops, from Angola to Ethiopia, and the Soviet moves through Afghanistan and South Yemen, or at least the moves of Soviet clients, altered that perception. That inevitably decreased the importance of friendship with the United States and emboldened our opponents We simply did not understand that what happened in the Horn of Africa had a geopolitical design, independent of any specific action that the Soviet Union might have undertaken to foment any particular upheaval...
...teen-agers can be found drilling with 14-lb. Lee-Enfields and pre paring for an uprising in the indefinite future. Says Chakar Khan, 28, secretary of the Baluchistan People's Liberation Front: "We're weaning them away from tribalism. Today they're beginning to understand that we're not fighting the whole of Punjab province, but only a ruling clique." While Chakar Khan dreams of a Communist "chain across the subcontinent," there are, in fact, no more than 600 fighters in his force. Apart from sanctuary, support from the new Moscow-leaning Afghan government...
...project this enormous is a milestone, to be sure, but it doesn't accomplish its aim; you can't understand the words without the libretto, translation or no translation. Whether it is the over-resonant, mediocre engineering of the recording, the imperfect diction of some of the singers, or simply the nature of operatic singing that is responsible, the words are three-quarters unintelligible. Porter's skillful imitation of Wagner's alliterative verse style never has a chance. The translation works best in the long narratives, during which the characters stop to repeat parts of the story in new musical...
...need for this whole recording is dubious, anyway. Translation makes good sense in the theater, where the listener has an immediate need to understand what's happening. But for home listening, it's easy enough to follow the German with the aid of a libretto. And doing so allows you to listen to singers and musicians of greater skill than the ENO group...