Word: varnay
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DIED. Astrid Varnay, 88, Swedish-American soprano whose intense, passionate style energized some of the most demanding roles of German opera, including Strauss's Elektra and Wagner's Isolde, Kundry and Brunnhilde (she sang Brunnhilde more than 300 times); in Munich. Her career took off unexpectedly in 1941 after she was called in as a last-minute, last-choice understudy to play Sieglinde in Wagner's Die Walkure at New York City's Metropolitan Opera, where she eventually performed 200 times. Of her emotional style, she said, "I feel my roles first, then I put them into action...
Walking into such a pizzicato brouhaha merely seemed to strengthen Barlow's resolve. Tristan, it turns out, is in her tea leaves or, rather, the numerology she is fascinated by. It was the first opera she ever attended, a Met performance with Astrid Varnay. When Barlow sang the role the first time herself, it was in Kiel, Germany, in 1967, and the singer she replaced was, of course, Varnay...
...forgiven for thinking so. In the cast were Texan Thomas Stewart, Singer Sewing Machine Heir David Thaw, New York's Regina Resnik, California's Jerome Hines. Also at Bayreuth were such regulars as George London (Canadian-born but a U.S. citizen), New York's Astrid Varnay, Cleveland's Grace Hoffmann-plus California's Irene Dalis and San Francisco's Jess Thomas, both making their Bayreuth debuts in Parsifal. And appearing as Venus in a new production of Tannhäuser was St. Louis-born Mezzo Soprano Grace Bumbry, the first Negro ever to sing...
...entire work-a rapid, stepwise up-and-down flourish that occurred again and again, eventually became Oedipus' climactic roar of agony. The work unfolded without set pieces or arias, and the staging by Director Günther Rennert was similarly spare, e.g., when Jocasta (Soprano Astrid Varnay) learned that she was the mother of Oedipus she threw her head back with mouth agape in a silence more horrifying than a scream...
...final scene the audience was deeply moved by Oedipus (Tenor Gerhard Stolze) staggering onstage before Designer Caspar Neher's abstract backdrop (it looked like a microphotograph of a germ culture) and raising his sightless eyes with a beatific smile. Soprano Varnay refused to watch from the wings because "I dream about such things." Reported TIME Correspondent Paul Moor: "For a non-German-speaking audience, this opera has long, boring stretches because the music is so subservient to the text. Nevertheless, Orff has created a theater work of gripping power...