Word: verdis
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...Verdi...
What does it matter when and where an opera is set? Does the nature of Verdi's Rigoletto fundamentally change if the action takes place in the court of France (Verdi's original intention), 16th century Mantua (his ultimate choice) or even 20th century Manhattan as long as the relationships among the characters are preserved? Adventurous stage directors, for whom tradition is the memory of the last bad performance, are answering that in many cases, it does not. "Tradition is slovenliness," exclaimed Gustav Mahler. His cry has never seemed more apt, and it is being taken up with brio...
...Mainstage will present Blood Wedding by the Spanish playwright Federico Garcia Lorca, as well as Moliere's The School for Wives. G&S gives us The Gondoliers at the Aggasiz Theater, while the 139th annual Pudding show, Bye, Bye Verdi opens at the Hasty Pudding Theater...
...bother to film Verdi's Otello if you are going to omit its most famous aria, the haunting Willow Song, thus reducing Desdemona to a walk-on? Director Franco Zeffirelli never quite answers that question. The flamboyant Italian's 1983 cinematic version of La Traviata widened the opera's scope with tender reminiscences only implied in the libretto. In Otello, however, flashbacks to the Moor's slave childhood are maudlin, and Zeffirelli's camera, jumping edgily from storm to massed choruses to brawls and bedrooms, tires the mind. As Otello, Tenor Placido Domingo is in robust voice, and Bass Justino...
...play, tentatively titled Bye, Bye, Verdi, is about what happens when "grand opera meets Grand Ole Op'ry," says Tolins. In it, "the Oprah Winfrey Company's funding is cut off, and it is forced to join forces with [Nashville's] Grand Ole Op'ry to fight Christian evangelist Holly Arethanthou, who wants to transform the opera house into a religious theme park...