Word: violetta
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HENZE: DER JUNGE LORD (Deutsche-Grammophon; 3 LPs). While most aficionados consider Violetta, or Sigmund, or even the sadistic Turandot a familiar acquaintance, or even a friend, few can cozy up to Hans Werner Henze's heroes and heroines. In The Young Lord, the hero turns out to be an extremely well-trained monkey, and the moral of the tale seems to be that the modern world is so fad-conscious that people will imitate practically anyone with a social passport, even if he is an ape in disguise. It might sound like comedy, but the work is filled...
...Metropolitan with its comfy,old-fashioned Traviata and the New York City Opera with Beni Montresor's fairy-tale setting of The Magic Flute. In neither case was the performance on much more than a ho-hum level; in fact, Spanish Soprano Montserrat Caballe's first Met Violetta seemed an almost deliberate throwback to the bad old days when singers were meant to be heard but not seen...
PUCCINI: LA RONDINE (2 LPs; RCA Victor). Magda, Puccini's sad "swallow," is close kin to Verdi's Violetta, the "wayward one." Puccini's little courtesan also leads a gay, cynical life in Paris until she meets her one true love, with whom she flees to the peace of a country villa. Then, to the strains of a rending melody, she leaves her lover when she realizes that her scarlet past would shock his proper parents. Anna Moffo illuminates the most lyrical and substantial elements in her poignant role, and her characterization is nicely...
Divorced. By Mary Costa, 36, blonde and beautiful lyric soprano, who left a $150,000-a-year job as TV's Chrysler Girl for an opera career, making her widely acclaimed 1964 Metropolitan debut as Violetta in La Traviata: Frank Tashlin, 53, Hollywood writer-director of slapstick comedies (The Man from the Diners' Club); on grounds of cruelty; after twelve years of marriage, no children; in Santa Monica, Calif...
Pistol-Packin' Mama. In the death scene, Stratas shed real tears and made her audience suffer with her as the strings surged upward to a great chord, punctured by Violetta's desperate cry: "Ah! gran' Dio! Morir si giovine [Ah, great God! To die so young]." After the performance, Teresa, smothered in flowers, wearing a green Florentine velvet gown, was seized by a hollow cough. "You see, Violetta is contagious," she said...