Word: virtuoso
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Massaging the Fat. Lyndon Johnson has so artfully arranged the evidence that nobody can be certain whether he intends to raise taxes or hold the line. "New numbers come in almost every day," said Ackley, and Johnson juggles them with the skill of a center-ring virtuoso. Last week, for example, aides in Austin hinted that the fiscal 1968 budget might total $140 billion-an almost certain portent of higher taxes. Almost immediately, however, they began "massaging" the fat out of that figure. Come January, and-presto!-Johnson will look like a genius if he unveils a budget...
...main character in Man of Mode never comes to life. This is Dorimant, a lover who thrives on intrigue and conquers with a quick tongue -- demanding a graceful star with a virtuoso sense of timing. Mr. Keith has no tthe equipment to do the part. His speech is sing-song when it should be crisp; he moves with an awkward amble when sh should walk like a dancer; and he has a jarring resemblence to Bobby Kennedy, unfortunate for this part. He defies us to concentrate on his cuts and epigrams...
...Brothers whenever Steve Kaplan, Arthur Friedman, Robert Bush, (or any combination of them), are on stage. Kaplan is the funniest Roman of them all, and he plays the conniving lead, Pseudolus, with deadly timing, a rubber face, a protean voice, and a Stoic endurance of pratfalls. His is a virtuoso performance, and at one point his delivery of a line stops the show cold. When he sings, there is Merman in his voice, or Rudy Vallee, or whatever will milk a laugh from a lyric. What he can't do with his voice, he does with body English, wiggles...
After all, no string player invests roughly 20 years and $25,000 for training to sit in the hundred-headed obscurity of a symphony orchestra. In his heart, if not in the ear of his audience, he is a full-fledged virtuoso who, says Los Angeles Symphony Conductor Zubin Mehta, "joins a symphony only as a last resort, and then is frustrated." On the campus, however, he can assume the stature of a soloist, play largely what he wants (musicians' tastes rarely agree with those of a symphony audience) the way he wants to (instead of having interpretations dictated...
...Chewing. This is the kind of virtuoso performance that Met regulars have come to know as the Bing style: a disarming combination of urbanity and no-nonsense determination, wit and steely single-mindedness. In opera, where people chew on each other's egos like lozenges, Bing's cool cools all. "I really enjoy dealing with difficult people," he says. "I just make them believe they really want to do what I want them to do." Or else...