Word: viziers
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...advice here, however, is to stick with The Friends of Freeland (Knopf; 508 pages; $26), an amiable and decidedly quirky novel. Its narrator, Eggert Oddason, is chief speechwriter and grand vizier to Freeland's President, a gifted though alcoholic giant named Hannibal Hannibalsson. After 20 years of ever decreasing coherence, Hannibalsson breaks a solemn promise to retire and runs for, or lurches blearily toward, a fifth five-year term. Can he win? His opponent is a woodenhead, and being booze-soaked is no bar to high office, since that is pretty much the permanent condition of most of the population...
...headlong flight across the desert by the ruler's beloved daughters and his sons-in-law, one of them the land's chief armorer; their reception by a friendly monarch who shelters them in a palace. Finally, the betrayed ruler's son, who has wormed his way to grand vizier, leads a pursuit attempting to retrieve the fugitives. In a fury he denounces them before the neighboring king, who rebuffs the mission coldly...
...curiously old-fashioned trio of composers. The best of the new works is Weisgall's Esther, by a composer who turns 81 this week and whose fondness for outmoded, Schoenberg- style serialism remains unabated. The story of Esther's dramatic rescue of the Jews from the evil Persian vizier Haman, celebrated each year in the feast of Purim, is one of the Bible's most gripping tales, and Weisgall, working to a libretto by Charles Kondek, has told it well. Tunes, no; drama, yes. The stark and uncompromising Esther is a powerful evening of musical theater, highlighted by the electric...
...real" him. He is sultan-material on the inside if not on the outside. Like the Beast, he must get beyond the lowly image he projects and show them what he's made of. This is exactly what he does when he comes head to head with the evil vizier Jafar, who seeks to usurp the throne of Agrabah from Princess Jasmine's father. By being himself and showing his inherent goodness, Aladdin defeats the evil vizier and wins Princess Jasmine's heart...