Word: wagnerian
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...methodical Germans gave Laika a properly Wagnerian title-die Himmels-hündin, the She-Hound of Heaven-and drew a moral from her flight. "For a few days, the world is again united," intoned the Stuttgarter Zeitung. "For a few days, black and white, democrats and communists, republicans and royalists in all countries, islands and continents have one feeling, one language, one direction . . . our feeling of compassion for this little living being twirling helplessly over our heads." The Stuttgarter Zeitung had apparently overlooked some dissonant voices, such as that of the Vietnamese farmer who complained...
...world of European (and U.S.) opera, leaving other postwar singers to peep about to find themselves honorable mention. But slowly, and largely unnoticed in the U.S., old Europe has fashioned a new crop of talented women singers. If none yet quite equals Callas, Tebaldi or the retired lioness of Wagnerian opera, Kirsten Flagstad, all have developed personal styles that promise fresh views of the operatic literature. Among the best of the new divas...
...Dramatic Soprano Gre Brouwenstijn, 41, as an interpreter of Verdi. She was a rising star in Dutch radio and opera just before the war but did not get her big chance until 1946, when The Netherlands Opera signed her. She made her reputation in // Tro-vatore, Jenufa, branched into Wagnerian opera at Bayreuth with resounding success, is currently one of the busiest stars on this summer's festival circuit...
...character of Harras (played with full vibrato by Actor Jürgens, a sort of John Wayne with Heidelberg trimmings) is a highly romantic one-rather like a combination of Siegfried and Graf Bobby*-and his fiery death is stirringly Wagnerian. But from U.S. moviegoers the hero will probably get no better than pity, and the picture itself, apart from the high praise it deserves as a piece of cinematic craftsmanship, will inevitably inspire a more negative emotion. As the hero himself expresses it: "I can't eat as much as I want to vomit...
...mighty librettist (Verdi's Otello and Falstaff), Boïto always remained an interesting oddity as a composer; he premiered his version of Goethe's Faust at La Scala in 1868 only to see it booed off the stage after two performances because of its experimentation with Wagnerian techniques. Intellectually more challenging than Gounod's lovely but un-Faustian version, more dramatic than Berlioz' rambling opéra de concert, it suffers from a tendency to bombast. In this cut version the work gets a rather tame performance, but it still bears the mark...