Word: wagnerians
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...could capture Catcher in the Rye on film, though one supposes that Frances Coppola or a Michael Cimino could spend a couple dozen million trying. Of course either would give us lot of grass--acres and acres of golden grass--with a Wagnerian soundtrack, but it would still feel so ... phony...
...Peter Hall's staging of Der Ring des Nibelungen in Bayreuth two summers ago, Wagnerites have been anticipating the San Francisco Opera's new production of the epic four-evening cycle. For although it is common knowledge in the opera world that there are not enough voices of heroic Wagnerian caliber around these days, just put on a Ring and watch the paying customers line...
...Indeed, blessed with a first-rate cast, a skilled if not always inspired conductor, and a director with strong dramatic ideas about the piece, it must rank as one of the best stagings in recent memory. Objections may be raised about some of Director Nikolaus Lehnhoff's departures from Wagnerian canon in an otherwise traditionalist view of the work. But there can be no disputing the high quality of the vocalism. Since 1976, there has been a director's Ring (Patrice Chereau's Wagner-as-social-revolution) and a conductor's Ring (Sir Georg Solti's at Bayreuth...
...Mezzo-Soprano Hanna Schwarz in Das Rheingold. A delightful bonus was the Walkure Fricka and Gotterdammerung Waltraute of Vienna-born Mezzo Helga Dernesch, who some years ago was an important Isolde and Brunnhilde. Combining her still considerable power with a riveting dramatic presence, Dernesch gave a lesson in Wagnerian artistry. Conductor Edo de Waart was too often cautious when he should have been impetuous, but he roused himself in Gotterdammerung to deliver a reading of surge and sweep...
...Bernhard Goetz" to almost everyone else. Another rule of the language is that euphemisms for "fat" are understood too quickly by the public and are therefore in constant need of replacement. "Jolly," "Rubenesque" and the like have long been abandoned. A Washington writer scored by praising a woman's "Wagnerian good looks," which is far more polite than saying she is not bad looking for a massive Brunnhilde. The disinfecting compliment is particularly deft. As all practitioners know, a corrective lurch toward balance is the hallmark of good journalese. After all, journalism is a crucially important field that attracts high...