Word: wagnerism
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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COVER TO COVER (NBC, debuting July 29, 11 a.m. EDT on most stations). This new magazine show targeted to women, with hosts Gayle King and Robin Wagner, will spotlight stories on such topics as fashion, health and parenting. The ones, presumably, that Oprah and Good Morning America have missed...
...some Romantic operas are funny (e.g., Wagner's Die Meistersinger), can some post-Romantic operas be called post-funny? That was the question raised last week by the newest work of Poland's Krzysztof Penderecki, 57, a leading European composer who has increasingly been changing the gardes, from avant to rear. UBU REX, which opened the Munich Opera Festival, is based on the 1896 play Ubu roi, by French Absurdist Alfred Jarry, about a loathsome clod (read: typical bourgeois) who murders the King of Poland and, supplanting him, ruins the country. Yet even with the events of the past...
Much of the current controversy in Russian opera involves repertory. The ossified Soviet opera machinery, reflecting the narrow tastes of its erstwhile Soviet masters, plays only traditional Russian works, rarely touches Mozart or Wagner or anything from the 20th century. The outside world hardly needs new versions of La Traviata, and an indifference to new music also characterizes Western opera. Furthermore, the Bolshoi's traditionalism has helped preserve some splendid but otherwise neglected music. Still, Soviet opera musicians feel constrained and constricted. "The country strives to reacquire its cultural identity, to restore the natural chain of cultural history that...
...them with whispered verses from the Marquis de Sade, and set them to a metronomic beat. Whether such sampling is artistry "depends on how you use it," says Cretu. "If you are a really creative person, you use it as an instrument, you participate. I'm sure if Richard Wagner were alive today he would have the biggest sampler in the world...
GOULD CONDUCTS WAGNER (Sony Classical). Shortly before his death in 1982, the legendary pianist Glenn Gould decided to experiment with the idea of becoming a conductor. Since he had abdicated the concert stage 18 years earlier, he & quietly rented a hall and hired some members of the Toronto Symphony. Though most famous for his electric keyboard interpretations of Bach, Gould chose for his orchestral debut Wagner's Siegfried Idyll, which he took at a glacially languorous tempo. When it was over, he blurted onto the tape an accurate verdict: "Gorgeous! Magnificent! Heartbreaking!" Along with that performance, the newly released album...