Word: wagnerism
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...choice between New York City's three Democratic candidates for mayor, the Pied Piper of Harlem, Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, bestowed his anxiously awaited blessing on Organization Man Arthur Levitt. "New York City," prophesied the apocalyptic Adam, "is absolutely finished if affable, personable, charming, likeable, ineffective, weak Bob Wagner is returned to office...
Since 1951, when Wieland and Wolfgang Wagner started putting Grandfather Richard's operas into modern dress, Bavaria's Bayreuth Festival has attracted more attention for its sets than for its singers. As the curtain rose on the festival last week, the singers were back at stage center. Not in a decade have there been so many distinguished debuts at Bayreuth -and never has this most intensely national of all German festivals appeared so amazingly Americanized...
Arriving on the set of Das Rheingold to begin rehearsals, Wolfgang Wagner struck his forehead and exclaimed: ''Is it possible that you're all Americans? He could be forgiven for thinking so. In the cast were Texan Thomas Stewart, Singer Sewing Machine Heir David Thaw, New York's Regina Resnik, California's Jerome Hines. Also at Bayreuth were such regulars as George London (Canadian-born but a U.S. citizen), New York's Astrid Varnay, Cleveland's Grace Hoffmann-plus California's Irene Dalis and San Francisco's Jess Thomas, both making...
Cultural Crime? Bumbry's debut was less important than those of Dalis and Thomas in Parsifal or of radiant Spanish Soprano Victoria de Los Angeles in Tannhäuser. But her engagement received far more than its share of attention after the Wagner brothers were bombarded with letters suggesting that the assignment of a Negro to the role of Venus was a "cultural crime" against the obvious wishes of Wagner himself. Wieland remained unmoved: "I shall bring in black, yellow and brown artists if I feel them appropriate for productions. I require no ideal Nordic specimens...
...What Wagner did require was an "elemental, erotic quality," and he found it in Mezzo Soprano Bumbry's voice, a naturally glorious, bronzelike instrument that ranged through the house with impressive power. But because Wieland's concept of the staging allowed Venus about as much movement as a mummy, premiere audiences could not judge whether Bumbry's acting was a match for her singing. As for the new production itself, it was typically spare in detail but marred by the intrusion of a few Radio City Music Hall touches: an angelic choir whose halos gradually became brighter...