Word: wagnerism
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...York City's Mayor Wagner did wrong when he refused to recognize the King of a foreign power. His act is consistent with those of small and nearsighted politicians who allow themselves to be duped by their minority advisers. At a time when our Government is straining to find a solution to Middle East problems, he committed a faux pas which will be taken as an indication of a nation divided on foreign policy. I think President Eisenhower's decision to meet King Saud shows Mayor Wagner and all Americans what true statesmanship entails. LOUIS FAKHOURY Pasadena, Calif...
...Metropolitan Opera's Rudolf Bing is a fastidious Viennese who has little use for the Teutonic excesses of Richard Wagner. But this season he bravely buckled down to putting on Wagner's complete 15-hour Ring cycle (Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, Götterdämmerung) for the first time in six years. Somewhat to Bing's surprise, it was a smash hit. The Wagner-starved public queued up for tickets: "It was as if Callas were singing Lucia''' Result: the Met decided to follow up the two scheduled Rings with...
Same Old Dragons. All that the Ring has lacked at the Met, according to Wagner fans, has been heroic-voiced singers to fill its gargantuan roles. But the present Ring succeeded with sporadically fine singing and occasional bursts of orchestral brilliance. For the occasion, Bing imported Bayreuth's Martha Moedl (as Brünnhilde), Wolfgang Windgassen (as Siegmund and Siegfried), and Marianne Schech of the Munich Staatsoper (as Sieglinde and Gutrune). All three gave occasionally fine performances, but no one of them dominated the stage in the spacious manner of a Kirsten Flagstad, a Helen Traubel or a Lauritz...
...that the Italian operas draw (while three Ring performances are extraordinary, a popular repertory opera can be put on from eight to a dozen times each season, thereby making investments in rehearsal time and sets worthwhile). Moreover, the Ring requires the importation of singers most of whom sing only Wagner and hence appear a mere dozen or so times in a 160-performance season...
...public recognition. A small-town Kentucky lawyer. Reed served Herbert Hoover as counsel for the Federal Farm Board (1929-32) and the RFC (1932-35). As Franklin Roosevelt's Solicitor General (1935-38), he studiously defended such New Deal staples as NRA (he lost the case) and the Wagner-Connery Labor Relations Act (he won) before the Supreme Court. Once, in a rare dramatic moment, he collapsed from exhaustion in the middle of his argument...