Word: waltz
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There are plays and plays. Some should not be adapted or altered for performance on stage, but equally, there are other plays that positively need to be clamped down to a specific interpretation. Anouilh's "Waltz of the Toreadors" is one of the latter kind and suffers when a director is not willing to take liberties with the material, to chop and focus on some particular human experience...
...great love of animals, and is wholly at home in Shaw's amusing baby-talk (such as "Did um get an awful thorn into um's tootsums wootsums?"). The extraction of the thorn from the Lion's paw is nicely handled, after which Androcles and the Lion perform a waltz that starts in the minor and shifts to major as they dance off into the distance and leave the henpecking Megaera behind. I think I am correct in recalling that, for some reason, Megaera's final triple taunt of "Coward!" has been omitted...
...Nevele Pride had to overcome a bad post position-No. 7 in the field of eleven-that forced Dancer to "take the overland route" and drive three-wide for the first half of the mile race. Though Dancer eased him up at the end, Nevele Pride won in a waltz. His victory margin was four lengths, and his time-2 min. 22/5 sec. -clipped a full second off the old stakes record. "Before he is through," predicts Driver Dancer, "this horse could rewrite the record book." The erasers are already busy...
...young modernists. Featuring the flexible tenor inventions of Joe Henderson and the thoughtful suspensions of Pianist McCoy Tyner, the quintet favors an ambiance of melodic continuity set to disciplined rhythmics. The finest chapter of their musical book is in Verse, a rubato theme that moves into a flowing waltz tempo. Edging into the avant-garde on 8-4 Beat and Black Circle, the instrumentalists whirl gracefully around some unexpected chords. On the quiet ballad Summer Nights, vibes and piano trace shimmering patterns on the surface of a serene pool...
Charming, schmaltzy, waltz-prone Vienna flips for charming, schmaltzy waltz-prone Leonard Bernstein. In 1966, he conducted a rousing Falstaff at the Staatsoper, and last year he presented Mahler's Second Symphony, in a performance that seemed more authentically Viennese than anything since the days of Bruno Walter. Then, last week, there was Lenny again, preparing to conduct that most Viennese of operas, Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier. He professed to be terrified. "Every Vienna taxi driver knows Rosenkavalier as well as he does the national anthem," said Bernstein, adding with a little Viennese exaggeration...