Word: wildernesses
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Three. Billy Wilder's rough-house comedy describes a Berlin interlude in the life of a hard-headed soft-drink salesman (James Cagney) before the Wall put an end to monkey business as usual...
...Jack Benny Program (CBS, 9:30-10 p.m.). Guest: Director Billy Wilder...
...composer is Louise Talma, 55, a longtime teacher of composition at New York City's Hunter College, who is well regarded for her small body of works (including two piano sonatas, a string quartet, Toccata for orchestra, the oratorio The Divine Flame). Chances are that Music Lover Wilder would never have collaborated with her had he not heard her Alleluia in form of Toccata at a piano recital in New Haven more than ten years ago. Later, when Talma heard Wilder read his Alcestiad at a private party, she "began to hear the music of the opera even while...
...Wilder set to work on a libretto, keeping one principle in mind: "When you're writing a libretto the first thing to pay attention to is open vowels. Listen to those vowels in Measure for Measure, 'Take, O take those lips away'-but the art has almost died out.'' Wilder revived the art so successfully that Talma did not have to ask him to make a single change in the free-verse dialogue. She did, however, have to prune the German version of the libretto prepared for the Frankfurt Opera by Translator Herberth Herlitschka. Among...
...Alcestiad is Wilder's retelling of the Greek legend of Alcestis, whose devotion to her husband caused her to offer her life for his. Talma's score, which frequently employed the twelve-tone row, was aglow with curving lyric lines but avoided any hint of romantic lushness, was sometimes reminiscent of Stravinsky. The lightly modern music at no point obscured the text, at many points sharply illuminated it, as in a moving second-act farewell duet of Alcestis (well sung by Soprano Inge Borkh) and Admetus...