Word: librettist
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...such a show opened at the Colonial Theatre in Boston. The show, Dear World, had all the earmarks of a hit: a hot star (Angela Lansbury); a composer-lyricist who had never written for a flop (Jerry Herman, whose previous efforts included Hello Dolly and Mame); and a successful librettist team (Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, authors of Mame and Inherit the Wind). Dear World's five-week tryout engagement here was a virtual sellout before the opening night...
NEEDLESS TO SAY, everybody works to the point of exhaustion. Often, in the most desperate of cases, a producer will bring in additional writers to "doctor" or, hopefully, save the show. Alexander Cohen, Dear World's producer, used his wife, Hildy Parks, and another librettist, Joe Masteroff (who wrote Cabaret) to fix up his production. Neither of these show doctors will receive program credit for their work, but they will get a flat sum of money, and, if their rewriting is substantial, perhaps a percentage royalty...
WALTON: THE BEAR (Angel). British Composer William Walton premiered this one-act gem only a year ago. He was fortunate in finding an excellent librettist (an increasingly rare breed of writer) named Paul Dehn, who based his freewheeling lyrics on Chekhov's farce. Walton's eclectic styles are more than equal to the idiotic but entertaining plot about Popova, a widow who so enrages a creditor that he challenges her to a duel, but they suffer the fate of operatic lightning-love and fall into each other's arms. The work is laced with musical and verbal...
...secret of Falstaff's miraculous funnies doesn't end there. The phenomenon of Falstaff is that the composer, Verdi, and his librettist, Boito, changed roles. Verdi composed like a playwright and Boito wrote like a musician. Take away all the words from Falstaff and you will still know exactly what is going on. When the orchestra trills from one end to the other, you know that Falstaff has just taken a colossal chug of wine which is going to work on his insides; when the trombones blast, you know that Ford is feeling the full gamut of green-eyed emotions...
...Librettist Henry Butler stripped O'Neill's six-hour epic to focus exclusively on the psychological currents that seethe beneath the surface of each of the main characters. Boris Aronson's ghostly sets created decadence and onrushing doom. As drama, the opera unfolded with all the shivering tension of one long, gradually building shriek, thanks in part to the almost balletic direction of Director Michael Cacoyannis (Zorba the Greek). But what made Mourning move was the inspired acting of two darkly beautiful sopranos-Marie Collier as the lusting mother, and Evelyn Lear as the revengeful daughter...