Word: magic
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Liebermann has developed into one of the most creative companies in the world. An opera composer himself (Penelope, School for Wives), Liebermann commissions two new operas a year, lets producers and directors follow their own imaginative flights. Currently, two new productions - a brilliant revival of Mozart's The Magic Flute and the premiere of Gian Carlo Menotti's first major stage work in five years - are proving the wisdom of such artistic generosity...
Elfin and Chinese. The Mozart was assigned to Peter Ustinov. Directing a full-length opera for the first time, he tackled The Magic Flute with warnings ringing in his ears. "Some pointed out that it was the most difficult opera of all to stage," said Ustinov. Their point was well taken, since The Magic Flute is a stylistic hodgepodge: there are dazzling coloratura arias, sunny folk songs and slapstick scenes. It is a curious melange, and the fact that it is based on a solemn Masonic morality play only adds to the confusion...
...KNABEN WUNDERHORN, ELISABETH SCHWARZKOPF, DIETRICH FISCHER-DIESKAU, GEORGE SZELL CONDUCTING THE LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (Angel). Though not a happy composer, Mahler could be light-hearted when he turned to folk poetry. In these twelve songs-drawn from the German folk anthology The Youth's Magic Horn-he conjures up an impish world of humorous saints, sorrowful drummer boys, cuckoos and nightingales. As one would expect from such a line-up of talent, this version abounds with interpretive delights. It does not, however, outclass Angel's previous recording by Janet Baker, Geraint Evans and Conductor Wyn Morris with...
Into the race: turn their heads without comment into the black magic...
This is the peculiar magic of the strange plaster figures of Sculptor George Segal. In a new show at Manhattan's Sidney Janis Gallery, he demonstrates that at 44, he has survived his early classification as a pop artist to become a major, if idiosyncratic sculptor subject to no label whatever...