Word: orchestra
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...word for it is Gesamtgastspiel, which, roughly translated, means everybody gets in on the act. And indeed, as the Vienna State Opera unpacked in Washington for its first U.S. visit, everybody-and everything-seemed to have come along. Thirty-seven soloists and 100 chorus members? Check. An orchestra of 95, with all their instruments? Check. Thirty-five stagehands and five staff workers, plus 23 custom-built 40-ft. containers full of scenery and costumes? Check...
...there an opera house in the world that boasts a better orchestra than Vienna's? Whether in the iridescent pulsations of Salome or the silky, intimate lyricism of Figaro, or the architectural sweep of Fidelio, the orchestra played like a first-rate symphonic ensemble - which, of course, is what it is. When not in the opera pit, it is the renowned Vienna Philharmonic. With Bernstein again on the podium, it excelled last week in a highly dramatic, virtuoso performance of Beethoven's Ninth. Bernstein tended to heighten what needed no heightening, but by the time the final movement...
...Viennese are going through transition too. Shortly before the company left Vienna, it announced that Director Egon Seefehlner, 67, would retire and Cleveland Orchestra Music Director Lorin Maazel, 49, would take over in the 1982-83 season. Maazel is the first American to be entrusted with the company's treasured legacy. Possibly his appointment signals a desire by the Viennese to open up that legacy to new influences. One hopes so. The operas brought to Washington are all great works; but they are also cultural totems, safe and certified, and this reflects a basic conservatism in the company...
...CONTRAST to Eliza's emotionalism, Higgins should be implacable, for a bohemian professor must remain oblivious to women. Hollander conveys that imperturbability, if somewhat blandly in the first few scenes. His solos, designed for enunciators rather than singers, display his rhetorical skills admirably. Unfortunately, the orchestra, even at low volume, drowns out about one-fourth of his and Tompsett's lyrics...
...think he did a fine job with a tiny orchestra. But he inexplicably cut portions of the score--the prelude to "Wunderbar," for example--and slowed the tempo on several numbers to a despicable crawl. "Another Openin'. Another Show" sounded like a dirge...