Word: background
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Dates: during 1940-1940
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...Maschera (Masked Ball) was written by Giuseppe Verdi in the 1850s to a play by Scribe which dealt with the assassination of Sweden's King Gustavus III. Because of trouble nearly a century ago with Italian censors, the libretto of Masked Ball was given a U. S. background. Its hero was "Riccardo, Count of Warwick, Governor of Boston" in the 17th Century. He tenoriously fell in love with the soprano wife of his "Creole" secretary. After everyone had consulted a blackface sorceress named Ulrica, the Creole joined a conspiracy headed by two ha-ha-ing bassos, also in blackface...
...prodigality, Director Ruggles avoided the temptation to let his camera linger longingly on this impressive and costly background. He hewed to the narrative of pretty Phoebe Titus (Tomboy Jean Arthur), the only white woman in Tucson, who earns herself a pretty penny selling pies for $1 apiece, then goes into the freighting business. The gentleman with whom she later contracts Arizona's first all-white marriage is genial, peripatetic Peter Muncie (William Holden), a slim and smiling young pioneer who rides into Tucson with other settlers and passes some fond words with Phoebe before setting out for California...
...pretty famous one in jazz, as the great Bessie Smith used it on many of her recordings. Similarity doesn't stop here, though: Miss Wiley may not have the range that Bessie had, but her singing shows the same rich vibrato and feeling. Needless to say, the instrumental background is impeccable. Jess and Muggsy play unobtrusively, and the way they blend with the vocal results is a kind of jazz you don't hear every day (COMMODORE) ... Ray Noble cuts two swell dance sides for COLUMBIA, Far Away and Sioux Sue. Both are original compositions by Ray, and show...
...first three poems, representing his recent work, are, of course, the better ones, but the reader new to Stevens should read the earlier poems first, in order to understand Stevens' thorough background in traditional metrical forms. Stevens' handling of the strait-laced sonnet form alone shows his power. Another thing to watch is his neat handling of dialogue in verse. He does this in Outside the Hospital. Then, after seeing the metrical artist at work, look at the holy handling of subject matter in The Beggar...
...Many Girls" is a farce to end all farces. Drama may be the willing suspension of disbelief, but "Too Many Girls" asks you to suspend your sanity, too. But, aside from the plot, there is music, and songs, and sex a-plenty with a vagnely utopian college background. There is also a takeoff on a Harvard man which is too alarmingly accurate to be even slightly amusing...