Word: corinth
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...turned, as it had to, into a free-for-all for her fans and the critics--an orgy of adulation. At 45, she's a superstar who has made it without the Met, which refused for years to recognize her and which now, with Rossini's The Siege of Corinth, has finally mounted for her the kind of production she deserves. Her fans paid up to $500 to see her on opening night and were in no mood for restraint or even courtesy: they cut off a singer in mid-phrase as soon as Sills stepped quietly on stage...
...equally delighted American opera fans. What is happening at long last is the arrival at the Met of Beverly Sills, the homegrown soprano who is the finest singer-actress in opera today. Sills' debut next week will be in a work never before heard there, The Siege of Corinth, a grandiose tragedy by a composer best known for his comedies, Gioacchino Rossini...
Thus with Siege of Corinth. It is one of Rossini's grandest operas, set in 15th century Corinth. The Turks, led by their Sultan Maometto (Justino Diaz), are hammering at the gates. Sills plays Pamira, the daughter of Cleomene (Harry Theyard), the governor of Corinth. Beverly, who talks as fast as she trills, narrates the plot in a style redolent of both Anna Russell and Rhoda Morgenstern: "It's very similar to Aida. The only difference being that my lover is a girl. Well, I mean to say, the part is played by a girl. Actually...
Brian Tate, professor of government at Corinth University, is a brilliant, stuffy fellow, wickedly mocked by his own short stature. Wendy, a boneless counterculture chicken enrolled in one of his graduate courses, is unaccountably but irrevocably daft about him. He is flattered but sensible; 46-year-old professors do not (or should not) have affairs with students. Yet she clings, adores and listens in damp fascination to his explanations of foreign policy...
...months from now Soprano Beverly Sills will at long last make her debut at New York's Metropolitan Opera. It will be an event both long awaited and long overdue. Sills will be 45 when she steps onto the Met stage in Rossini's The Siege of Corinth, and the question is whether, at an age when many divas fade, she will still possess the fabulous voice and technique. The uncertainty exists because she does have occasional off nights, and may be performing too much for her own good. But she is a crowned pro who never cuts...