Word: godunov
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Levental is a sky- above, mudslinging-below construct. But beyond the "aria portraits" that graphically limn each of the principal characters, Dead Souls contains every cliche in the state manual, including the obligatory lament for the suffering people that has been a staple at least since Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov. The opera has just enough technique to work and not enough heart to make anyone care...
Director Benjamin's gift for this kind of comic invention (first hinted at in My Favorite Year) is now finely honed. Long is the adorable mistress of frazzled common sense. Hanks poises between panic and exasperation with the kind of weird aplomb Cary Grant used to manage, and Alexander Godunov, the dancer, proves himself a gifted comic actor as an egomaniacal symphony conductor. They are all comparatively new to film, and that makes their display of old, all but lost movie skills even more cheering. The medium may have a future after...
...Ring and the elegance of Count Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro; after a long illness; in Armonk, N.Y. He found success quickly, with critically praised debuts at Europe's leading opera houses and New York City's Metropolitan. In 1960 he became the first American to sing Boris Godunov at Moscow's Bolshoi Theater. In 1967 a paralyzed vocal cord cut short his career; he turned to arts administration, and was general director of the Washington Opera when a 1977 heart attack left him disabled...
Vishnevskaya joined the Bolshoi Theater in 1952 when Stalin still acted as the opera's imperial patron. Millions of rubles were spent on the opulent sets and costumes for spectacles like Prince Igor and Boris Godunov. Seated in a heavily guarded box, Stalin reveled in the gilt-and-rhinestone production numbers as he munched on hard-boiled eggs. He had no knowledge of music. Once at an intermission he summoned to his loge the distinguished Bolshoi conductor Samuil Samosud and told him strongly that the performance "is lacking flats." Samosud had the wit to reply: "Good, Comrade Stalin. Thank...
...designated half a dozen? Life, as Burt is sure to have said in at least one of his movies, is unfair. Fair or not, the "chosen" six are slotted by categories: Dudley Moore, 47 (lovableness); OJ. Simpson, 35 (business savvy); James Caan, 43 (receptiveness); George Burns, 87 (maturity); Alexander Godunov, 33 (physical grace); and Kris Kristofferson, 46 (brains). Brains? Oh yes, that Rhodes scholarship. And did Anderson mind Burt's absence? Says she solemnly: "It's good for one's own identity to do some things separately...