Word: librettos
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...fine English translation of the libretto did not help Elisabeth Phinney as Donna Elvira. Her diction in arias was mediocre. She was perfectly clear through the recitative so the problem is obviously not insoluble. She was at her best in Ah, Fuggi il Traditor, a Handelian rage aria complete with dotted rhythms, large interval leaps, and distinct bass line. In the peasant-girl Zerlina's role, Lisbeth Brittain was properly ingenuous and sang with a bright, light soprano voice...
Directing opera is difficult at best and David Bartholomew did not do a great deal that was original or exciting. Most ensemble movement consisted of describing circles in the middle of the stage; and intense drama was more from Daponte's libretto--such as the Commendatore's duel--than from directed motion...
...does not help at all that in Jack Larson's libretto, Byron is given some of his own best lines. "She walks in beauty, like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies," is turned from soliloquy into colloquy, as the operatic Byron croons to one of his lady loves, "You walk in beauty," etc. Chuckles even broke out in the audience when Byron's friend, Thomas Moore, stepped to the stage apron to sing, "Remember that genius that gleamed in his verse." The tune turned out to be that for Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young...
...than on first-rate conductors or enlightened repertory. An hour of highlights from the gala will be broadcast over CBS-TV on Sunday, April 30. On June 30, after the company's spring tour and a three-week Verdi Festival back at the Met, Bing will close the libretto on the second-longest general managership in Met history (Giulio Gatti-Casazza's reign lasted from...
...take part in telescoped ensembles, returning to confide in the puppets when the plot gets strenuous. "Don't worry," one of them reassures her when she loses her boy friend Tonio in The Daughter of the Regiment (scheduled to be shown this week). "I've read the libretto. He comes back...