Word: monisha
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Found beneath a sacred tree, destined to lead her people, the baby girl enters the world like a new Moses. Raised on an Arkansas plantation by the freed slaves Ned and his wife Monisha, she is given the name Treemonisha because she likes to play under the tree. Except for Ned and Monisha, the farm hands are deeply superstitious and tremble when the conjurer Zodzetrick, known as the "goofer dus' man, "comes around with his bags o' luck. Ned and Monisha hope that Treemonisha will grow up to lead the people away from the captivity of their ignorance...
...Broadway pizazz. But when those good plantation folks turn from corn husking to "goin' around" (square dancing), it is hard to believe that anything so bouncy could have been rehearsed, let alone laid out in advance. The performance benefits enormously from the authority of Betty Allen's Monisha and Willard White's Ned, not to mention Schuller's buoyant conducting. But it is Carmen Balthrop as Treemonisha who is easily the hit of the evening. Winner of the 1975 Metropolitan Opera auditions, she still moves too cautiously on stage, but her lyric soprano voice...