Word: opera
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...good as Mozart's final opera - not even close. But consider that "The Magic Flute" began as an 18th-century version of pop-culture entertainment just like "Pokemon Live." Furthermore, "The Magic Flute" gets its imagery from the Masons, a no less enigmatic cult than the Pokemon series of video games, television shows, movies and comic books. Both "Pokemon Live" and "Magic Flute" are deeply rooted in the iconography of their time...
...this show will strike an opera-goer as familiar. Presented recitative-style, with alternating spoken dialogue and songs that reveal characters' feelings and motivations, there are secrets revealed, kidnappings, bumbling henchmen, crude comedy and low-tech special effects like flash pots and strobes. Characters have solos, duets and ensemble arrangements, accompanied by interpretive dancers. There is even a pas de deux...
...Australia was clearly thrilled to be showing off like this. Sydney had been buffed to a gleam for the Games, and a sparkling late-winter sun shone all week. The "Today" show set up by the opera house to catch sunrises on the harbor and sunsets behind the bridge. Restaurants and hotels filled, athletes sprouted in multicolored warm-up suits, photo ops clogged the botanical gardens. The sunny phrase "no worries," a curious affirmation against doomfulness, was heard over and over, as was a new quintessentially Australian sentiment: " 'Ey, all we 'ave to do is beat Atlanta! Not a very...
...million-dollar yachts chase rust-stained dinghies between the cream-and-green ferries on the harbor; ships like concrete office blocks glide under the Harbour Bridge to the container wharves, past tourists beaming over the gunwales of replica 18th century sailing vessels. The twin architectural highlights of Bridge and Opera House flank a modern CBD that seems to rebuild itself every few years, while an ocean of agreeable, if bland, suburbs unrolls along the highways that linked the rest of Australia to the nation's gateway port. All around, the beauty of the bush enfolds the city in its embrace...
When the Olympic torch bobs up the Opera House steps on Games eve, the two will blur even more. Schofield, for one, doesn't see why the Olympic ideals of "faster, higher, stronger" can't also apply to the arts: "We can measure our performance against the world's best practice, our companies against other companies, just as athletes measure themselves against competitors from other countries." Let the arts begin...