Word: rococo
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Dates: during 1970-1970
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David Hicks on Bathrooms. 151 pages. World. $15. England's best-known decorator wants bathrooms majestic and unapologetic. To show the way, he offers a selection of stately 19th century baths with Egyptian, Greek Revival and rococo influences. For "character, luxury and style" in the 20th century, Hicks leans toward upholstery, mahogany furnishings and crystal chandeliers. Must reading for arrivistes in the first flush of prosperity...
Given a rather earthbound production by England's Nottingham Playhouse company, A Yard of Sun still rises to Fry's characteristic pitch, which might be described as cheeky-cosmic. The simplest of his characters can spin out rococo banter about the universe, God and the meaning of life. The setting is a courtyard in Siena, Italy, in 1946. The occasion is the reunion of four men back from the war-a refugee from a concentration camp, a doctor who was a partisan guerrilla, a would-be politician who joined the fascists, and a black marketeer who made...
...furniture as in architecture, the 19th century's fanciful adaptations of traditional styles often masked new concepts in design and construction. The sinuous curves and scrolls and extravagant ornamental carving of J.H. Belter's rosewood chairs and tables were based -however remotely-on 18th century French rococo precedents. But the S-shaped Tête-à-tête chair that seats two people facing one another was a strictly Victorian innovation...
...vaudeville was once king, burlesque was the nation's raffish, rococo old queen. Sixty years ago this week, Baltimore's New Monumental Theater featured "Divorceland: A fantasy of song and jest, with sumptuous scenic environment and an ensemble of beauteous femininity, prodigally clad in costly raiment." Throughout the '20s and '30s, pratfalls and epidermis at Minsky's warmed the Broadway night. From Boston's elegant Old Howard Theater to the vulgar palaces of Midwestern river towns, innocently dirty old men of all ages whistled and stamped at the sultry writhings of Gypsy Rose...
...essence of bel canto is making the vocally difficult sound delectable. Long, lung-stretching phrases, rococo trills, breathtaking leaps of voice slide into the air and ear with soft, summery ease and grace. The quintessential bel canto role is Norma, the most taxing female part in all opera. Giuditta Pasta, the first singer to try the part after Bellini created it in 1831, found it so difficult that the violins had to play out of tune deliberately to disguise her failures...