Word: virtuosos
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Noble flop or neglected masterpiece? The question has followed Mozart's opera Idomeneo almost since its birth in 1781. Last week in Chicago the Lyric Opera voted for masterpiece, shoring up its case with the kind of virtuoso singing and playing that has made the company synonymous with excellence...
...rock star merely had to portray a deaf, dumb and blind parody of himself in a rock opera that his group had created. Nureyev was asked to bring to life one of the all-time classic leading men in cinema history, a giant of an era that the ballet virtuoso never knew. The role demands a certain presence, a knack for walking into a roomful of gaping admirers and creating an aura. Some scenes seem structured with this purpose in mind; at one point. Nureyev completely upstages a porcine-looking boor in a fashionable Manhattan night club by sweeping...
...Cukor skillfully directed this film version of the modern Midsummer Night's Dream that saved the National Theater Guild from bankruptcy. Grant is perfect in his Oberon role, masterfully elliptical and indirect. Ditto Jimmy Steward as the ingeneuous Bottom character. The supporting cast also turns in a series of virtuoso performances, making The Philadelphia Story a tour de force of romantic comedy...
...Henryk Szeryng and Maurice Hasson, Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Neville Marriner conductor, Philips). Bach was the field marshal of the concerto form, regimenting the fluid lines of such Italian masters as Vivaldi and Corelli into complex string masterpieces. Szeryng, the Polish-born virtuoso, and Second Fiddle Hasson demonstrate great authority within Bach's polyphonic ranks. Their counterpoint in the double concerto is superb, as is the accompaniment led throughout by Neville Marriner. One quibble: Szeryng's treatment of the slow movements tends to be brooding rather than introspective...
...major problem in presenting an experimental cornucopia of new music is one of continuity. Lieberman and Kushnick seemed aware of this: they integrated Kushnick's five songs with Lieberman's virtuoso a capella opening song, "Poly Waly," and Lieberman's own version of the Stevie Winwood tune, "Can't find My Way Home." The Lieberman-Kushnick segment of the program began forcefully, and later drifted to the ethereal with "Holes in the Sky," a 32-bar rendition of a poem by Louis NacNiece. The next four songs formed a cycle beginning with the straightforward harmonic piece, "Velvet Sportcoat," followed...