Word: wagnerian
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Wagnerian Supermen. For a "searching fee" that averages about $50, buxom Frau Paech and other professional Cupid chasers will methodically remake the whimsical old game according to cold Teutonic logic. Clients are interviewed for the necessary information-background, interests, social status, financial situation -and brought together through carefully matched briefing sheets. For about one in every three couples she introduces, Frau Paech manages to find the right combination, and collects a "success fee" equal to the searching fee-unless the happy couple forget to notify her that they are getting married...
...with such agency-placed ads as "A heart to give away-am 39, 160 [centimeters tall], alone, not ugly, but wearer of glasses," or "Hello, hello! What young man between 35 and 45 would like to try his happiness with me?" Agencies make a paunchy male sound like a Wagnerian superman, a wilting wallflower a paragon of charm and virtue. Many agencies put love on a chain-store basis, increasing the chance for a successful match by trading clients among as many as 32 branches. Drawing clients from every class and profession, marriage brokers account for 60.000 to 80.000 marriages...
Died. Maria Hacker Melchior, 59, petite wife of burly Wagnerian Meistertenor Lauritz Melchior; in Los Angeles. A Bavarian silent screen star, Maria Hacker was making a parachute jump for a film when a gust of wind blew her off course and into a garden where she landed directly in front of the startled Melchior. A few months later in May of 1925, she gave up her career to become his devoted Kleinchen (Little...
Instead of booing, a packed house in Milan last week greeted Von Karajan with eloquent silence as he threaded his way through the orchestra. After the Che gelida manina aria, a few hisses mingled with the applause. Von Karajan's slightly Wagnerian notion of Puccini had the audience stunned at first, and La Scala's new second-act setting looked more like the Place de la Concorde than Boheme's little Left Bank square. Still, it was a gripping performance of a great opera, and Von Karajan was honored with 18 curtain calls. "Viva, Karajan!" and "Bravo...
...week's two most important debuts ∙Tenor Jess Thomas, 35, sang Walther in the Met's production of Die Meistersinger, and should have won a pocketful of raves. In the demanding role, his voice soared in steady flight above the stentorian heaviness of the Wagnerian orchestra: after the ardors of two long acts, he still had a great reservoir of lyric beauty left for the Prize Song that finishes the performance-and finishes the pretensions of a good many tyro tenors with it. A big (6 ft. 3 in.) and muscular South Dakotan, Thomas may well...