Word: za
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...want to hear good opera," the Empress Maria Theresa-once remarked, "I must go to Eszterháza." Such was the fame of Joseph Haydn's musical establishment at the country palace of his patron, Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, that even crowned heads journeyed from Vienna to rural Hungary to hear his operas. Yet today the two dozen or so operas by one of music's most important, beloved figures are the least known of his major works. It is an undeserved obscurity...
...Philadelphia, the opera's plot was abridged, two minor characters eliminated and the music somewhat reordered, so the production was not a fair test of the opera's stage worthiness. At Eszterháza, Haydn could call on a large cast of silent extras to provide plenty of spectacle, and the theater's sophisticated stage machinery-which could transform settings from a pleasant garden to an enchanted wood or a glorious hall-was expected to carry a good deal of the dramatic load...
Many of this year's most expensive business destinations are obscure spots in the Third World. In Accra, Ghana, a three-mile taxi ride costs $10.92. A drink in a bistro in Kinshasa, Zaïre, is $6.05. The most expensive city in the world at present is Bridgetown, the capital of Barbados, where U.S. companies, including TRW, Intel and Playtex, operate manufacturing plants to take advantage of low wage rates. A hotel room with breakfast there is a stunning $155.36. The world's least expensive city this year, as last, is Peking. A capitalist looking...
...several hundred Ugandan soldiers in hit-and-run attacks. Ugandan reinforcements, and several thousand of the Tanzanian troops who have remained in Uganda since overthrowing Amin 20 months ago, counterattacked. In the clashes, more than 2,000 civilians were butchered. As many as 300,000 others fled into neighboring Zaïre and Sudan. A desperately needed crop of sorghum is now rotting in the fields simply because there is no one left to harvest...
...addition to these problems, Brazil has a relatively new and even more pressing problem-piles and piles of debt. Keeping company with such indigent nations as Zaïre, Peru and Bangladesh, Brazil has earned the dismal distinction of being the developing country that has plunged most deeply into deficit. At the moment, it owes the astonishing total of more than $50 billion, mainly to international banks...