Re: Xy'd NB -- FLV Video Capture and Player

["Patricia M. Godfrey" priscamg@xxxxxxxx]

Robert Holmgren wrote:
> If you want to see why musicians were knocked out by Callas
> singing Kundry (Wagner/Parsifal) when _she_ was a 200 pound
> gorilla (pre-1950 weight loss),
Going way OT, but... Musicians, yes. But opera is a visual as
well as a musical medium for most people, and sometimes the
visual so violently contradicts the story line as to make things
ludicrous. Two cases in point: My brother once saw a production
of Bizet's Carmen, in which the title role was sung by an
over-the-hill, grossly overweight diva, and Micaela by a sweet
young thing fresh from the conservatory. When Don José spurned
Micaela for Carmen, every guy in the audience, and a good number
of the ladies, was stifling guffaws.
I saw a production of Wagner's Die Meistersinger in which Walther
was played by an over-the-hill, overweight Sandor Konya (he was
good in his day, but his day was long past by this time; and,
whether by his own idea of the director's, he played Walther as a
petulant spoiled brat); Sachs was played as a generous, genial,
sage, sensible man, by a still vigorous, virile (and lean and
6-foot) Giorgio Tozzi. Halfway through Act 2, I found myself
thinking that Eva was making a _big_ mistake.
--
Patricia M. Godfrey
priscamg@xxxxxxxx