intrigue and involvement: a surge of Music to My Ears fiery music, a torch of burning melody, a swell of harmonic affection for the underdog (such as Kurt Weill partially Irving Kolodin managed for Lost in the Stars, a 1949 view of a not dissimilar subject). An opera lover listening unaware to The An Opera to Forget fanaticism did not serve so well in The Most Important Man could not, for the and a Tenor to Remember Saint of Bleecker Street, nor prisoners most part, tell whether it related to of society in Maria Golovin. What he blacks and whites in South Africa or LIKE MANY other operas in the reper­ has thought to do with racial prejudice unhappy artisans in north Italy. Its tory of which it aspires to become a in The Most Important Man is not only method has more to do with Tosca part, Gian Carlo Menotti's The Most skimpy playwriting, but insufficiently than with the veldt, and leaves us hop­ Important Man ends unhappily. Like productive of musical impulse. ing in vain for new tones, new tunes, practically none other, it also begins We are asked to believe that Toimo new turns of Menottian invention. unhappily. This is not merely because Ukamba, brilliant black student of sci­ As the love-torn embodiment of pro­ its principal character finally dies ig- entist Dr. Otto Arnek, will survive a scribed passion, Eugene Holmes (a nominiously like a beast at bay, but postgraduate course in worldly disillu­ brilliant survivor of the unfortunately also because the beginning idea of sion and drug addiction to become his deceased Metropolitan National Com­ wringing lyric sentiment from the sub­ "master's" most trusted assistant; con­ pany) is first-class, with an order of ject of a Negro scientist at war with clude the researches that would make impulse accessible only to one born the apartheid society of which he is a the country the most powerful in the with the same black skin as Ukamba. part wrung no more meaningful music world and himself its "most important Joanna Bruno is a well-sounding, semi­ from Menotti than it does sympathetic man"; rebel in rage when the white skilled actress as his paramour, Cora; attention from the State Theater audi­ rulers of his land refuse to meet the Harry Theyard performs Arnek with ences that are currently viewing its conditions he has set upon sharing his the same kind of bumbling authen­ first performances anywhere. research; and turn against his bene­ ticity he brought to Albert Gregor in It has long been a part of Menotti's factor because he believes Arnek is The Makropoulos Affair, and Beverly procedure that a central subject mo­ motivated by prejudice when he takes Wolff is consistently wearisome as his tivate him on his way. In The Medium Ukamba to task for having a covert overaggressive, self-righteous wife. By it was spiritualism, real and phony; in affair with his daughter rather than much the most expert achievement of The Consul, displaced persons; in the speaking openly of their love. One vio­ the evening was Oliver Smith's evoca­ gay Globolinks of recent memory, visi­ lent action begets another, and Ukam­ tion of the scene, followed closely by tors from outer space. But if these ba is finally killed in a kind of stakeout. Menotti's staging of his own work and were reasonably successful, religious Only one thing could justify all this young Christopher Keene's productive music direction. Too bad they were not all involved with a less unhappy prob­ lem. Along with an opera to forget, the week produced a tenor to remember Send in Ihfe coupon wMi $1 with the latest appearance of Luciano Pavarotti in a Metropolitan sequence and ¥fe?ll send bode that began in November 1968. At that flhe Mclrapolilcni Museum of Aii^ time Pavarotti was fresh from Italy by way of San Francisco, where he had flhe CaKfomici PkilcMe of Ifie Legion of Honour contracted a laryngitis that made sing­ ing difficult. Indeed, he decided after liieCic¥cinnd Museum olF Art a few Met performances that he would be better off in Italy and left without and file Boston Museum of Fine Arts. completing his planned appearances. He wasn't heard again in New York until a few months ago (Edgardo in r Gentlemen: GAF Masterpiece Catalog Lucia and Alfredo in Traviata) and Enclosed please find $1. Please send Dept. SR-3,BoxNo.444 not at his best until a recent sequence me your 100-page Masterpiece Portland, Oregon 97207 of Rodolfos in La Boheme. That any Catalog listing over 2,000 great of these did, indeed, represent the best works of art from some of the of which he is capable is mere sup­ outstanding museum collections . .. position. But the quality of the sound, available on brilliant, museum pure, forward, easily produced, was approved 2x2 GAF Pana-Vue® uncommon enough to make any tenor Slides. proud to call it his best. Purely as malleable material, it was something Name. unheard from a newcomer since the first exciting days of Giuseppe Di Ste- Address. fano. City -State. .Zip. Mention of Di Stefano is, of course, the surest way to return any aspirant ® TheGAFPdiM-V^^ to reality, for these gifts hardly earned their owner the returns they should Mosteffiiiece Slide Series have. The weight Pavarotti has added since 1968 suggests that the appetite 16 SR/MARCH 27, 1971 PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED BUY AVOIVO IN EUROPE ANDSA^ COMING AND GOING When you buy a Volvo and arrange to pick it up in Europe it costs you less than it would cost you here* And by taking delivery on your Volvo in Europe you'll save what you'd otherwise spend to rent a car. 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SR-712 J PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED for eating and drinking demonstrated by the starving poet Rodolfo may be "It restores my faith in something more than a stage passion. Should he master this inclination be­ the novel as a major fore it costs him breath support and sustaining power, the resonance he form of literary art." showed in his "Racconto" as well as —Orville Prescott the sunburst of a C he produced at the end of the first act duet could ANGLE OF REPOSE is qualify him for the kind of popularity Wallace Stegner's the Metropolitan can sorely use in a masterwork. It is a vital, lyric tenor. sweeping novel that il­ The first of these Bohemes was, in all, much above average, with Dorothy luminates the American Kirsten impersonating Mimi as well present against the as the voice of experience; Mario values and commitments Sereni, Robert Goodloe, and Jerome of the America of 100 Hines completing a quartet of Pava- years ago. It is a story rotti-worthy Bohemians; and Andrij of the generation after >^ Dobriansky making more of Benoit the pioneers, and espe- ^ than most performers of this part do. daily of the women Judith De Paul replaced Colette Boky, among them, which will who was indisposed, as Musetta. endure in your memory Fausto Cleva captained the much-trav­ long beyond its tenure eled craft with a sure hand. as one of 1971's leading It was an axiom among orchestral bestsellers, musicians that however the late Wil- helm Furtwangler gave a downbeat, A Literary Guild Selection the time to come in was when his right $7.95 at all booksellers wrist passed the first button on his dress coat. With Karl Bohm, currently •IDoubleday guest conducting the New York Phil­ harmonic, the downbeat might be said to occur when his arms fall and his knees bend simultaneously. No matter. The art of command consists of mak­ ing musicians pay attention, and the When utility scissors Philharmonic's response to Bohm's Perry opened up beat, however wayward, produced a great performance of Bruckner's Sym­ Japan, everyone phony No. 8. More than a few New York seasons sang "My Old Featherweight, precision stainless steel blades pass without even one hearing of this Kentucky Home." from Finland with anatomically shaped finger lengthy work, which has been thrice- grips. $6. postpaid. blessed since last fall. Georg Solti's Announcing Webster's Guide with the Chicago Symphony was a to American History. New. Fasci­ Finland Design, Inc. model of sophisticated orchestral ex­ nating. Different. All the facts, fig­ ecution, meticulous yet fervent. Zubin ures, maps, illustrations, quotations, Mehta's with The Philadelphia Orches­ and biographies you'll ever need to 816 Lancaster Ave- tra was plasticity itself, beautifully put any American event into context Bryn Mawr, Pa.