Potted Operas
FTER hearing the complete broadcast of Carmen from 4YA, I found it trying to return to the "potted
operas" represented by the ZB series Opera For the People, in which the first half of Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet eccupied a programme. Several departed spirits must have stirred in uneasy graves on thig occasion, not the least of them, apart from Shakespeare and Gounod, being the late John Barrymore. Shakespeare spun some delightfully cobwebby lines around the two young lovers, frail stuff which simply couldn’t bear the double translation into French and back into English, Many of the poet’s lines were kept intact (the natrator certainly helped in this respect, by giving us a lot of Shakespeare spoken as well as sung), but many of the lines were not pure W.S. and. the result was irritating. In any case, Gounod miscalculated when: he imagined that the plays of Shakespeare gain by musical setting as operas in the popular style.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19480709.2.23.7
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 472, 9 July 1948, Page 13
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160Potted Operas New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 472, 9 July 1948, Page 13
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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