All Passion Spent
HE commentator in a_ broadcast opera is relatively unappreciated, and it is a curious fact that the more complicated the plot of the opera the more necessary and the less appreciated he becomes. Passion radiates from the disc; there is shouting, wrangling, charge and counter-charge rising in musically inevitable crescendo to the beautifully resolved final clash; and then comes the commentator’s insultingly reasonable explanation, as flattening in its effect as the caption at the bottom of a foreignlanguage film. But the commentator in Orpheus and Euridice had an easier task, and his comparatively infrequent pronouncements had an antiphonal value by contrast with the female voices. I was less happy, however, about the insertion of C. Foster Browne’s rather academic appraisal of the work in the middle of the opera, where for me it certainly interrupted the melodic and emotional flow.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 768, 9 April 1954, Page 10
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143All Passion Spent New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 768, 9 April 1954, Page 10
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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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