Volume 28, Number 7 · April 30, 1981
The Spirit of 1917
By John Russell
"Parade: An Evening of French Music Theatre": Parade
by Erik Satie, choreography by Gray Veredon
Les Mamelles de Tirésias
by Francis Poulenc, libretto by Guillaume Apollinaire
L'Enfant et les Sortilèges
by Maurice Ravel, libretto by Colette, conducted by Manuel Rosenthal, produced by John Dexter, sets and costumes by David Hockney, lighting by Gil Wechsler
at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, February 20-March 13, 1981
On the evening of February 20, 1981, some very odd things happened on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House. Stagehands went about their business dressed as Punchinellos out of Domenico Tiepolo, complete with tall, tapering hats and hook-nosed masks. A man fathered babies by the dozen with no help from the opposite sex, and one of them—still in his cradle—wrote a novel that sold six hundred thousand copies. Two king-sized cats parodied the love duet from Act II of Tristan und Isolde. A personified fire jumped out of the fireplace and ran round the room until brought to order by personified ashes. And in the center of the stage, though for a very few seconds, the young Colette—unmistakable for her profile and costume—was seen to be typing at top speed.
Review, 3625 words
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