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In Reply to: RE: A Dvorak Urban Legend, and Anna Moffo posted by John Marks on December 11, 2014 at 16:15:25
Interesting about the "Gerontius by Dvorak" urban legend - I had not heard that before! BTW, my understanding is the Elgar got an "imprimatur" by one (or was it several?) Protestant bishops before the premiere of the work?
Regarding the Anna Moffo nudies, I think most of them are probably real - TV nudity standards in many countries in Europe were much more relaxed at that time than they were here in the US. In fact, I remember at a certain point in our German language studies, our teacher recommended that we try to read some German magazines auf deutsch. Next time the class met, after many of us had picked up "Stern" and other mainstream German magazines, we started the class by asking our teacher, "Hey - What's with all the topless photos in these German magazines?". Same answer: more relaxed standards - Europeans were just not as freaked out about it as 'murcans were. ;-)
Follow Ups:
Gee, congrats, Red-Letter Day, you came up with some Gerontius trivia that my Jewish ancestors who were alive at the time were unaware of, and so was I!
First, one has to remember that the premiere was actually in a civil building--Birmingham Town Hall. And it does appear that Elgar allowed Bowdlerized performances, so until 1910 performances in Anglican venues were allowed to soft-pedal Purgatory, etc. Dunno how many did. "Anglo-Catholic" Anglican churches would have been OK with that.
Two sound bites: I tell people that Gerontius is Dante in 90 minutes.
And LKJ Setright allowed that Gerontius could turn anyone into a Catholic, as long as it was playing... . And LKJ was Orthodox Jewish.
I must confess that my efforts to get Ken Kessler to sit down and listen to it in one go, have been unavailing.
ATB,
John
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