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FRIEDRICH SCHORR (Angel) was opera's greatest Heldenbariton in the years between the World Wars, and the richness and purity of his voice, with its exact, intelligent phrasing, have seldom been surpassed. These excerpts from Die Meistersinger, in which he sings his greatest role, Hans Sachs, include also the voices of Lauritz Melchior and Elisabeth Schumann. The original recordings were issued between 1928 and 1932, but they sound fresh-minted in this reissue.
SMETANA: THE BARTERED BRIDE (3 LPs: Angel) combines peasant gaiety with the darker Slavic yearnings echoed in Smetana's celebrated orchestral piece, The Moldau. This is the best Bride yet recorded, but by being sung in German it loses the dumpling-rich, explosive sound of Czech. As the marriage broker, Wagnerian Basso Frick is excellent, though he may not quite match the traditional Czech performers in humor or beery profundity. Equally fine are the rest of the cast, including Tenor Karl-Ernst Mercker, who as the half-witted half brother has the thankless task of singing several arias with a stammer. German-born Rudolf Kempe manages the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra with such authentic fire that he sounds like a natural-born Bohemian.
CINEMA
GIRL WITH GREEN EYES. She seemed too good to be true in A Taste of Honey; and in her second picture, Liverpool's Rita Tushingham, 22, seems even better than that: a girl who both acts like an angel and looks like a star. Peter Finch plays her middle-aged lover and plays him well, but Rita's dazzling presence turns Finch to sparrow.
A HARD DAY'S NIGHT. A treat for the Beatle generation. The holler boys' first film is fresh, fast and funny, and it may moderate the adult notion that a Beatle is something to be greeted with DDT.
HARAKIRI. A gory, sometimes tedious, sometimes beautiful dramatic treatise on an old Japanese custom: ritual suicide.
THAT MAN FROM RIO. This picture from France, a wild and wacky travesty of what passes for adventure in the average film thriller, stars Jean-Paul Belmondo and is directed with way-out wit by Philippe (The Fire-Day Lover) de Broca.
THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA. In John Huston's version of Tennessee Williams' play, several unlikely characters (portrayed with talent by Richard Burton and with competence by Deborah Kerr and Ava Gardner) turn up in the patio of a not-very-grand hotel in Mexico and talk, talk, talk about their peculiar problems.
LOS TARANTOS. A dance drama from Spain that tells the story of a gypsy Romeo and Juliet.
ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS. For the children: the touching tale of an Indian girl (Celia Kaye) who lives alone on an island off California.
A SHOT IN THE DARK. Sellers of the Surete sets a new style in sleuthing: let the murderer get away but make sure the audience dies laughing.
SEDUCED AND ABANDONED. Director Pietro Germi, who made Divorce—Italian Style the most ferociously funny film of the decade, tells another story of life and love in a small Sicilian town. But this time there is less fun and more ferocity.
ZULU. A bloody good show based on a historical incident that occurred in 1879: the siege of a British outpost by 4,000 African tribesmen.