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Show 5 ROCKY M 01' N TAIN REVIEW. June 17. 1965 THE BUTTON from PAT CUMMINGS BOX .cSkJA The Great Conspiracy The blender shuddered to a stop and pave up the phost last week This should have been a warning, but I was busy and didn't pay any attention to it Yesterday, the washer quit in the middle of the rinse cycle, letting water run out all over the floor Taking these facts into consideration, any American housewife can foretell the future: the television will undoubtedly blow its tube There is an understood among appliances, a sort of clandestine union, which makes them break down, one by one, shortly after the first item quits working Sympathy strike anelectrical who feeling of empathy knows? It's all part of the Great Appliance Conspiracy Theoretically, the American housewife has been eman cipated from her household dridgery by the hundreds of electrical servants that wait patiently throughout the house Unfortunately, with all these servants, there is still something lacking in them a central intelligence and that intelligence is what the housewife is supposed to contribute. Instead of thinking just for herself, she also has to think for 50 other pieces of equipment, each one specialned, ach one not able to work until omeone pushes the button. But when the appliance decides it needs a new bolt or a three day vacation, however, it calls upon a hidden resource of Intelligence and gives itself the command to Stop And Stop it does Instead of saying, "Take me to your leader like any ng Martian robot, it whimpers "Take me to the repair man", and all the other equipment stops work, too, one by one. because they feel sorry for their fellow worker What the housewife needs is either a good stiff course in Repairing Ailing Appliances with Neurotic and Coping Ones or else someone should invent a mechanical service man who could live in the broom closet and be trotted out, wound up or turned on, and ordered to fix the sulky washer the snarling air conditioner No wonder the average housewife becomes slowly disoriented mentally Living a jungle of hostile apin pliances is enough to unnerve anyone While her husband is also surrounded daily by electric typewriters, calculators, machines, computers, copiers with and air conditioners bared teeth, he has been provided by nature with a secretary to shield him from the 88111811 electrical world Miss A copes with the mechanical monsters, as women have always done for men. leaving him free for Other Things Perhaps the good old days were more fun for the feminine sex It would be pleasant to pound the family wash on rocks by a little stream surrounded by the rest of the village women .get the water from the village well and chat awhile about local gossip before going home to sweep the dirt through the cracks in the No ironing no car floor news of pools no far-o- ff happenings from an electrical gadget that hates you anyway. Civilization is not always what it's cracked up to be especially when the hand of the Great Appliance Conspiracy is against you. . half-hea- fmk rd . ZCMI Wedding Gift Registry is the place to list all the best names in town Op era In English On U Stage A tradition of opera sung in English will be continued m the U. of U. Stadium Bowl, June 26, when Maestro Abravanel gives the down -- beat for the first of three of Verdi's performances ar AIDA. In spite of "artistic prob- lems resulting in translation from Italian, French, or German into English, I am one who has championed opera-i- n -English through the years. It is particularly important for large outdoor crowds, many of whom are hearing a particular grand opera for the first time, to know what is going on story wise Not only should the opera be sung in English, but the artists should performing enunciate in such a way as to be clearly understood; otherwise. Russian or Chinese might as well be used And let's face it, there are American vocal artists whose English is barely recognisable Once listeners are familiar with the opera s action there is no reason why it should not be sung in the original I am all for opera tongue in the original language, for Instance, at the Metropolitan Opera House, particularly for regular subscription series But even the Met has felt the necessity for occasional About 10 English versions years ago the Met management announced a new staging of LA BOHEME with a brand new English translation from the Italian by Hollywood writ- er Howard Diet. The translation was good for the most part, but there were a few "artistic problems that bordered pn the comical For example, In the first act when Schaunard appears with food, drink and fuel, one of the bohemians bursts out with "It's a feast for a Roman; it's warming Of course my abdomen! abdomen rhymes appropriately with "Roman but Is a term one does not ordinarily expect to hear in grand opera. It was good for plenty of unexpected laughs Then there is the even more familiar CARMEN translator has come What up with translations of satisfactory the innumerable "mon Dieu's spouted by operas uninhibited bad girl? Some of these border on the ridiculous, but in spite of these minor problems opera is still most thoroughly enjoyed when understood George Bernard Shaw, while writing as music critic for the satirical weekly THE HORN ET, went to great extremes on this subject. In August 1877 at the age of twenty he wrote: " so low an opinion of the mprits of Italian opera in this country, and so steady a conviction that its downfall is only a question of time and musical culture, that we turn willingly to the rival enterprise what has relieved us from the absurdity of being the only . We have nation world which in the systematically tolerates opera delivered in a foreign tongue. And, be it remembered, not in the language for which the music was written, but in a vile Italian substitute for the original French or German libretto Those persons who object to English versions on the score of their literary dements are presumably unacquainted with the Italian language, or they would scarely assert the superiority of the translations which we hear so maltreated by German, Spanish, Swedish, French, Irish, and American artists at our opera houses CBS then blasts "the few Italian singers, mostly of minor importance, who do even less justice to their native tongue then the foreigners, pronouncing their recitatives in a species of gabble which we can scarcely identify with the musical language which we have heard declaimed by Signor Salvini. IV' 7 from LOWELL DURHAM THE PERFORMING ARTS r C6TT8RV0II "In other countries," continues Shaw, "the artists pay their audiences the compliment of mastering their speech, and presenting them with an intelligible and most enjoyable entertainment. The of Italian as the language of song has been urged to the serious detriment of opera in this country. English is the only tongue capable of enlisting the sympathy of the Englishman Shaw concludes indignantly: "The great point is that English is our national tongue, and, therefore, the only ooe which should be tolerated In our national opera houses. When we are at last roused to draw comjjarisons between the dreary emptiness of the evening spent in Covent Garden or the Haymarket, listening to performances which are foreign in heart and form, and the familiar and sympathetically rendered versions which excited the enthusiasm of shilling galleries for even Wagner, it is certain that ve should as soon think of going to hear Mr Irving in a German translation of HAMLET as to an Italian opera." While Shaw's position is extreme, there is nonetheless a great deal in its favor; so much so, that the annual U. of U. Summer Festival production of grand opera has always been in English translation and, presumably, will continue to be as important as your new name ce . HIM Lenoz artware--ol- and new d America's finest and we have a vast selection of traditional and brand new favorites. 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