Friday, April 4, 1980
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'Das Rheingold'on stage tonight
By KEVIN MILLS
Staff Reporter
Richard Wagner's opera "Das Rheingold" is a mammoth production with a simple message, according to George Lawner, musical director of the opera.
"Das Risinggold" will be presented at 8 p.m. today, tomorrow and April 12, and at 2:30 p.m. April 13 in the University Theatre in Murphy Hall.
"Das Rheingold" is, in many ways, a confrontation between power and love. Power corrupts and love redeemes," Lawner said. "It is a mammoth production because of the many parts that have to come together."
THE MANY PARTS include a cast of 14, a chorus of 20 and the 74-piece University Symphonic Orchestra.
"Das Rheingold" is actually the prologue to "Der Ring des Nibelungen," Wagner's musical recreation of a Norse myth about the decline of the gods and the ascension of
"Das Ringeingh" is presented in one act and last about two and a half hours. The entire "Hing" series comprises about 18 games, which it did and it took Wagner 25 years to complete.
There are no humans in "Bus Rhingoidi." The play is populated with gods, giants, dwarfs and Rhinemaidens (the German equivalent of mermaids).
“There are many protagonists, but the story is primarily about Wotan, the supreme god. 'Lawnner said.' Wotan rules the world of justice, which of justice, is forced to violate.
THE PLAY CENTERS on the fate of the Rheingold, a gold toy protected by the Rhinemaieras at the bottom of the Rhine River. The toy can be forged into a ring that wields supreme power—but first, the forger must renounce love.
"Wagner put a lot of his philosophy into this story," Lawner said. "George Bernard Shaw interpreted it as a socialist message."
Alberich, a dwarf, does this. But Wotan takes the ring from him, and Alberich casts a curse on the ring. The remainder of the ring is held by an arm with the ring *s* effect on its human bearers.
"I see it as a question about the sacrifice that has to be made for power. There is a risk in power—not the risk of losing it—but a risk in making something more precious—your love.
"Of course, today people are skeptical in many ways. If you say 'he gave up love,' they ask, 'Well, did he give up sex, too?'
LAWNER SPENT three months translating the German text into English. Wagner's language was filled with French, and he tried to reserve as much of that as possible.
To translate poetry is very hard, and to translate it so it fits the music is even harder." Lawner said. "It's not a perfect poem, but it's an understandable English."
Artist shows techniques to glassblowing students
Looks of intense concentration occupied students' faces as they watched the glassblower transform molten glass bubbles in an intricately decorated teapot.
Richard Marquis, visiting glassblowers from UCLA, demonstrated the ancient art of glassblowing yesterday to about 35 students in the Dairy Barn, KU's glassblowing studio.
Marquis, innovator in a technique he calls the "crazy quilt pattern", added his heart, cross and star designs to his boots. When finished, the pieces sell for about $750.
Veron Brenna, associate professor of design and head of the KU glassblowing division, said Marquis had revived a technique that began five centuries ago.
"The technique Marquis uses dates back to the Venetians during the high Renaissance, Brejsha said. "He has started a whole new contemporary process in glassblowing."
THE PROCESS of creating blown glass at the KU studio was started by mixing a 100-pound batch of glass from very fine sand and using it to create a layer into glass by additions of metal oxides such as copper, cobalt, silicon and iron. Marquage of the excess to make a type of glass called murmur.
Muranni is made by picking up small
amounts of the colored glass on the end of rods and shaping the glass with various tools, Brejcha said.
"It is a combined process of adding layers or bits of color to the glass until you get the desired look. The glass is pulled and stretched to reduce it in size with the same image running all the time."
The stretched glass, which quickly hardens, is then chipped off into little sections one-eighth inch thick. Brecha said.
"The sections are laid out, and when the hot bubble of glass is rolled in this pattern, they stick together," he said. "Then, the glass is blown and shaped into a teard."
STUDENTS ASSISTED Marquis in forming the pieces of his teapot so the glass did not cool too fast and explode.
"If the glass is cooled too quickly, the outside moves slower than the inside, which is still hot and flowing, and it tears itself apart," he said.
Brejcha said Marquis' work had been shown in every major glass exposition in the country.
"His work is exhibited at museums in the United States, and he is collected in the collection of the Corning Glass Museum, Corning, N.Y. The largest glass museum in the world," he said.
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"I don't want to give away all the surprises, but the scenes will be symbolically represented," he said.
Lawyer said the actors would be positioned on a turntable. When a new scene swings into view, the actors will be placed there and will remain frozen until the "entrance."
Wagner's work also present a number of technical problems, Lawner said. Wagner did not want the actors to enter or exit from the wings.
The first scene calls for the Rhinemadae to swim in the Rhine. Lawner said that past productions had used women suspended on ropes, which she likened to women hanging from ropes, it looked like women hanging from ropes.
Lawyer said the actors had to adjust to playing non-human roles.
"do who giants walk? How do dwarfs walk? Gods?" he asked. "But I think we have solved this adequately. Although they know, they reach to each other in human ways."
Lawner said he was satisfied with the efforts made by the cast, musicians and technical crew.
"We are all aware of the tremendous undertaking that this is," he said. "We feel like we will present something that we won't be ashamed of."
A jury was unable to deliver a verdict yesterday after three hours of deliberation in an animal cruelty case brought before the Douglas County District Court.
LAWNER DIDN'T WANT to elaborate on how he and Del Unrith, the stage manager, overcome the technical problems.
KLAUS KINSKI ISABELLE ADIANI
NOSFERATU AT THE VAMPIRE
BRUNO GANZ
BRUDO GANZ
MICHAEL GRI SCOFF - A MICHAEL HERZOG FILM
WERNER HERZOG - A WERNER HERZOG
Jury can't reach verdict in animal cruelty case
J Jeffrey Sharon, Overland Park, was charged Feb. 1 with cruelty to animals, alleged neglecting seven lions, a tiger and a snake in trainters on a farm in Eudora.
In 35mm at HOCH!
Charges were filed against Sharon after United States Department of Agriculture veterinarians complained to the county that they had not received food or water from Jan. 28 to 31.
The county ordered the animals taken to the Topeka Zoo when the district attorney was unable to reach Sharon to see if the animals were being neglected.
A key issue during the trial was whether the animals were fed on the four days in quarantine. They found no findings on the observation that no footprints were found in the snow around them.
Friday & Saturday, April 4-5
8:00 pm $1.50
HOCH AUDITORIUM
Sharon maintained that wind had blown dry snow over tracks created by a caretaker visiting regularly.
Sharon, who defended himself in the trial, said he was happy that the jury did not convict him, but did not know whether he was going to itself again if the case returned to trial.
Craig Stancille, assistant district attorney, did not say whether the state would accept the lawsuit after saying Saher's promise to improve his animals' facilities would be "very perilous."
—No refreshments allowed—
Judge James W. Paddock set a new trial date of May 7.
April 4-5 9 pm
Pat's Blue Riddim Band
w/Bob Zohn
Friday & Saturday
$3.00 gen.
$2.50 mem.
Come down early
for
$1.25 hiballs
$1.50 pitchers
from 8-9
Call for concert info. 842-6930
It was the Deltas against the rules...the rules lost!
NATIONAL LAMPOON'S ANIMAL HOUSE
NATIONAL LAMBOURG AFFAIR HOUSE -- JIM BELLYMAN TIM MARRIONHAN DENNIS HERMSTEIN
REQUIRED for MATTY BELLYMAN TIME, JIM BELLYMAN TIM MARRIONHAN DENNIS HERMSTEIN
REQUIRED for MATTY BELLYMAN TIME, JIM BELLYMAN TIM MARRIONHAN DENNIS HERMSTEIN
REQUIRED for MATTY BELLYMAN TIME, JIM BELLYMAN TIM MARRIONHAN DENNIS HERMSTEIN
Friday & Saturday, April 4-5
7:00 & 9:30 pm $1.50
Woodruff Auditorium
—No refreshtments allowed—
University Daily Kansan
Strained relations keep Soviet writer at home
By RICK HELLMAN Staff Reporter
The breakdown in relations between the United States and the Soviet Union over the Afghanistan invasion is being felt by the University of Kansas.
The Soviet writer-in-residence was to come to KU this spring, will not be allowed in the North Haspur was denied permission and the Union of Soviet Writers, a professional organization that controls publication of holistic exchanges by Soviet authors.
The diminishment of cultural and educational exchanges was only one of the subjects at a panel discussion on Soviet relations last night at Smith Hall.
The panel was composed of five KU professors of differing political perspectives.
HARRY SHAFFER, professor of economics, said he thought the United States had "grossly overreached" to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. With economic weapons such as the grain embargo and shut-off of high technology equipment, he said, "the economic effect is much more useful to us than the Russians."
Shaffer said the solution to the problem "must not be a military attack but some attempt at cooperation . . . the military must do so. Or, if it were, or it will be the end of the world."
But Roy Laird, professor of political
science, said detente has "been a one-way street."
"The Soviet ideology wants to spread through all the world." Krass said, "and the only way to contain that spreading, is a U.S. policy of containment."
The Soviet Union, Laird said, "uses coexistence as a tool for further expansion."
LAIRD QUOTED Soviet authorities who wrote that the nation's ultimate goal was world domination.
Iosif Krass, associate professor of economics and a recent Russian emigre, agreed with Laird's assessment of Soviet aims.
"Just as Hiller wrote it in 'in Mein Kampft' and nobody bothered to look at it, so have Lenin and his successors written out their plans," he said.
Krass also noted that Soviet dissidents, such as Andrei Sahakov, have urged the U.S. to go through with its boycott of the Olympics.
Norman Saul, professor of history, said "there have been a lot of ups and downs in the course of U.S.-Soviet relations but we have gone on and I hope we will go
The other members of the panel were KU professors who have participated in educational exchanges with the Soviet Union.
This is the first time since the Soviet writer-in-residence program was started in 1973, that KU will go through the year without a Soviet writer on camp.
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FRIDAY, APRIL 4 9:00 pm
- COMING EVENTS IN APRIL:
9:10 Black Oak Arkansas
11: Seakent
11: Seakent & drunk & drown
14: The Drink Players
16: HomeJames James
16: HomeJames Boogie, & Shuffle Band Used Parts
737 NEW HAMPSHIRE
18-19 Used Parts
22 The New Brow
23 Ridium Band
(Benefit for Howard Yukon)
23 Ball Pans with
Teddy Anderson
25 Toto Teddy
26 Kanudo
7 Disk roots