<<  -- 6 --  Roderic Dunnett    FRESH AND ENGAGING

Moldova's version of the high officials -- Ping, Pang and Pong -- fitted the bill perfectly. Luckily, the action and singing tended to focus on Vladimir Dragos's Ping : Dragos, an accomplished American Consul in Butterfly, is one of Chisinau's most seasoned performers and teachers : his voice is full and assured, his acting well judged and secure, and he has a nicely restrained comic good sense. Anatol Arcea's commissary Pang and Vasile Micusa's culinary Pong, shuffling around him, seemed vocally tacked on -- one of the voices, possibly Micusa's, sounded frail -- though one can scarcely say that didn't fit the character ideally. And just briefly -- only at the outset -- the three were vocally adrift of each other.

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