{"id":2600,"date":"2018-03-28T00:50:04","date_gmt":"2018-03-28T00:50:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/?p=2600"},"modified":"2018-03-28T00:50:04","modified_gmt":"2018-03-28T00:50:04","slug":"word-of-the-day-premiere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/2018\/03\/28\/word-of-the-day-premiere\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Day: Premiere"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Schleifer<\/h1>\n

The word premiere<\/em> can be a noun, a verb, or even an adjective. As an adjective, it means \u201cfirst, initial,\u201d as in \u201cMichael Jordan was the premiere basketball player of his generation.\u201d As a verb, it means to perform something publicly for the first time. And as a noun, it can mean either \u201ca first public performance\u201d of something or \u201cthe leading woman, as in a drama\u201d (http:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/browse\/premiere?s=t<\/a>). Of course, if you drop the final \u2013e, the word refers to the leading officer in the cabinet of the Italian or French governments, or what the English call the \u201cPrime Minister.\u201d<\/p>\n

The latter word enters English back in the middle of the 1400s, with the political meaning appearing first around 1710. But premiere appears, according to www.etymonline.com<\/a>, in \u201c1889, \u2018first performance of a play,\u2019 from French\u00a0premi\u00e8re<\/em>, in phrase\u00a0premi\u00e8re repr\u00e9sentation<\/em>, from fem. of Old French\u00a0premier<\/em>\u00a0\u2018first.\u2019 The verb is recorded from 1940.\u201d It is interesting how a word like premier(e)<\/em> has entered the language twice<\/p>\n

Speaking of premier, on this date in 1952, Singin\u2019 in the Rain<\/em>, starring Gene Kelly, Donald O\u2019Connor, and Debbie Reynolds, premiered at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.<\/p>\n

Movie musicals were a big thing back in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. On the American Film Institute\u2019s list of best movie musicals, those three decades are over-represented. The list includes The Wizard of Oz, West Side Story, The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, My Fair Lady, Cabaret<\/em>, and An American in Paris<\/em>, among many others. But the top of the list is Singin\u2019 in the Rain<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Gene Kelly starred in and choreographed the movie. Kelly was one of the two great male dancers of the period, along with Fred Astaire. In my opinion, Astaire was the better at ballroom dancing, but Kelly was more athletic, and I think I preferred his style.<\/p>\n

Donald O\u2019Connor was the funny-man dancer of the era. In fact, while Kelly\u2019s dance routine in the rain is probably the most famous number from the movie (right?), O\u2019Connor\u2019s dance number \u201cMake \u2018Em Laugh\u201d is probably my favorite.<\/p>\n

Debbie Reynolds was more the singer\/actor than the dancer, but she was one of my favorites when I was growing up. I actually had the opportunity to see her in Irene<\/em>, on Broadway in 1973, but on the day my high school group went to New York to see the show, Reynolds wasn\u2019t feeling well, and her understudy, Janie Sell, performed the title role. I did not know then that Reynolds\u2019s daughter, Carrie Fisher, was in the chorus.<\/p>\n

Radio City Music Hall used to be one of the truly great venues in the U.S. I don\u2019t think it has the prestige it had decades ago, but it\u2019s still there. I have been to Radio City once, to see The Out-of-Towners<\/em> (1970), starring Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis. I also got to see the Rockettes, live. And the art deco<\/em> style is really fine.<\/p>\n

I know that old movies are not everyone\u2019s cup of tea, but a lot of those old movie musicals are fun. And Singin\u2019 in the Rain<\/em> may be the most fun of all of them. The music is great; the dancing is great; and the story is, well, Debbie Reynolds is great.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The image is a poster of the 1952 MGM movie Singin\u2019 in the Rain<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paul Schleifer The word premiere can be a noun, a verb, or even an adjective. As an adjective, it means \u201cfirst, initial,\u201d as in \u201cMichael Jordan was the premiere basketball […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2605,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-word-of-the-day","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2600"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2604,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2600\/revisions\/2604"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}