user: Problem: Read the following paragraph and extract the answer for the question: What was the name of the director of the Conservatoire?  Massenet was a prolific composer; he put this down to his way of working, rising early and composing from four o'clock in the morning until midday, a practice he maintained all his life. In general he worked fluently, seldom revising, although Le roi de Lahore, his nearest approach to a traditional grand opera, took him several years to complete to his own satisfaction. It was finished in 1877 and was one of the first new works to be staged at the Palais Garnier, opened two years previously. The opera, with a story taken from the Mahabharata, was an immense success and was quickly taken up by the opera houses of eight Italian cities. It was also performed at the Hungarian State Opera House, the Bavarian State Opera, the Semperoper, Dresden, the Teatro Real in Madrid, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in London. After the first Covent Garden performance, The Times summed the piece up in a way that was frequently to be applied to the composer's operas: "M. Massenet's opera, although not a work of genius proper, is one of more than common merit, and contains all the elements of at least temporary success."This period was an early high point in Massenet's career. He had been made a chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1876, and in 1878 he was appointed professor of counterpoint, fugue and composition at the Conservatoire under Thomas, who was now the director. In the same year he was elected to the Institut de France, a prestigious honour, rare for a man in his thirties. Camille Saint-Saëns, whom Massenet beat in the election for the vacancy, was resentful at being passed over for a younger composer. When the result of the election was announced, Massenet sent Saint-Saëns a courteous telegram: "My dear colleague: the Institut has just committed a great injustice". Saint-Saëns cabled back, "I quite agree." He was elected three years later, but his relations with Massenet remained cool.Massenet was a popular and respected teacher at the Conservatoire. His pupils included Bruneau, Charpentier, Chausson,...

A: Thomas


Problem: Read the following paragraph and extract the answer for the question: What is the last name of the president that attended the 1975 debut of the work that premiered in Israel in 1962?  In May 1962 A Child of Our Time received its Israel premiere in Tel Aviv. Tippett says that this performance was delayed because for a while there were local objections to the word "Jesus" in the text. When it came about, among the audience was Herschel Grynszpan's father who, Tippett wrote, was "manifestly touched by the work his son's precipitate action 25 years earlier had inspired." The performance, by the Kol Yisrael Orchestra with the Tel Aviv Chamber Choir, was acclaimed by the audience of 3000, but received mixed reviews from the press. The Times report noted contrasting opinions from two leading Israeli newspapers. The correspondent for Haaretz had expressed disappointment: "Every tone is unoriginal, and the work repeats old effects in a most conventional manner". Conversely, according to the Times report, HaBoker's critic had "found that the composition had moved everyone to the depths of his soul ... no Jewish composer had ever written anything so sublime on the theme of the Holocaust."Despite its successes in Europe A Child of Our Time did not reach the United States until 1965, when it was performed during the Aspen Music Festival, with the composer present. In his memoirs Tippett mentions another performance on that American tour, at a women's college in Baltimore, in which the male chorus and soloists were black Catholic ordinands from a local seminary. The first significant American presentations of the work came a decade later: at Cleveland in 1977 where Prince Charles, who was visiting, delayed his departure so that he could attend, and at Carnegie Hall, New York, where Colin Davis conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. Reviewing this performance for The New York Times, Donal Henahan was unconvinced that the work's "sincerity and unimpeachable intentions add[ed] up to important music". The spirituals were sung with passion and fervour, but the rest was "reminiscent of a familiar pious sermon" in which the words were only intermittently intelligible....

A: Kaunda


Problem: Read the following paragraph and extract the answer for the question: What was the full original name of the hotel that became the Sleepy Valley Hotel in 1930?  As Harvey's interests shifted to the Pyramid, Monte Ne's resort days effectively ended and the number of visitors slowly dwindled. Activities and events at Monte Ne continued, supported by locals who still visited in large numbers. Harvey sold the Hotel Monte Ne. The hotel went through several name changes and owners, becoming the White Hotel circa 1912, the Randola Inn in 1918, the Hotel Frances in 1925, and in 1930 the Sleepy Valley Hotel. Monte Ne's larger hotels continued to be active after they, along with the dance pavilion and Elixir Spring, were foreclosed and sold at public auction. From 1927 to 1932, Missouri Row and Oklahoma Row (often called the Club House Hotels at this point) were home to the Ozark Industrial College and School of Theology, a nonsectarian school run by Dan W. Evans. The hotels housed pupils—Missouri Row for boys, Oklahoma Row for girls—and Oklahoma Row also provided classroom and dining spaces. Evans and his family lived in the tower. The dance pavilion was enclosed and served as the school chapel. In May 1932, following a mortgage foreclosure against the school, school officials were evicted and the property was sold.After he announced the building of the Pyramid, at age 69, Harvey began suffering a series of serious health problems, but continued to work tirelessly. In 1926, blood poisoning in his foot put him in a coma that lasted several days resulting in surgery, and three months of recuperation. In 1929 he and Anna were finally divorced. Three days later Harvey married his long-time personal secretary May Leake. In 1930, he came down with double pneumonia. He was also going blind and needed younger people to read his letters and the newspaper to him.

A: Hotel Monte Ne


Problem: Read the following paragraph and extract the answer for the question: Whose mother gets arrested?  Academy Award-winning star Margaret "Maggie" Elliot is a bankrupt actress of a certain age struggling to accept her new non-wealthy reality. She is in denial, and confident she can somehow build herself up again and re-launch her career to its earlier brilliance. After suffering another big disappointment while vainly striving to get that last one good role, she gets drunk, is arrested for DUI, and spends a night in jail. She is bailed out by Jim Johannsen, a younger former actor whom she had helped in the past. Jim, now comfortably settled as the owner of a boatyard, admits that he has loved her ever since those days and, helped by Margaret's daughter Gretchen, tries to help Margaret see that her big screen days as a famous actress are already over. She reluctantly tries to work as a saleswoman in an upscale department store, but overhearing some unkind gossip from two customers wounds her pride and she runs out.  Her old agent manages to get her a screen test for a role in a film she'd always wanted to play. She is offered and takes a screen test for a supporting role, believing that if she plays that character as a sexy younger woman -- rather than the middle-aged frump she is seen as by the studio -- she might be able to win the more coveted lead role. It does not work out.

A:

assistant: Gretchen