英语【异域风情】杜莎夫人蜡像馆.doc

Madame Tussaud’s, One of London’s Famous Sights 杜莎夫人蜡像馆，伦敦著名景观 山东 刘永科 全球闻名的英国伦像馆圣诞节前夕，为了营造圣诞节气氛并吸引游客参观，蜡像将小贝和辣妹的蜡像装扮成圣父约瑟夫和圣母玛丽亚的模样。此外，美国总统布什、英国首相布莱尔以及英国女王的丈夫三人的蜡像则被装扮成圣经中三位智者的模Every visitor to London knows who Madam Tussaud is or was. And almost every visitor has seen her, an old lady of 89, standing at the entrance of her own exhibition. She is made of wax, like all the models of people in the exhibition. Born in 1761, she learned the art of making life-size portraits in wax when she was a young girl in France. In 1802 she came to England. By 1835, her exhibition had a permanent home in Baker Street, London. It was already one of Londons famous sights. What was the secret of her success? Her portraits were life-size and convincing. She paid great attention to details and spent a lot of money on the right clothes and effective lighting. She also included true relics in the exhibition—not only can you see Louis XVI, the King of France, but you can see also the actual knife which cut off his head! And Madame Tussauds portraits were always up to date and new. Thousands of people still line up to see these portraits of the famous and the infamous. What is the attraction? Perhaps it is simply because people love to stare at the famous. At Madame Tussauds you dont have to wait for hours in the rain to have a look at the Queen in a carriage or Muhammad Ali getting off a plane. There they are, just a metre or two away. How do the organizers of Madame Tussauds decide which people to include in the exhibition? Every year they run a public poll which helps them to choose. They ask the visitors to the exhibition to say who their hero or heroine is. This poll produces some interesting results. At the moment Sir Winston Churchill and Superman are rivals for first place as hero of all time. And President Amin of Uganda comes second only to Hitler as the worlds most hated and feared man. Of course they have to change the portraits quite frequently. Sometimes they take a model away