Metropolitan Opera Archives

Translation by unknown
Rigoletto received one performance this season.
In Act III, Marianne Brandt sang a Spanish song by Eckert, which she rendered so effectively that she had to repeat it. The quartet was also repeated.

Review 1:

Review in the New York Commercial Advertiser

METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE.

RIGOLETTO. Opera by Verdi.

The German company indulged last night in a little recreation in the shape of a performance of one of what irreverent Wagnerites calls the "barrel-organ" operas. It was an interesting experiment, and not at all unsatisfactory from an artistic standpoint, but the rows of vacant seats were a silent commentary on the change which the public taste has undergone. This is the first instance when there has not been a good house, and, singularly enough, it was also the first performance of one of the more hackneyed Italian operas. "Rigoletto" probably will not be repeated, whereas "Lohengrin" and "Tannhäuser," though each has already drawn five or six crowded houses, have been by no means shelved for the season.

It would be hard to name a composer of such uneven merit as Verdi - one who exhibits in his works so many insignificant and unmeaning trivialities side by side with beauties of a high order and of genuine inspiration. "Rigoletto" contains not a few of the latter in the last act, and for the sake of them it almost pays to sit through the dreary wastes of sound of which the rest of the opera is mainly made up. The story, too, abounds in highly dramatic episodes, so that whatever of dramatic genius the composer possessed found full play for exercise. Indeed, the libretto, unpleasing though it be, calls frequently for an intensity of feeling which the music is unable to express. However, it was in scenes of this kind that the German artists found work most congenial to their temperaments and they were consequently endowed with unwonted power.

Herr Robinson was somewhat hoarse, so that vocally his performance of the title rôle was not up to his usual standard. Moreover, his distinct enunciation and powerful rhythmical delivery, though excellent qualities in themselves, are not well adapted to Verdi's smoothly flowing recitations, and produced somewhat spasmodic effect in the rendering of the arias. Frau Schroeder-Hanfstangl scored an undoubted popular triumph as Gilda, a verdict which the critic has no cause to controvert, and Frl. Brandt lent her valuable aid as Maddalena, introducing a rather formless Spanish song by Eckert, which she was obliged to repeat.

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