[Met Performance] CID:5470



Faust
Metropolitan Opera House, Sat, December 11, 1886 Matinee



In German



Faust (24)
Charles Gounod | Jules Barbier/Michel Carré
Faust
Max Alvary

Marguerite
Lilli Lehmann

Méphistophélès
Emil Fischer

Valentin
Adolf Robinson

Siebel
Sylvia Franconi

Marthe
Wilhelmine Mayer

Wagner
Rudolph Von Milde


Conductor
Walter Damrosch







Review 1:

Review in The New York Times

METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE.

The popularity of Wagner among frequenters of the Metropolitan Opera House is seemingly not permitted to silence the reformer's contemporaries, and the public, if appearances go for aught, has not yet lost its regard for the masterworks of both the French and the German schools. For the second time within a few days "Faust" was the opera yesterday afternoon, and for the second time this season it summoned a very large audience and held it under the spell for the three and a half hours the representation at the Metropolitan occupies. Gounod's best known achievement is not the opera in which the company at the Metropolitan is seen to most advantage. Fräulein Lehmann is scarcely well suited by temperament to Margaretha, and the rôle of Faust is somewhat trying for Herr Alvary, although that young and earnest artist has made considerable progress since he was first listened to in this country. Nor is Herr Fischer's bonhomie quite in consonance with the ideal most people have formed unto themselves of Mephistopheles. The songstress, however, that could personate Isolde and Goethe's heroine with equal success must be rather hard to find, and the tenors of the past are gradually being referred to as a sort of supplementary lost tribe. Fortunately, if the revival of "Faust" at the uptown house is not distinguished by the passing brilliancy of any single effort, it attracts and will be remembered through its symmetry and completeness. The performances or Fräulein Lehmann and Herren Alvary, Fischer, and Robinson are excellent technical portrayals throughout, and Fräulein Lehmann's rises to a very high plane of lyric and dramatic power in Valentine's death scene and in the church scene following. Herr Robinson's Valentine also claims special mention for like characteristics, and his singing, all through the opera, approximates more closely the vocal style set by precedent and common sense than does the vocal work of his cola borers. As for the chorus, orchestra, and scenic attire, nothing of the sort has ever been heard or seen in an American opera house, The instrumental and choral forces concerned in the representation undoubtedly exceed in strength and, as to the band at any rate, in efficiency the very best organizations of the kind gotten together heretofore, and such pictures as Margaretha's garden, flooded with moonlight by the rising orb, and the square in the old town enlivened by the return of the triumphant soldiers, are sights which, in connection with lyric productions, never before met the eye. It is pleasant to note that all these facts have had prompt recognition, and yesterday's audience and the recalls that followed each of the great acts of the opera indicated once more public approval of all that has been done by the management and artists. The rendering of "Faust" was, as usual, quite uneventful. Herr Alvary sang ""Salve. Dimora" particularly well, but the love duet did not terminate as effectively as could have been wished, for Fräulein Lehmann did not keep up with Mr. Damrosch's pace, and Mr. Damrosch appeared disinclined to slacken it to favor the prima donna. Fräuleln Lehmann has an undoubted right to an accompaniment that shall cling to her notes; the audience has an equally undoubted right to a tempo that gives the composer free play in the expression of his personages' emotions.



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