[Met Performance] CID:9590



L'Africaine
Metropolitan Opera House, Tue, February 10, 1891

Debut : Minnie Hauk


In German



L'Africaine (7)
Giacomo Meyerbeer | Eugène Scribe
Sélika
Minnie Hauk [Debut]

Vasco de Gama
Andreas Dippel

Inès
Jennie Broch

Nélusko
Theodore Reichmann

Pedro
Emil Fischer

Diégo
Peter Mastorff

Alvar
Edmund Müller

Grand Inquisitor/High Priest
Conrad Behrens

Anna
Hannah Rothe

Dance
Martha Irmler

Dance
Miss Leontine

Dance
Miss Polednik


Conductor
Walter Damrosch







Review 1:

Review in The New York Times

METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE.

The special interest of last night's performance of "L'Africaine" lay in the reappearance here of Minnie Hauk after an absence of six years. It was a curious audience which gathered to hear the former favorite. The upper part of the house was crowded, the orchestra was moderately well occupied, and the boxes were half empty. The disposition of this audience was very friendly, but it must be confessed that the effort to manufacture enthusiasm was not crowned with brilliant success.

It is always an ungrateful task to comment on the work of a singer whose career dates back some thirty years. It is hardly reasonable to expect that an artist after so long a service shall sing the old familiar measures in the old familiar way, yet it is but fair to say that Mme. Hauk came nearer to doing that than we hoped she would. She shows no very great falling off in ability. Her voice was never a superior organ. it was always harsh in quality and inflexible. It showed the same old traits last night, and the singer imbued its utterance with but little feeling. Perhaps when she reappears in her old rôle, Carmen, she may achieve the success which was absent last night.

The best work of the evening was done by Reichmann, whose Nelusko is a strong performance, both vocally and dramatically. The other principal members of the cast were Fischer as Don Pedro, Dippel as Vasco di Gama. Fräulein Broch as Inez, and Behrens as the Grand Inquisitore. Walter Damrosch conducted.



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