[Met Performance] CID:13050



Lucia di Lammermoor
Metropolitan Opera House, Thu, April 26, 1894




Lucia di Lammermoor (20)
Gaetano Donizetti | Salvadore Cammarano
Lucia
Nellie Melba

Edgardo
Francesco Vignas

Enrico
Eugène Dufriche

Raimondo
Agostino Carbone

Normanno
Antonio Rinaldini

Alisa
Mathilde Bauermeister

Arturo
N. Mastrobuono [Last performance]


Conductor
Luigi Mancinelli







Review 1:

Review of W.J. Henderson in The New York Times

"Lucia" or the Last Time.

The fifth performance of Donizetti's "Lucia" was given at the Metropolitan Opera House last night. As usual, the audience was not large, in spite of the fact that Mme. Melba's name was at the head of the cast. As we said after the first performance of the work this season, it is not the prima donna's fault that there was not a crowded house. When she made her debut in "Lucia," she had her American reputation still to earn; but now her repute here is firmly established, and she is still unable to induce people to go to hear this opera. The simple truth is that public taste has outgrown the "Lucia" sort of opera. There is no dramatic vitality in the music, and the public has come to demand such life as a prime necessity in an operatic score.

Mme. Melba was in excellent voice last night, and consequently she was heard to the best advantage. It would be easy enough for a genuine actress to make the rôle of Lucia theatrically effective in spite of the hollowness of the pretty music, but no one ever does act it, and consequently the public has come to accept it as a part in which the unaided exhibition of vocal technics is the whole issue. This is a good attitude for Mme. Melba, for she never acts, even when she thinks she does. But she sings admirably, and last night her work was up to its best mark.

Signor Vignas as Edgardo was in very poor voice, but he struggled bravely with the part, and acquitted himself with credit. M. Dufriche was a most vociferous and explosive Enrico, and Signor Carbone a conventional Ferrando. Tonight the final performance will be given, when a mixed bill will be presented..



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