[Met Performance] CID:15720



Tannhäuser
Metropolitan Opera House, Thu, December 12, 1895

Debut : Adolph Wallnöfer, Karl Bucha, John August Livermann




Tannhäuser (68)
Richard Wagner | Richard Wagner
Tannhäuser
Adolph Wallnöfer [Debut]

Elisabeth
Lola Beeth

Wolfram
Giuseppe Kaschmann

Venus
Lillian Nordica

Hermann
Karl Bucha [Debut]

Walther
Otto Mirsalis

Heinrich
Mr. Riedel

Biterolf
John August Livermann [Debut]

Reinmar
Lodovico Viviani

Shepherd
Mathilde Bauermeister


Conductor
Anton Seidl


Director
William Parry





Tannhäuser received four performances this season.

Review 1:

W. J. Henderson (?) in The New York Times

Herr Adolf Wallnöfer, the German tenor, who made his debut on Thursday night, is a remarkably bad actor for a man who has been so long a Wagner singer. His arms and legs are serious encumbrances to him, and a cloak with a train proved to be a veritable lion in the path. He lacks authority, too, and gives the impression of a modesty which is simply incredible in a tenor. Perhaps, like some other persons who have come here from abroad, he was under the spell of that vast auditorium and its silent, cold occupants.


He will, however, improve on acquaintance. The story, which preceded him that his voice was worn out is absolutely false. The voice is fresh, powerful, and of sympathetic quality. Herr Wallnöfer has a good deal too much vibrato to suit Americans, and he has the German, trick of assaulting his initial, consonants as if they were his deadly foes. He cuts his music up into pretty short phrases most of the time, too. These things will /militate against his popularity with a public that dearly loves a pure, flowing cantilena. But a man who has a good voice and is earnest in his work will gain friends here. Herr Wallnöfer's delivery of Tannhäuser's narrative in Act III was a vigorous, dignified, and dramatic piece of declamation and fully deserved the warm applause which it received. If this tenor had a more assertive personality he would certainly overcome the public dislike for the faults in his style. As it is he ought, in the end, to get the kindly feeling of the Germans, if not of others.



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