[Met Tour] CID:25220



La Bohème
San Francisco, California, Thu, November 29, 1900




La Bohème (3)
Giacomo Puccini | Luigi Illica/Giuseppe Giacosa
Mimì
Nellie Melba

Rodolfo
Albert Saléza

Musetta
Fritzi Scheff

Marcello
Giuseppe Campanari

Schaunard
Charles Gilibert

Colline
Marcel Journet

Alcindoro/Benoit
Eugène Dufriche

Parpignol
Aristide Masiero


Conductor
Luigi Mancinelli







Review 1:

Review in the San Francisco Call

FULL-FED, SLEEPY THANKSGIVING NIGHT AUDIENCE LAZILY LISTENS TO SWEET MUSIC OF 'LA BOHÈME'

Melba Sings Mimi Part Perfectly and Miss Fritzi Scheff Is the Daintiest of Musettas. Only Change in Cast Is the Substitution of Saleza for Cremonini.

It was a wise judgment which impelled the Grau managerial forces to interrupt the progress of the "Ring" for the Thanksgiving programme! Full-fed and sleepy, even the brilliant "La Bohème" failed to rouse the audience to more than a lazy enthusiasm, though the opera was equally well rendered as on the first production last week. The "glad rags" were notably absent, too; there was neither a weekday nor Sunday atmosphere in the place, and with the generally heavy and after-dinner air of things I fear me much "Die Götterdämmerung" would have fared but hardly at the hands of the audience.

It was a good house in point of numbers, though not a crowded house, and a still further proof in its size, of the fact that the city has realized that other operas, even outside of the Melba repertoire, may possibly be worthy of hearing. For, of course, Melba sang the Mimi part with hardly a varying shade from her last week's rendering. Certainly one cannot imagine it better sung and, as to acting, next to Marguerite the singer has done nothing better.

Miss Fritzi Scheff, who on the opera's first presentment was suffering from a cold, was in charming voice last evening. She gave us the daintiest of Musettas. She looks the part and sings it in a manner worthy of acclamation.

The only change in the cast was in the substitution of Saleza for Cremonini in the part of Rudolph, and though Cremonini was a graceful, tender and expressive picture of the poet, Saleza's vocal weight was a grateful change. "Jeannette de Reszke," as the New Yorkers irreverently call him, sang with a fine fervor and strength deserving of a better than Thanksgiving appreciation. He had not the "interesting" Byronic air of the tenor-poet of the first production, which adds not ungratefully to the illusion, but that two such excellent Rudolphs should be found in one organization is only one of the many wonders of the same kind so common to the company.

Campanari repeated his success - and more - of last week. He sings a splendid Marcel, and is the bewitched and be-bothered artist to the life. Journet, Gilibert, Dufriche and Maseiro were all again well heard, and Mancinelli betrayed no consciousness of holidays in his fine leadership.



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