[Met Performance] CID:34340



Fidelio
Metropolitan Opera House, Sat, December 24, 1904




Fidelio (35)
Ludwig van Beethoven | Joseph Sonnleithner
Leonore
Katherine Senger-Bettaque

Florestan
Andreas Dippel

Don Pizarro
Otto Goritz

Rocco
Robert Blass

Marzelline
Bella Alten

Jaquino
Albert Reiss

Don Fernando
Adolph Mühlmann


Conductor
Alfred Hertz


Director
Emil Greder





Fidelio received one performance this season.

Review 1:

Review in The New York Times

Mr. Conried added to the favors he has given his Saturday night patrons by presenting in the evening Beethoven's "Fidelio." There was one performance of this opera last season, which was the first time it had appeared upon the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House for more than three years. Its position in the operatic repertory is altogether on anomalous one. In the days of the German opera it was for a time one of the most potent attractions of all the items of the operatic list. Since then it has been treated in a manner that may be called "step motherly."

Its treatment last evening may be called so: it was put forward at a time when most people prefer the home fireside to the diversion of a very serious opera; nor was the treatment it received upon the stage worthy of the work. At any rate, the audience was one of the smallest that has ever been seen in the Metropolitan Opera House. "Fidelio" at its best has admirers of its own who are not of the great body of operagoers as it is itself remote from the typical opera-until the time of Wagner the one supreme instance, as it has been called. of an epic drama. There is little that the ordinary operagoer can find in all this for his pleasure. If it is dramatic music, it is not operatic.

The performance brought Mme. Senger-Bettaque to the fore again as Fidelio; Mr. Knote, who was to be the Florestan, was ill and his place was taken by Mr. Dippel, who did the same service last year. Mme. Senger-Bettaque showed familiarity with the demands of the part; but she is not of the artistic stature to sing this music as it should be sung, which is among the most exacting that can be set before a dramatic soprano. Her voice has not the power nor has she the broad and commanding style that it requires.

Mr. Dippel, too, is not wholly equal to the music that falls to his share as Florestan, though, like all he does, his assumption of the part was marked by intelligence and sincere effort. Miss Bella Alten was acceptable as Marzelline and Mr. Goritz made a striking and highly dramatic Pizarro. Mr. Blass was a capital Rocco.

Mr. Hertz conducted with much earnestness. but it was all too evident that the preparation was not adequate and the spirit of the work was, in a certain degree, missed.



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