[Met Performance] CID:40000

Opening Night {23}, Metropolitan Opera Premiere, New Production, General Manager (Director): Heinrich Conried

Adriana Lecouvreur
Metropolitan Opera House, Mon, November 18, 1907

Debut : Rodolfo Ferrari, George Lucas, Raffaele Barocchi




Adriana Lecouvreur (1)
Francesco Cilea | Arturo Colautti
Adriana Lecouvreur
Lina Cavalieri

Maurizio
Enrico Caruso

Princess di Bouillon
Josephine Jacoby

Michonnet
Antonio Scotti

Bouillon
Marcel Journet

Abbé
George Lucas [Debut]

Jouvenot
Marie Mattfeld

Dangeville
Henriette Wakefield

Poisson
Primo Raimondi

Quinault
Raffaele Barocchi [Debut]

Major-domo
Vittorio Navarini

Dance
unknown


Conductor
Rodolfo Ferrari [Debut]


Director
Eugène Dufriche

Francesco Cilèa



Adriana Lecouvreur received 3 performances this season.

Review 1:

Review of Richard Aldrich in The New York Times

METROPOLITAN OPERA OPENS BRILLIANTLY

CARUSO SHARES HONORS WITH MME. CAVALIERI

New Italian Opera 'Adriana Lecouvreur'

Many New Singers in Cast - Conductor Ferrari Warmly Welcomed - Society Out in Dazzling Costumes.

The opera season at the Metropolitan Opera House was opened tonight amid the usual scenes of brilliance attending this annual function. Tonight's opening was notable in many ways: the new Italian opera, "Adriana Lecouvreur," by Francesco Cilea, one of the youngest of the modern school of composers, having its first presentation in New York, and the performance being under a new conductor who received a warm welcome for a most capable interpretation of the new work. Many of the principals in the cast were heard for the first time in America, and the evening's event marked the opening of a twenty weeks' period of opera - the longest ever undertaken at the Metropolitan.

Enrico Caruso, the famous tenor, shared tonight's honors with Mme. Lina Cavalieri, who had the title role. Caruso's first appearance was the signal for prolonged applause, while Scotti, another great favorite with Metropolitan audiences, also was called upon to bow many times in acknowledgment of the welcoming applause. Caruso appeared in the role of Maurizio, which he created when the opera had its initial presentation at Milan. With the confidence of this familiarity with his role, Caruso was heard to the best advantage. Mme. Cavalieri's beauty added much to the attractiveness of her skilful rendition of Adriana, while Scotti's handling of Michonet not was another convincing evidence of his ability. The new singers in the cast were Mme. Girard and Messrs. Lucas and Barocchi. Jacoby, Mattfeld, Journet and Raimondi were among the best known of the Metropolitan's regular singers on the bill. The new conductor, Rodolfo Ferrari, was received warmly.

Always under the patronage of the most exclusive of the society leaders of New York, the Metropolitan tonight presented an exceptionally dazzling array of costumes and jewels. The parterre boxes, forming what is generally known as the great "horseshoe," were the focal points of social interest, and there were gathered many notable figures of society, many patrons of the arts in all their phases, many men of finance and of all the manifold activities of cosmopolitan life in New York. From the thirty-five spacious boxes of the horseshoe the social overflow extended to many of the grand tier and stall boxes in the balconies above. In the orchestra chairs and in the three galleries above the two tiers of boxes there was an audience which tested the capacity of the opera house.

The opera, "Adriana Lecouvrour," is based upon the French book of the same title. The story is that of Adriana, a beautiful actress who is loved by Maurice of Saxony, who previously had loved the Princess di Bouillon. The love between Maurice and Adriana provides the theme of many of the prettiest bits in the opera, and their duet in the first act is one of the opera's principal numbers. The jealous hate of the Princess at the success of her rival forms a separate and distinct theme, culminating in a brilliant touch of tone painting as the princess sends poisoned flowers to Adriana. The delirious scene of the latter in the last act and her plaintive farewell to her lover are opportunities the composer has taken advantage of splendidly. The music of the new opera is of lyrical quality and is replete with melody.

From the

Review 2:

Review of Henry Krehbiel in The New York Herald Tribune

How poor a vehicle the opera is for the exhibition of Mr. Caruso's extraordinary gifts and powers may be guessed from the fact that his one set solo - a narrative of a personal adventure as the Marquis de Saxe - passed off last night without a hand: not a sound was there to testify even interest in the singer who is the wonder of the world; who in this steel-shod period has been rewarded as none of the great singers of Europe ever were when London was so opera-mad that noble families were divided more distinctly in their musical allegiance than in their political. Caruso sang about his victory in Courland and got never a hand. True, his voice did not have its usual golden lusciousness and compelling power, but if he had been Balfe's Thaddeus and had sung of hoof-trodden Poland, his song would have been rapturously acclaimed. "Adriana" is not for such as this; rather it is for such as Mme. Cavalieri, who has neither beauty of voice nor excellence of song to recommend, but who can make pictures, and act as opera people act. MM. Scotti and Journet suffered from the general blight, and only the new French tenor Lucas, who enacted the part of the Abbé de Chaveul, succeeded in producing a dramatic illusion. There were a few brief bursts of applause in the course of the evening, the most generous being after the ballet - a strange fact which would have been stranger had there been anything in the dramatic music to become enthusiastic over.



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