Metropolitan Opera Archives

Wagner's Götterdämmerung was produced at the Metropolitan Opera House last evening, and a performance in many respects of remarkable quality was given. Not the least remarkable fact is that, though the Opera House has distinguished German conductors on its staff, at least one of them, one of the most distinguished, this production was entrusted to the Italian, Mr. Toscanini. Indeed, it has been much heralded in advance as one of his most noteworthy achievements; he has conducted it in Italy, and has made it one of cornerstones of his repertoire.

He performed the remarkable feat of conducting it entirely from memory; but this is only of subsidiary importance, since the audience does not go to the Opera House to see a conductor's feats. The important thing was that he produced a fine performance of the work, and that he showed himself to be thoroughly in sympathy with the music, to understand it, and to possess in a pre-eminent degree the power of reproducing it in its larger sweep, its deeper significance, and its finest details. It cannot be said that he made a new revelation of this score to the lovers of Wagner in New York who have heard interpretations of supreme authority; but he presented a performance of remarkable energy and dramatic power, as well as one of great musical beauty.

For the first time in a number of years the "Norn" scene of the prologue-or a portion of it-was presented; a scene musically beautiful and preparing the hearer by its dim suggestiveness for the ominous unfolding of fate that is to follow, but dramatically of little importance and difficult to present in a convincing picture. On the other had, the whole of the scene between Brünnhilde and Waltraute was cut out-a scene not only of moving power in itself, but closely knit into the dramatic texture of the whole.

Photograph of Olive Fremstad as Brünnhilde in Götterdämmerung by Herman Mishkin

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