[Met Performance] CID:52010

Opening Night {27}, General Manager: Giulio Gatti-Casazza

Aida
Metropolitan Opera House, Mon, November 13, 1911

Debut : Margarete Matzenauer




Aida (170)
Giuseppe Verdi | Antonio Ghislanzoni
Aida
Emmy Destinn

Radamès
Enrico Caruso

Amneris
Margarete Matzenauer [Debut]

Amonasro
Pasquale Amato

Ramfis
Adamo Didur

King
William Hinshaw

Messenger
Angelo Badà

Priestess
Lenora Sparkes

Dance
Lucia Fornaroli


Conductor
Arturo Toscanini


Director
Jules Speck

Set Designer
Mario Sala

Set Designer
Angelo Parravicini

Costume Designer
Maison Chiappa





Aida received ten performances this season.

Review 1:

Review :

The Metropolitan Opera House opened its doors last evening for the first performance of the season-the second in which Mr. Gatti-Casaaza has had sole control of its management. The audience was very large, very brilliant, full of a high-pitched expectancy; the house was charged with the festive spirit of the occasion, and the occasion was auspicious. There is every indication, as there has so often been in recent years, of the eager support of the opera-loving public of New York for a form of entertainment of which it seems never to tire and never to get enough. That public demands much: but it has always responded with the most prolific liberality to the meeting of its expectations.

The management presented for the opening performance Verdi's "Aida" a choice that enabled it to put forward all its most elaborate resources to please the ears and delight the eyes of its patrons and that it may be supposed is the chief purpose in opening an opera season. "Aida" enlists some of the most admired of the singers at the Metropolitan. headed by Mr. Caruso, Mme. Destinn and Mr. Amato.

Last evening there was the added interest in the momentous question as to whether Mr. Caruso had returned in perfectly restored voice, as the confident reporters announced he had as he sailed up the bay on the incoming steamer, and there was the first appearance of a new singer, on whose behalf large promises had been held forth by the management: Mme. Margaret Matzenauer.

Most else was familiar about the performance down to the flower-decked architecture of the temple of Phta and the pageant at the Gates of Thebes, though this seemed to have undergone some elaboration in detail.

Mr. Toscanini inspired the performance with life and energy, with dramatic accent and potency; he obtained from the orchestra a performance at once brilliant, sonorous, and finished, and from the chorus a similar excellence.

Mr. Caruso probably did not satisfy at all points the anxieties of his most admiring friends by his singing last evening. His voice had at first hardly all its old power and resonance, nor all its most beautiful quality. His performance in the air "Celeste Aida" in the very beginning of the opera has never been one of his most successful ones and last evening his phrasing in it was short breathed and frequently interrupted the melodic line. His outbursts of power upon high notes were somewhat less frequent and less strenuous than they have been in the past, which was not in itself a fact to be deplored, and he observed a certain amount of circumspection until he reached the Nile scene, where his fervor, his passion, and vehemence of expression were given the freest utterance. There he sang beautifully, even magnificently, and roused the audience to the highest pitch enthusiasm, which was fully deserved. He was equally fine in the last duet of the last act.

Mme. Matzenauer, the newcomer, won well-merited favor as a singer with a voice of power and fine quality, a voice of dramatic potency and expressiveness. Her representation of Amneris was well conceived and well executed, showing a full command of the routine of the stage, and more than that in its individuality and force. Her first appearance was a distinctly creditable one, and gave promise of interesting things to be expected of her in the course of the season.

The Aida of Mme. Destinn is wholly familiar and commands increasing admiration for the poignant beauty and expressiveness of her singing which reaches its climax in the emotional intensity of the third act and in the duet in the last act.

Mr. Amato was the Amonasro, a part which he makes peculiarly impressive by his characteristic of barbaric power and by his beautiful singing, which was last evening at its best. Of the other members of the cast, Mr. Hinshaw as the King was admirable both in the dignity of his impersonation and the excellence of his singing, and one of the most notable excellences lies in the clearness and intelligibility of his diction. Mr. Didur as Ramfis is an acceptable figure, but his voice last evening was unsteady.

There was an abundance of enthusiasm throughout the evening, and prodigal tribute paid to the artists in the form of flowers.



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