[Met Performance] CID:54644



Aida
Metropolitan Opera House, Thu, March 6, 1913




Aida (182)
Giuseppe Verdi | Antonio Ghislanzoni
Aida
Emmy Destinn

Radamès
Enrico Caruso

Amneris
Louise Homer

Amonasro
Dinh Gilly

Ramfis
Adamo Didur

King
William Hinshaw

Messenger
Pietro Audisio

Priestess
Lenora Sparkes

Dance
Lucia Fornaroli


Conductor
Arturo Toscanini







Review 1:

Review in the Tribune

TOSCANINI AND SINGERS MAKE PERFORMANCE MEMORABLE

Verdi's "Aida" was sung last night at the Metropolitan Opera House for the second time this season, and nearly a thousand persons were turned away from the doors. Operas come and operas go, but "Aida" receives its six or seven performances a year to audiences that throng the house as they do for possibly no other opera.

A well of melody is the score of the old opera, a well from which many composers have drunk deeply and with refreshment. And when, as last night, that score was read by a master such as Arturo Toscanini, it must be a caviler crabbed indeed who could find aught but joy.

Mr. Toscanini led the opera for the first time this season, and it was said, without rehearsal, but it is doubtful whether the great orchestra ever played more superbly. All the color, the nuance, the gorgeous dramatic climaxes of the music were brought out until the spirit of the dead composer seemed to hover as a benediction over the last duet.

The artists appeared inspired by the occasion. Since that night, the first of the season five years ago, when Miss Emmy Destinn made her American début in the part of the Ethiopian princess, Aida has been her best role. Upon it she lavishes what is most beautiful in her beautiful voice; in it she sings with a delicacy, a nuance, a purity of tone that she equals in no other opera; here even her faults become virtues.

Mr. Caruso too appears to have made Radames his own, even if his "Celeste Aida" never quite satisfies. He was in admirable voice last night - in better voice than he has been recently. Miss Homer's Amneris has ever been admired, and her voice last night was rich and round, while Mr. Gilly, in spite of his appearance in the afternoon, sang most effectively the music of Amonasro.



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