[Met Performance] CID:55760



Manon
Metropolitan Opera House, Mon, January 19, 1914




Manon (48)
Jules Massenet | Henri Meilhac/Philippe Gille
Manon
Geraldine Farrar

Des Grieux
Enrico Caruso

Lescaut
Dinh Gilly

Count des Grieux
Léon Rothier

Guillot
Albert Reiss

Brétigny
Andrés De Segurola

Poussette
Lenora Sparkes

Javotte
Jeanne Maubourg

Rosette
Maria Duchène

Innkeeper
Paolo Ananian

Guard
Vincenzo Reschiglian

Guard
Bernard Bégué

Maid
Maria Savage


Conductor
Arturo Toscanini







Review 1:

Review of W. J. Henderson in the Sun

Massenet's "Manon" was sung at the Metropolitan Opera House last evening. The work was announced for the first night of the opera, November 17, but it failed to reach the society of a Monday audience till the thirty-seventh subscription performance of the winter. All this too was brought about by the illness of one famous operatic beauty, "whence to Greece unnumbered ills arose." It was the captivating Geraldine Farrar who succumbed to the winds of Boston in those early days of the season and whose long retirement from the field of her triumphs filled many honest hearts with woe.

Since that time Miss Farrar has been uncertain in health till lately. Mr. Caruso was also concerned in the interpretation of Massenet's opera, and of late there has come into the sky of his artistic temperament a new comet, threatening dire destruction and shedding evil omens in various directions. This fiery visitor flamed into lyric space at a recent performance of "Pagliacci." Mr. Caruso, who had hitherto taken his art with some degree of comfort, was suddenly overcome by his own performance, like the pianist who had to stop playing because his own beautiful music made him weep.

Whether it was the ardor of his great bass drum solo or the sospirando of his exit in the first scene which made a lute of his heartstrings no one, perhaps not even himself, will ever know. But at any rate with him and Miss Farrar in an opera which contains a scene of poignant emotion no one could foretell what might happen. Those who were present at the previous performance of the work recalled last night the fact that at the conclusion of the convent scene Miss Farrar was in a state of near collapse and Mr. Caruso looked as if he had just passed through a very trying experience.

Those who are familiar with the manner in which this monastic episode is enacted by the two apostles of pure art will not be astonished. However, let it be recorded that both succeeded in living through it last evening and that the audience rewarded them with long continued applause. The others in the cast were those who have hitherto been employed in performing the same opera and performed their various duties with skill.



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