[Met Performance] CID:70600



Tosca
Metropolitan Opera House, Wed, January 1, 1919




Tosca (138)
Giacomo Puccini | Luigi Illica/Giuseppe Giacosa
Tosca
Geraldine Farrar

Cavaradossi
Giovanni Martinelli

Scarpia
Antonio Scotti

Sacristan
Pompilio Malatesta

Spoletta
Angelo Badà

Angelotti
Giulio Rossi

Sciarrone
Vincenzo Reschiglian

Shepherd
Cecil Arden

Jailer
Mario Laurenti


Conductor
Roberto Moranzoni







Review 1:

Review in the Herald

The performance of "La Tosca" last night at the Metropolitan was notable on account of the appearance of Giovanni Martinelli as Cavaradossi. Together with Mme. Geraldine Farrar and Mr. Scotti he completed one of the finest trios possible in the opera of what Dr. Johnson would call "inspissated gloom" and unmitigated honor. But Metropolitan audiences like to be thrilled and have no objection to tragedy in its most lurid form when presented with such artistic force and supreme skill as Puccini's opera last night.

Miss Farrar has made the part of La Tosca as much her own as it once was Sarah Bernhardt's, and she acts it with almost as much tragic power, while vocally there are very few dramatic sopranos of the present day who can approach her. It is the fashion to say that she does not sing as well as she used to, but to this one might reply in the vein of the editor of "Punch," who, when told that his paper was not as good as it used to be, replied that it never was. Her voice was round and full and she sang the great aria in Act II with sincerity and touching pathos.

Mr. Martinelli also was in golden voice and acted with grace and fervor in the [first] act and with tragic power in the torture scene, in which the temptation to overstrain the voice was carefully avoided, with the result that he touched profoundly as well as thrilled his hearers. As for Mr. Scotti, nothing remains to be said of a performance which is the last word in polished art, histrionically and vocally, for Mr. Scotti still produces his voice with consummate artistry.

As the Sacristan Pompillio Malatesta repeated a characteristic if over accentuated performance, while Giulio Rossi made the part of Cesar Angelotti, and Angelo Bada completed an all round performance that almost justifies the epithet of super-excellent. Roberto Moranzoni brought out the colorful details of Puccini's score, and the performance was received with rapt attention by a great house, which amply rewarded the principals at the close of each act.



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