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[Met Performance] CID:79220



Tosca
Metropolitan Opera House, Thu, December 1, 1921

Debut : Aureliano Pertile







Chapter

Review 1:

Review of W. J. Henderson in the New York Sun

Puccini's "Tosca" has had a long and honorable career at the Metropolitan Opera House. It started on a new career last evening when it was sung with a new representative of the beautiful Roman singer and a new impersonator of the distinguished painter of the much discussed Avanti, who left her fan in the chapel and caused some trouble. Mme. Maria Jeritza was the new Tosca. She lately made her debut as the naughty Marietta in young Erich Korngold's dreamful opera, "Die Tote Stadt." And in that melancholy work gave promise that as a passionate singer she would give delight equal to that which she gave as a dallying dancer.

Mme. Jeritza's Tosca departed from some of the conventions, but in matters of detail which are too insignificant to mention. But it was more significantly unconventional in the larger sense, in that it put a new and enthralling vitality into the role which has threatened to become constrained by routine. Mme. Jeritza does not look the ideal Tosca, but she sang and acted the part entrancingly. Her singing was her principal histrionic asset, as singing always must be with a really great operatic artist. The short recitative passages, which have so often gone without apparent meaning, she read with luminous intelligence, giving every phrase, every word, every syllable a value. In the broader lyric passages she revealed an amazing range of tonal coloring used with an unerring judgment that made her singing-not always technically flawless-alive with dramatic eloquence.

She sang either piano or moderato most of the time, and reserved bursts of full voice for those passionate outbreaks without which Tosca cannot be made real to an audience. Her tones in the caressing measures of the scene with Cavaradossi in the first act were liquid and melting. When she pealed out her rage at the Avanti's picture they were hammered steel. In "Vissi d'arte" they were moist with tears. Such a vocal colorist could not fail to make Tosca human.

Her action had dignity and grace in the first act and panther fierceness in the gory climax of the second. There was no mistaking her discovery of the fatal knife and the dawning on her mind of desperate and bloody purpose. Her pantomime over the dead body of Scarpia was that of an excellent judge of theatrical values, a mistress of stage technic. The whole second act was tragically done and stirred the audience to enthusiasm. Aureliano Pertile was the new tenor who made his debut as Cavaradossi. His voice has a tendency toward whiteness, but in its fullest volume it is warmer and resonant. He sang his music. He did not shout it, but delivered it with free tones and smoothness. His acting was that of the every day tenor. It was manly and simple, but without any characteristic to set it apart.

Mr. Scotti was, of course, the Scarpia, and as usual it was not his inky cloak but his highly trained art that kept his villainy as dark as ever. The smaller roles were cared for by persons who have long been associated with them. Mr. Moranzoni conducted. The audience was large and bestowed much applause on the singers. At the end of the second act Mme. Jeritza, Pertile, and Scotti were called before the curtain six times, while the new soprano took as many more recalls alone. The audience gave vocal expression to its approval of her singing and acting.

Review 2:

Review of Max Smith in The New York American

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Maria Jeritza sang Tosca last night in the Metropolitan. Also she acted in a manner that held the spectator enthralled and kept his nerves a-tingle. Her portrayal created a sensation. Throbbing with life incessantly, marvelously elaborated in details of expression that seemed to well up spontaneously, her embodiment almost made Antonio Scotti's inimitable impersonation of Scarpia look stilted and conventional by contrast. New Yorkers have known various Toscas. But none that so gripped the feelings and set the pulses in commotion as Mme. Jeritza's, no, not even the Tosca of Milka Ternina. Her costumes! Why, they counted as nothing. They were secondary. They were insignificant. For Mme. Jeritza gave everything there was to give through the subtle varied modulations of her voice, her facial expression, her poses, her gestures. Even the glances of her eyes had significance.

She was capricious, vivacious, tender in the first act. She was the woman desperately in love, but exquisitely feminine in every action and movement. And in the second act she was the woman tortured beyond endurance, intensely pathetic as one crouched helplessly at the feet of the tyrant fiend or again frantic like a wild beast fighting to break through the bars of it prison. She was too exhausted, too breathless, to sing the "Vissi d'arte" well when Floria half rose from where she lay prostate on the floor. But the audience applauded-applauded vociferously for fully a minute. For her singing, halting, spasmodic, was absolutely part of her drama. And the tears at the close, the bitter tears and sobs, tugged irresistibly at the heart-strings. What wonder that the big theatre reverberated with a tumult of hand-clapping and shouting at the fall of the curtain! What wonder that Mme. Jeritza, her face pale and drawn, her walk unsteady, as if she could hardly sustain her own weight, was greeted with deafening bravos when she finally came out alone, Her triumph was of the sort that occurs only once or twice in a generation.

Brief reference can only be made at this time to Aureliano Pertile, who made his local debut in the role of Mario. If his upper tones seemed rather pinched and nasal, at any rate he proved himself to be a good actor. The performance under Roberto Moranzoni's guidance was extremely wobbly. Evidently it had been insufficiently rehearsed; and for that there can be no excuse. The cast included Messrs. Ananian, Malatesta, Bada, D'Angelo and Reschighan; Miss Cecil Arden sang the music of the Shepherd.

Review 3:

Review of Oscar Thompson in Musical America

Mme. Jeritza's Tosca on Thursday night must be chronicled as the outstanding personal triumph of the first three weeks of the season. Her success in "Die Tote Stadt" had prepared the way, but there were many in Thursday night's audience who were there, as some bluntly expressed it, "to be shown." Vocally, Korngold was one thing and Puccini quite another, in spite of the reminiscences of the Italian noted here and there in the Viennese score; and it was by no means taken for granted that the athletic blonde would bring an opera house to her feet as Mme. Jeritza did in the harrowing second act of the Puccini melodrama. In recent memory no such demonstration for a singer has interrupted the progress of an act at the Metropolitan, as that which followed Mme. Jeritza's weeping delivery of "Vissi d'Arte." For an equal measure of excited and long-continued applause one must go back to some of the memorable farewells, which had in them elements not so spontaneous to differentiate them from this tumult of approbation.

Perhaps the first and foremost thing to be said about Mme. Jeritza's Tosca is that it was different. To the line of famous Toscas-Ternina, Eames, Fremstad, Destinn, Farrar-now must be added this newcomer, who took a role the possibilities of which might well have seemed exhausted, and delineated it with so many original touches that it had the aspects of a new conception. That its psychology was open to question, that it had awkward moments, including at least one faux pas, and that it had been sung by others with more beauty of tone were considerations properly entering into a critical appraisal of the characterization, but these were swept from the minds of most of those in the big audience (if ever entertained by them at all) by the magnetism and emotional intensity of the Viennese singing actress' impersonation of the part.

In the first act, this blonde Floria suggested almost a Marguerite, especially when she made her exit, with eyes, lowered from the lecherous glare of Scarpia. Her appearance in church with head uncovered prompted a question which can be left to the church folk to answer. Is it done? Here was a Tosca with neither bonnet nor staff. She sang her first act solo and the duet with Mario charmingly and was a pretty picture-if scarcely an Italian one-throughout.

New Version of Second Act

Act two, with Tosca in the malefic clutches of the Roman police chief, emphasized the halo of innocence and unsophistication which the interpreter placed above the head of the Roman singer. She was no coolly desperate character, seeking the way out of a promise she never intended to keep, but a heart-broken woman in a very frenzy of anguish, very clearly and vividly revealing that she could not bear to let Scarpia touch her; neither could she endure her lover's torture. She happened on the knife-a miracle of Providence! Her face twitched as she tried to face Scarpia with a distorted smile, the weapon behind her back. She was too unstrung to gloat, as some Toscas have done, when she had plunged the steel into the villain's heart. Her aversion was strikingly shown when she wrenched the safe-conduct from the dead man's grasp. Shrinking, she turned her head in fear and loathing as she loosened the lifeless fingers.

But the "Vissi d'Arte" of Mme. Jeritza will be remembered not only as the most spectacular incident of the performance, but the one which most sharply differentiated this Tosca from the others. She sang it, not seated on the familiar couch, or standing at the footlights, but from a position prone on the floor, where she had fallen in a struggle with Scarpia. For the first time in the writer's experience, it seemed a logical outburst of sorrow, not a mere solo for the soprano. Her agonized singing of its use-worn phrases was tremendously vital and effective. Women in the audience actually wept. As the theatrical men would say, "it stopped the show." Society forgot its decorum; forgot the traditions of its opera house, which frown on any such interruptions, and shouted while it pounded its palms. The din had nothing of the sound of the usual polite tribute of white-glove applause, or of the leather-handed labors of the claque. At the end of the act there was a second demonstration, and in the many recalls, the veteran Antonio Scotti bowed an obeisance to the new luminary that seemed something more than the customary amenities that prevail before the curtain.

In the third act, the soprano's embodiment of the character conformed to familiar interpretations, but she made the leap from the parapet a bit more realistic. Also, instead of smothering Spoletta with her cloak, in preparation for the leap, she left that convenient garment spread over the prostrate form of Mario and bowled the police minion over with a blow that landed squarely between the eyes.

Mme. Jeritza's singing, for the most part, was restrained and agreeable to the ear, though of no such beauty of tone as the Tosca of Emma Eames, or that which Emmy Destinn vouchsafed in her earlier years at the Metropolitan. The singer's mezza-voce was often charming, and some of her high tones again had exceptional power. Here and there she scooped up to her top notes, as in "The Dead City." It was not faultless singing, but it was free of offense.

Debut of Pertile

Aureliano Pertile's debut as Cavaradossi was overshadowed by the soprano's success, but he gave promise of being a valuable acquisition. Of good figure and easy of bearing, he sang, for the most part, with evident appreciation of details of phrasing and of the graces of melodic line. For two acts he was content not to drive the voice unduly, but abandoned this restraint in the final act and was led into forcing his tone. The voice was disclosed as one of agreeable quality, inclined toward whiteness and disturbed by a vibrato, but ringing at the top. He left the impression that here was an excellent vocalist and an intelligent actor, with a serviceable though not unusual voice.

Mr. Scotti was forced to alter some details of his unequalled portrait of Scarpia, to conform to Mme. Jeritza's individual treatment of the second act. So skillfully were these changes worked out, however, that only those to whom his every gesture has become familiar could have known that he had deviated at all from the bits of business he has been many years in perfecting. What a master of stagecraft he is! And how superbly he synchronizes action with the music! Others in the cast were Cecil Arden, Paolo Ananian, Angelo Bada, Pompilio Malatesta and Louis d'Angelo. Roberto Moranzoni conducted.

Chapter: Aureliano Pertile at the Met.

Photograph of Maria Jeritza as Tosca by Setzer, Vienna

Search by season: 1921-22

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Met careers

• Roberto Moranzoni [Conductor]
• Maria Jeritza [Tosca]
• Aureliano Pertile [Cavaradossi]
• Antonio Scotti [Scarpia]
• Pompilio Malatesta [Sacristan]
• Angelo Badà [Spoletta]
• Paolo Ananian [Angelotti]
• Louis D'Angelo [Sciarrone]
• Cecil Arden [Shepherd]
• Vincenzo Reschiglian [Jailer]