Metropolitan Opera Archives

"Die Walküre" was given at the Metropolitan Opera House yesterday afternoon. The performance served to introduce a new member of the company, Mme. Delia Reinhardt, who in private life is the wife of Gustave Schützendorf, a baritone of the German wing of the company. Mme. Reinhardt made herself welcome. Her voice, while not an extraordinary organ, has a most ingratiating quality, and she sang the music of Sieglinde with much intelligence. There seemed to be a weak spot in her scale at the junction of the middle and upper registers, but the highest tones had both power and brilliancy. Her delivery of the text was generally good.

The others in the cast had all been heard in the same roles in previous performances of the opera. They were Mme. Matzenauer as Brünnhilde, Mme. Gordon as Fricka, Mr. Taucher as Siegmund, Mr. Whitehill as Wotan and Mr. Bender as Hunding. The audience was large and its applause indicated much satisfaction with the presentation of the Wagner's music-drams.

Review 2:

Review of Max Smith in the World

Delia Reinhardt, Wife of Baritone Schützendorf, Makes Metropolitan Debut as Sieglinde in "Walküre"

Giulio Gatti-Casazza introduced another German soprano to his subscribers yesterday afternoon: Delia Reinhardt, wife of the baritone Schützendorf. To judge, however, from the caliber and character of the voice she disclosed, it would have been to her advantage if the role of Mimi in "La Bohème," which she is to sing next Wednesday, had served as her vehicle for her debut instead of the part of Sieglinde in "Die Walküre."

Mme. Reinhardt is a lyric soprano. Her voice is agreeable in quality and well produced. But it lacks, especially in the medium, the body and warmth that the music of Sieglinde demands. And while she apparently combines intelligence with good schooling, she did not reveal yesterday sufficient personality, emotional vitality and temperament to offer compensation for what her singing could not afford in power and persuasiveness, in incisiveness and intensity of expression .

Her portrayal had some good moments, especially in the second act. Her acting showed careful training along more or less conventional lines. But this Sieglinde was a sweetly innocent damsel, perfectly proper, indeed - hardly the heroic and impassioned Volsung daughter of Wagner's imagination.

The dominant character in the first act certainly was Paul Bender's superbly sinister Hunding, beside whom Curt Taucher's Siegmund and Mme. Reinhardt's Sieglinde seemed like babes in the woods. The cast included Clarence Whitehill as Wotan, Margarete Matzenauer as Brünnhilde, Jeanne Gordon as Fricka. Artur Bodanzky at the baton, lapsed occasionally into some strangely retarded tempi.

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