Metropolitan Opera Archives

Math must be forgiven in last minute substitutions on the operatic stage and there was surely much to forgive in the performance of "Madama Butterfly," which was given yesterday at the Metropolitan under the auspices of the NewYork and New Jersey sections of the Women's Division of the National Civic Federations. Delia Reinhardt, who took the title role in the indisposition of Elizabeth Rethberg, has as yet never sung the part in this country, she herself having been replaced in similar manner last year by another soprano.

To say that the performance fell largely on the shoulders of Mr. Moranzoni in the orchestra and of Mr. Scotti on the stage would understate the case, in spite of the fact that the conductor has rarely led with more sensitive sympathy, nor the barytone played the Consul with more felicitous variety of business. Marion Telva was also an able help as Suzuki whose lines she made smoothly lyric.

As for Mme. Reinhardt herself the forgiving onlooker would assume a tentative consideration. Aside from bad slips like her attempt to watch for her husband through opaque, unbroken window panes, her inability to find the dagger to vanquish Goro, and her unfortunate decision to sing the "Un bel di" aria upstage, aside from her constrained gaze at the conductor and her single realistic gesture of falling on Pinkerton's shoulder, stood out her inability to invest her dramatic discourse with any sonority. In the arias she could at least be heard, and her high voice particularly when used mezza voce, was admirably clear and sweet. At other times she was almost inaudible despite the softest efforts of Mr. Gigli in the duet and Mr. Moranzoni with the accompaniment. Of a naturally wholesome, optimistic and robust appearance, she was as far from the frail Cio-Cio-San as from the prototype of significantly injured womanhood that was Farrar's conception. To those, therefore, who remember Miss Reinhardt's gallant "Rosenkavalier" abroad it may seem a case of a lyric talent as yet unsuited to the broad dramatic demands of Puccini. Otherwise, one must return for excuse and explanation to the nervous stress of the occasion in which the Federated Women of the audience tendered their sympathy in no uncertain manner.

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