Metropolitan Opera Archives

Artur Bodanzky conducted a notable excellent performance of "Die Walküre" last night in the Metropolitan Opera House to the manifest satisfaction of ardent Wagnerians and the edifications of those less thoroughly initiated into the intricacies of this titanic work.

The cast this year is strengthened by the superb Hunding of Paul Bender, a towering actor with a fine, resonant voice, with superb dramatic delivery and clear enunciation. Miss Delia Reinhardt is a slim and graceful Sieglinde, with a smooth, agreeable voice, and she and Rudolf Laubenthal as Siegmund make the most satisfactory pair of fugitive lovers who have been seen in this music drama of late years.

There is much to praise, too, in the Brünnhilde of Mme. Matzenauer even if the famous call at the [beginning] of the second act is out of her range. The famous contralto was much more successful in the more human and tender scenes with Wotan, a role in which Clarence Whitehill is completely at home, and which he presented last night with his customary authority.

Miss Sigrid Onegin is a noble figure as Fricka and sings the role with great dignity. This character seems to be one of the first fundamentalists on record. She stood for unshaken authority and for legitimacy in a manner that suggests certain folk of today.

In the group of the Walküre, which a humorous pianist referred to as Wotan flappers, a number of interesting singers appeared including Misses Mary Mellish, Flora Perini, Marion Telva, Laura Robertson, Henriette Wakefield, Raymonde Delanois and Kathleen Howard.

The stage effects were carefully managed at last night's performance. The lights in the second act were manipulated with such skill that the big stage of the opera house was inundated by a constantly changing tide of beauty.

Search by season: 1923-24

Search by title: Die Walküre,

Met careers