[Met Performance] CID:91040



Pelléas et Mélisande
Metropolitan Opera House, Thu, November 5, 1925




Pelléas et Mélisande (5)
Claude Debussy | Maurice Maeterlinck
Pelléas
Edward Johnson

Mélisande
Lucrezia Bori

Golaud
Clarence Whitehill

Arkel
Léon Rothier

Geneviève
Kathleen Howard

Yniold
Louise Hunter

Physician
Paolo Ananian


Conductor
Louis Hasselmans


Director
Wilhelm Von Wymetal

Set Designer
Joseph Urban

Costume Designer
Gretel Urban





Bori's costumes were designed by Erté.
Pelléas et Mélisande received four performances this season.

Review 1:

Review of Oscar Thompson in Musical America

'Pelléas et Mélisande'

It was with something of a wrench of the spirit that those who had been hearing much music, and particularly the earlier performances at the Metropolitan during the week, went back Thursday night to the atmospheric subtleties of "Pélleas et Mélisande." Doubtless, the problem of approaching it was an easier one for others who had kept aloof from the fleshpots of opera while awaiting the return of Debussy's score, and who consequently had no "Gioconda," or "Bohème," or "Tosca" to clear away before they could make themselves ready for this most baffling and exacting of music-dramas. It remains a work that seems utterly to scorn theatrical effect for its own sake, and which boasts a score of the most aristocratic workmanship. Yet it achieves its end primarily through the potency of its drama, rather than through any emotional appeal that can be attributed separately to its music. In this "Pélleas" is "sui generis."

There was no marked difference in the quality of the first performance of the new season and various representations of the work given last year. There may have been however, in the quality of the listening. Last spring, with the flutter caused by the work's induction in the repertoire, there was a certain conscious preparation for it on the part of a considerable number of persons in its audiences - a preparation more or less essential to felicitous listening, since assimilation of "Pélleas" is a matter of mood, like the spell of the drama itself. Its most devoted admirers must contrive to treat it as something set apart from the rush of concert and opera-going, if they would keep within its thrall.

Thursday's cast was the familiar one, with Lucrezia Bari as Mélisande, Edward Johnson as Pélleas, Clarence Whitehill as Golaud, Kathleen Howard as Genevieve, Leon Rothier as Arkel, Louise Hunter as Yniold and Paolo Ananian as a Physician. Praise such as was given each of the artists a season ago is the only comment that seems fitting or required, for this remains one of the most perfectly balanced of Metropolitan casts. Mr. Hasselmans' conducting was again such as to emphasize the exhaustless charm of Debussy's wraithlike and infinitely suggestive orchestra, but the effect, as heretofore, depended to no small extent on whether the listener was near to, or far, from the pit. There were curtain calls, and the eye noted a liberal number of standees to indicate that the interest aroused last season has been carried over



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