[Met Performance] CID:92500



Lucia di Lammermoor
Metropolitan Opera House, Mon, February 22, 1926 Matinee





Lucia di Lammermoor (126)
Gaetano Donizetti | Salvadore Cammarano
Lucia
Marion Talley

Edgardo
Giacomo Lauri-Volpi

Enrico
Giuseppe De Luca

Raimondo
José Mardones

Normanno
Giordano Paltrinieri

Alisa
Grace Anthony

Arturo
Angelo Badà


Conductor
Gennaro Papi







Review 1:

Review of Oscar Thompson in Musical America

Marion Talley in 'Lucia'

Another sold-out house applauded Marion Talley's second operatic adventure at the Metropolitan, when the young soprano impersonated the unhappy heroine of Donizetti's Italianization of Walter Scott's "Bride of Lammermoor" at a special matinee on Washington's Birthday.

The leading artists associated with her were those who had shared in the vocal burdens of "Rigoletto" at her début. Giacomo Lauri-Volpi was Edgardo, Giuseppe de Luca, Enrico, and José Mardones, Raimondo. Secondary parts. were assigned to Grace Anthony, Angelo Bada and Giordano Paltrinieri. Gennaro Papi conducted.

The Lucia of the afternoon was as excitedly acclaimed as the Gilda of the preceding Wednesday. A considerable number of the Kansas City delegation remained in New York for Miss Talley's second appearance, and it was the expressed opinion of several of these that the youthful artist was more fully herself than she was at her debut. There were ten recalls after the "Mad Scene," and the progress of the opera was interrupted by applause each time the music afforded opportunity for florid singing or for a particularly altitudinous note. Demonstration followed demonstration in each of the three scenes in which the heroine appears.

"Lucia" makes heavier demands on its soprano than "Rigoletto." Aside from the ever-taxing "Mad Scene," the first act Cavatina and the several duets afford a sharper test of coloratura capacities than do the placid embellishments of "Caro Nome."

Miss Talley's success was proportionately more pronounced. Her sharply defined staccato, her excellent trill, her fluency in runs and scale passages, all counted for more, and though everything was again on a small scale, there was something less of immaturity, and of a tentative and transitional suggestion, in her delivery. Middle and lower tones were often of a hauntingly lovely quality, if seldom of more volume than the mezza-voce of her fellow artists, and higher notes had less of an occasional tendency toward the metallic than was noted in the "Rigoletto" performance. This reviewer derived more personal pleasure from her achievement of the "Mad Scene" than from any other projection of it in recent seasons at the Metropolitan.



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