Metropolitan Opera Archives

Choreography realized by Bolm
Petrushka received six performances this season.
Negro Group Organizer...Frank Wilson
Acknowledgment is made of valuable suggestions in regard to the production, offered by Walt Kuhn.
Fokine did not receive credit in the program for Petrushka although it was his ballet that Bolm staged.

Review 1:

Review signed B. L. D. in Musical America

Stravinsky-Puccini-Carpenter

From the shuffling of the Metropolitan repertoire emerged, on March 17, a new Russo-Italo-American triptych, Stravinsky's "Petrushka" making its welcome reappearance in company with Puccini's "Gianni Schicchi" and John Alden Carpenter's "Skyscrapers." The triple bill was conducted by Tullio Serafin, Gennaro Papi and Louis Hasselmans. Wilfrid Pelletier performed brilliantly the difficult piano part in the Russian score.

Stravinsky's pantomimic fantasy, coming directly after "Le Rossignol" and comparatively close to "Le Sacre du Printemps," completed opportunely the presentation in one New York season of his three masterpieces. Of the three, "Petrushka" is the most perfect in its fine adjustment of music to stage action, and from the auditor's standpoint it is the most grateful to the ear. In it Stravinsky achieved a terseness of expression, an epigrammatic mordancy of wit, a concentration of irony and an emotional poignancy that make it his most personal work.

The performance of "Petrushka" against the kaleidoscopic settings of Serge Soudeikine showed no variations from that of last season, except the substitution of Florence Rudolph for Rosina Galli as the Ballerina. Adolph Bolm mimed the title role authoritatively, with an admirable synchronization of puppetlike gestures with the angular rhythms of the music, Giuseppe Bonfiglio was perhaps too amiable a Moor; his depiction of leering humor his gross sensuality was good, but his anger had no edge and he lacked the touch of the macabre. Ottokar Bartik was the Showman. Armando Agnini, Mollie Friedenthal, Rita de Laporte, Lillian Ogden, Jessie Roger and Florence Glover completed the cast.

Giuseppe De Luca was as usual the protagonist in "Gianni Schicchi," vastly entertaining in his buffo humor and craftiness. Ellen Dalossy was the Lauretta, using good vocal values in the opera's one gallery aria "O mio babbino caro." Giacomo Lauri-Volpi sang Rinuccio, Kathleen Howard impersonated La Vecchia, Laura Robertson was La Ciesca and Marie Tiffany was the Nella. Messrs. Eisler, Bada, Ananian, Didur, D'Angelo, Malatesta, Rothier, Reschiglian and Gabor filled the remaining roles.

At each repetition of "Skyscrapers," one is impressed by its wearing qualities. The choreography of the amusement park scene is a variable function of the music, and can be altered to suit the passing fashion. The music itself has a perdurable character. Quite aside from the obvious use of one or two familiar tunes, Carpenter has expressed an authentic folk-note, a musical feeling distinctively American in its tone-clang, its melodic lines and its nervous rhythms.

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