Metropolitan Opera Archives

"Die Meistersinger" was repeated at the opera yesterday as the last performance in the Metropolitan's Matinee Wagner Cycle. The novel feature of the performance was the Walther von Stoltzing of Walter Kirchhoff , the Metropolitan's new Wagner tenor. Mr. Kirchhoff had already disclosed to us his Loge, Siegumnd, young Siegfried and elder Siegfried.

Mr. Kirchhoff is always vivid in his presentation of a character, and his Walther, like his previous impersonations, is sharply and warmly imagined. Like those other assumptions, however, it suffers from excess. Mr. Kirchhoff is often extravagant in action. His singing yesterday scarcely compensated for his exaggerated histrionism. He was inclined to distort rhythms, to sentimentalize tempi, so that Mr. Bodanzky at times had difficulty in conforming to his caprices. But Mr. Kirchhoff was at least a distinguished figure for the eye, though it might perhaps be objected that this knightly lover suggests a romance less springlike than autumnal.

Michael Bohnen exhibited for the first time this season his uncommonly robust and dominating Sachs - an imposing characterization, though a shade too militant for the ideal Sachs. Maria Müller snag Eva, Kathleen Howard was the Magdalene, Gustav Schützendorf, the Beckmesser, Rothier, the Pogner and Meader, the David. Mr. Bodanzky conducted.

The usual packed house was liberal with applause.

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