Metropolitan Opera Archives

The French Revolution larded with music brought vicarious thrills of martyrdom to the Tuesday night subscribers at the Metropolitan. Mr. Gabor as the elegant spy of the dread tribunal went about his horrid business of "getting something" on Andrea Chenier, the gentle poet of the radical tendencies, with the suavity of a Scarpia, sending shivers down our collective back with every flourish of his ornamental wand.

The pitiful plight of Miss Easton, the aristocratic daughter of an even more aristocratic mother, was apparent to many in the audience besides Mr. Gigli on the stage, who could hardly be blamed for following humanitarian impulses at the moment when revolutionary zeal demanded every particle of his heart and mind.

"Andrea Chenier," though an operatic fiction which does not tally with more prosaic fact of the historical personage, is a musical thriller of the first order. It does absolutely no good to sneer at the obviously contrived narrative, nor at Giordano's undistinguished musical accompaniment. Though you contract your critical brows and murmur "Shoddy," the thing gets you in spite of yourself.

Who can resist the ball in the haughty Countess of Coigny's castle, with its gayety suddenly obscured by the distant drums of the class-conscious rabble and the sympathetic Andre's unexpected plea for the rights of the downtrodden? The session of the sanguinary tribunal, the herding of the proud remnants of the former masters, the conviction of the gentle Madeline and the last farewell of that flower of the aristocracy and her lover poet all clutch at our tear ducts and imaginations. We are enamored of both camps. We love the elegance of the Countess de Coigny's ménage, yet we bleed for the rights of the poor. We glory in the revolution, but shed tears over the untimely severance of the heads of Miss Easton and Mr. Gigli. It is all very sweet and tragic, pitiful and glorious.

There remains only to speak of the qualities of the performance; and since the spectacle of "Andrea Chenier" is this season practically identical with that of seasons gone by there is nothing new we can add to our former appraisals. Mr. Gigli sang as usual, like an angel who has acquired a David Warfield catch in his voice, and the other principals made whatever contributions they were capable of to this musical "Tale of Two Cities."

Search by season: 1927-28

Search by title: Andrea Chénier,

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