Metropolitan Opera Archives

The second hearing of the Metropolitan's latest revival, "Le Prophete," last evening kept a large and brilliant audience pleasantly diverted, but was not, despite its incessant vocal and instrumental fanfare, a very stirring occasion. The performance ran through its prodigious succession of scenic changes without hitch and every one was more at ease on the stage than at the premiere. As before, the portrayal by Mme. Matzenauer of the prophet's mother Fides, was the finest of individual achievements, but it must be reported, with regret, that she permitted herself an indulgence which is for her unusual - she stopped distressingly in her big aria, "Ah, mon fils!"

Miss Corona as the unfortunate Bertha again disclosed a voice full of musical possibilities shockingly trespassed against. Mr. Martinelli made no more convincing a figure dramatically than at the first matinee, but his voice compassed the role with greater fluency and an approximation of style. Others in the cast who competently performed their assignments were Messrs. Tedesco, Schützendorf and Pinza as the three Anabaptists: Mr. Rothier as Count Oberthal, and Messrs. Ananian, Altglass, Cehanovsky, Reschiglian and Paltrinieri in lesser roles

Mr. Bodanzky conducted with zeal, and the ballet accomplished its ornamental interlude of the irrelevant winter carnival, with great credit to the ensemble and especially to Miss Galli, who had arranged the intricate evolutions on skates and off, and who herself performed with Mr. Bonfiglio a charming pas de deux.

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Search by title: Le Prophète,

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