[Met Performance] CID:98150



Pelléas et Mélisande
Metropolitan Opera House, Wed, January 25, 1928




Pelléas et Mélisande (13)
Claude Debussy | Maurice Maeterlinck
Pelléas
Edward Johnson

Mélisande
Lucrezia Bori

Golaud
Clarence Whitehill

Arkel
Léon Rothier

Geneviève
Kathleen Howard

Yniold
Ellen Dalossy

Physician
Paolo Ananian


Conductor
Louis Hasselmans


Director
Wilhelm Von Wymetal

Set Designer
Joseph Urban

Costume Designer
Gretel Urban





Pelléas et Mélisande received three performances this season.
Bori's costumes were designed by Erté.

Review 1:

Review in the New York Tribune

'Pelléas et Mélisande' At the Metropolitan

Debussy's Opera Sung for First Time This Season in Eloquent Performance

Debussy's "Pelléas et Mélisande" was performed at the Metropolitan last night for the first time this season. The cast was that which has interpreted the opera ever since the Metropolitan produced it in 1925, with a single exception - Miss Ellen Dalossy took the part of the child Yniold, in place of Miss Louise Hunter, who is no longer with the company. Miss Dalossy presented an intelligently conceived embodiment of the difficult role, though she is physically less well suited to it than her predecessor.

Miss Bori gave us again her deeply expressive and very touching Mélisande, with the addition of some new costumes and a new coiffure. Mr. Johnson was the admirably sensitive Pelléas. Mr. Whitehill enacted Golaud, and again moved his audience by the tragic intensity of his performance, especially in the great scene of espionage at the end of the third act. Mr. Rothier is by far the finest Arkel who has even assumed that role in New York. Miss Howard made much of her brief but significant part as Genevieve, and Mr. Ananian was the physician.

Mr. Hasselmans conducted a memorably eloquent performance of the orchestral score, and the instrumentalists gave him of their best.

The Metropolitan's production of Debussy's exacting opera remains one of the most distinguished achievements of Mr. Gatti-Casazza's régime. That it is appreciated by responsive opera-goers was evidenced again last night by the absorbed attentiveness of the audience as the beautiful work progressed to its poignant culmination.



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