[Met Performance] CID:113160



Parsifal
Metropolitan Opera House, Mon, February 13, 1933 Matinee





Parsifal (124)
Richard Wagner | Richard Wagner
Parsifal
Lauritz Melchior

Kundry
Frida Leider

Amfortas
Friedrich Schorr

Gurnemanz
Ludwig Hofmann

Klingsor
Gustav Schützendorf

Titurel
Siegfried Tappolet

Voice
Rose Bampton

First Esquire
Helen Gleason

Second Esquire
Philine Falco

Third Esquire
Marek Windheim

Fourth Esquire
Max Altglass

First Knight
Angelo Badà

Second Knight
Louis D'Angelo

Flower Maiden
Nina Morgana

Flower Maiden
Dorothea Flexer

Flower Maiden
Editha Fleischer

Flower Maiden
Phradie Wells

Flower Maiden
Henriette Wakefield


Conductor
Artur Bodanzky


Director
Hanns Niedecken-Gebhard

Designer
Joseph Urban





Parsifal received two performances this season.
This performance commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of Wagner's death.

Review 1:

Review of Grena Bennett in unidentified newspaper

Wagner's 'Parsifal' Revived at the 'Met' on His Anniversary

Special significance was attached to the season's first performance of "Parsifal" at the Metropolitan Opera House yesterday afternoon. The revival of Wagner's "consecrational festival" play was timed with the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the composer whose passing took place February 13, 1883. "Parsifal" was truly Wagner's swan song, for it was completed one brief year before his death. There was a capacity audience present, every member of which stood respectfully after the second act when, posed on the stage between the parted golden curtain for a few moments, was a portrait bust of Wagner.

The performance was creditable in every particular, with two of the leading roles in new hands. Frida Leider was superb in her first local performance of Kundry, simulating, with art and intelligence, the crushed, tortured, tormented creature of the [first] act; the defiant rather than alluring enchantress of the garden scene and the gentle penitent of the final episode. Lauritz Melchior, in the name part, realizes the musical and dramatic possibilities of the role and Ludwig Hofmann, singing Gurnemanz for the first time here, made the part effectively picturesque.

Other outstanding characterizations were offered by Gustav Schutzendorf, as the evil genius Klingsor; Friederich Schorr, as the wounded Amfortas; Siegfreid Tappolet, as the ancient Titurel; Mmes. Bampton, Morgana, Fleischer, Flexer, Wakefield and Wells as the fascinating Flower Maidens, and Messrs Windheim, D'Angelo, Altglass and Bada, the young Knights and Esquires.

An important guest of the afternoon was Olive Fremstad, once a great Kundry of the Metropolitan and who had a seat in a grand tier box, the same chair, by the way, that was occupied by Richard Wagner's only son, Siegfreid, when he visited New York a decade ago. Artur Bodanzky gave a reading of the score that was compelling and fervently dramatic. "Parsifal" will be repeated sometime between March 7 and 12, the closing week of the season.



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