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[Met Performance] CID:119470

Metropolitan Opera Premiere, New Production

Lucia di Lammermoor
The Bat
Metropolitan Opera House, Wed, May 20, 1936

Debut : Nana Gollner, Eugene Loring, Keith Martin







This was the first performance of Balanchine's choreography for the Act III wedding scene.

Review 1:

Review of W. J. Henderson in The New York Sun

'Lucia' Sung at the Metropolitan

Emily Hardy and Joseph Bentonelli Have Roles in Donizetti Opera

At the Metropolitan Opera House, Donizetti's venerable "Lucia di Lammermoor" was introduced last evening to a new generation of operagoers, to whom it seemed to be a revelation of vocal and dramatic glories beyond the dreams of ordinary mortals.

Probably not even Adelina Patti, when in 1859, at the age of 16, she electrified the town with her amazing ease of song in this same work, received as much applause as the young and unfinished singer who last night essayed with a modicum of credit the vocal decorations of Donizetti.

The prima donna was Emily Hardy, who was lately heard as Gilda in "Rigoletto." Miss Hardy was nervous and accordingly unsteady in the first scene of her role, and her "Regnava nel silenzio" was heavy and tentative. But by the time she reached the mad scene she was in complete control of her powers and she delivered the music smoothly, with good intonation, and well sustained phrasing. There was no revelation of the mood. The singing was cold in tone and had little enough of style, but the uneven execution of the florid measures was sufficient to evoke the remarkable applause already described. A commendable but not distinguished performance was Miss Hardy's; nothing more laudatory can be said of it.

Joseph Bentonelli was the Edgardo. He looked well and sang most of his music in tune, though he had moments of infidelity to the pitch. His light and rather dry voice flowed smoothly in the lyric passages, but he reached his highest level in the contract scene, into which he put some energy and some definition of the dramatic significance. His death scene was lachrymose in the extreme and was not well sung. Mr. Morelli was a not too tyrannical Ashton, though he was strong enough to conquer the Lucia of the evening. This baritone gets through such roles as that of last night by steady routine and by keeping pretty well on the pitch.

Mr. Massue, who lately made his debut in a leading tenor role, was the Arturo and delivered himself quite loudly in his one scene. Mr. Cordon was a tall and melancholy Raymondo and received for his solo before the mad scene that forte applause which no singer in the present season can escape. The chorus did its best with its static duties and Mr. Papi conducted with all possible consideration for the singers.

After the opera there was a new ballet entitled, "The Bat," with music culled from the pages of Johann Strauss, not all from '"Die Fledermaus," but yet with that delightful score predominating. There was a double bodied bat, which danced in two parts, each bearing a wing, and which seemed determined to be a wicked influence operating against a poet who danced like an athlete and looked like an aesthete. There were can-can dancers, and Hungarian Czardas demonstrators, and a varied assortment of toe experts who mixed themselves up in a delirious tangle of choreography and left one to find out what it was all about. There was nothing of more than mediocre merit in the dancing and, as seems to be. inevitable, a sad want of unanimity in rhythm. Since it entered operaland the American ballet has been decidedly astray.

Search by season: 1935-36

Search by title: Lucia di Lammermoor, The Bat,



Met careers

• Gennaro Papi [Conductor]
• Emily Hardy [Lucia]
• Joseph Bentonelli [Edgardo]
• Carlo Morelli [Enrico]
• Norman Cordon [Raimondo]
• Lodovico Oliviero [Normanno]
• Charlotte Symons [Alisa]
• Nicholas Massue [Arturo]
• George Balanchine [Choreographer]
• Wilfred Pelletier [Conductor]
• Holly Howard [Bat]
• Lew Christensen [Bat]
• Charles Laskey [Poet]
• Leda Anchutina [Masked Lady]
• Annabelle Lyon [Masked Lady]
• Helen Leitch [Gypsy]
• William Dollar [Gypsy]
• Rabana Hasburgh [Can-Can Dancer]
• Kathryn Mullowny [Lady of Fashion]
• Gisella Caccialanza [Lady of Fashion]
• Nana Gollner [Lady of Fashion]
• Elise Reiman [Lady of Fashion]
• Daphne Vane [Lady of Fashion]
• Josef Levinoff [Coachman]
• Eugene Loring [Coachman]
• Keith Martin [Costume Designer/Costume Designer]