[Met Tour] CID:121450



Le Coq d'Or
Cavalleria Rusticana
Public Auditorium, Cleveland, Ohio, Mon, April 12, 1937


In French



Le Coq d'Or (57)
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov | Vladimir Belsky need translators?
Cockerel
Thelma Votipka

Queen
Lily Pons

Dodon
Ezio Pinza

Amelfa
Doris Doe

Astrologer
Nicholas Massue

Polkan
Norman Cordon

Gvidon
Giordano Paltrinieri

Afron
Wilfred Engelman


Conductor
Gennaro Papi


Cavalleria Rusticana (304)
Pietro Mascagni | Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti, Guido Menasci
Santuzza
Rosa Ponselle

Turiddu
Sydney Rayner

Lola
Irra Petina

Alfio
Carlo Morelli

Mamma Lucia
Lucielle Browning


Conductor
Gennaro Papi







Review 1:

Review of J. C. Daschbach in the Cleveland Plain Dealer

9,000 JAM HALL FOR OPERA RECORD

Sell-Out Crowd Hears Pons and Ponselle Open Met's Season Here

Cleveland opened its tenth Metropolitan Opera season in Public Hall last night by setting a new attendance record.

When the curtain rose on the first scene of Rimsky-Korsakoff's "Le Coq d'Or," every seat in the house was sold and more than 9,000 were jammed into the immense auditorium.

It would be a mistake to say that every seat was filled as the curtain rose, for there are still persons in Cleveland who do not realize that the Metropolitan means what it says when it set 8 p.m. for the [start] of its performances. As a result, several hundred stood for 27 minutes last night, for no one is seated during the first scene. Tonight tardiness will mean 73 minutes of standing.

But it was a complete sellout and it was the first time in the history of the Metropolitan's seasons in Cleveland that such a thing had happened on the [first] night.

Pons Ponselle the Cause

And there is no mystery about the cause. To hear either Lily Pons, the great coloratura soprano, or Rosa Ponselle, opera's most versatile dramatic soprano, in one evening's performance would be enough to draw a full house. But to have both on the same program could mean nothing else than a hall filled to capacity.

Pons as the queen in "Le Coq d'Or" which opened the double bill; inaugurating the season, and Ponselle as Santuzza in "Cavalleria Rusticana," which was the second half of the bill, were simply the answer to an opera lover's prayer.

Then again, it was a tribute to Cleveland's great hunger for good music. It had been five years since the last Metropolitan performance in Cleveland. The late depression had curtailed that season in 1931to three days, and as the sad months rolled by there was no more opera here.

Then came last night with Pons and Ponselle bringing America's most famous musical organization back to Cleveland! It was a "natural."

Also it might be remembered that Rimsky-Korsakoff's fantastic opera based on Pushkin's fairly tale about the golden cockrel, had not been presented in Cleveland since 1926 and eleven years is a long time.

Audience Spectacular

Whatever the cause of the great outpouring, it was a time when the audience was as spectacular as the stage presentation. As the lights dimmed and then went out in the hall, the reflected rays of the footlights brought into strange relief the thousands of faces peering stage-ward.

It was a startling contrast with the scene presented under the full lighting of the vast auditorium, when the spread of variegation in dress presented a scene as gorgeous as any ever provided on any stage.

Cleveland was all dressed up and had some place to go, and it did just that with a vengeance. Down in the dress circle and the boxes the gowns of the women were accentuated in color by the everlasting black to which man has doomed himself for formal evening occasions.

And the splashes of color were not confined to the front section of the house. They ran all the way from the front rows close to the stage to the last seat in the topmost row of the balcony - far up there near the ceiling.

Those gallery gods in the topmost rows did not make the society columns, but they had a great time, for in that section of every opera house it to be found the real dyed-in-the-wool opera fan.

Those Alpine heights always bring together the group that can hum any part of any opera that happens to be mentioned at any time. And they know what it is all about. They don't come to be seen, but to see - and hear.



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