[Met Performance] CID:127570



La Traviata
Metropolitan Opera House, Thu, January 11, 1940




La Traviata (230)
Giuseppe Verdi | Francesco Maria Piave
Violetta
Bidú Sayão

Alfredo
Nino Martini

Germont
John Brownlee

Flora
Thelma Votipka

Gastone
Alessio De Paolis

Baron Douphol
Wilfred Engelman

Marquis D'Obigny
George Cehanovsky

Dr. Grenvil
Louis D'Angelo

Annina
Lucielle Browning

Dance
Lillian Moore

Dance
Monna Montes


Conductor
Ettore Panizza







Review 1:

Review of James Whittaker in the Daily Mirror

Bidú Sayão in Birdlike Voice For "Traviata"

Senorita Bidú Sayão, migrating against the courses of her cousins, the songbirds, arrived last night to warble a sample of the current Summer in her South America into a nice, warm, melodious Metropolitan performance of "La Traviata."

If anything, she seems to be in even nicer voice and feather than last Winter, when her wren-like coloratura soprano, her fetching pertness and pretty dresses to fit her pretty person make her the toast - well, anyway, the melba toast - of the patronage.

For the dress-up act of this opera about Paris drinkers of 1812 vintage champagne, the petite Brazilian had a vast new silk basket-gown the exact color of the violet bonbon in a heart-shaped $5 box of special assorted. The filling was all sweetness, but please don't ask exactly what. Because here is a case of persistent ignorance of what makes these birds sing, why and how. This one opens her throat and out tumbles enough notes to fill a glass and if once in a rare while a trickle of them spills a little untrue, surely that is because those 70 hairy players of ill-tempered instruments in the orchestra pit have gone unanimously sharp on her.

She is bravura to the eye, being a Spanish woman, all grace notes, trills and thrills with her eyes and hands. This is coloratura enough, and a kindled audience called her repeatedly before the curtain at act-ends, no doubt wishing all the while it could call her behind one.



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