[Met Performance] CID:131560



Tristan und Isolde
Metropolitan Opera House, Sat, April 12, 1941 Matinee





Tristan und Isolde (293)
Richard Wagner | Richard Wagner
Tristan
Lauritz Melchior

Isolde
Kirsten Flagstad

Kurwenal
Julius Huehn

Brangäne
Kerstin Thorborg

King Marke
Emanuel List

Melot
Emery Darcy

Shepherd
Karl Laufkötter

Steersman
Walter Olitzki


Conductor
Edwin McArthur







Review 1:

Review of Louis Biancolli in the World-Telegram

Flagstad Gets Ovation at the Met

Soprano Sings Isolde Before Leaving for Home

Wagner's three-act "Tristan und Isolde" moved into a fourth act at the Metropolitan Saturday afternoon, when Tristan - Lauritz Melchior - raised his hand to an audience gone mad and announced that Isolde - Kirsten Flagstad - was departing by clipper in a few days to visit her husband in Norway.

"I think we should all wish her a happy journey," said the Danish tenor, and a happy voyage back."

Cheers went up on all sides and the name "Flagstad!" boomed out from parquet to family circle. The Norwegian soprano came out for the fifth time, brushed away some tears, and signaled for silence.

"I am very happy to be going home," she said, "but I shall be even happier to return to you."

Recalls followed recalls as the audience stood up and directed volleys of "Bravos!" toward the stage. Finally the curtain closed and the lights dimmed on the last postseason performance of the Metropolitan's 1940-41 season.

Fine as Mme. Flagstad's impersonation of Isolde has been all along, she outdid herself Saturday. Vocally and expressively she touched every facet of this poignant role to the quick. She and the role became inseparably one, the illusion was complete, until in the Liebestod people actually wept at the tragic irony of King Marke's belated sympathy.

Mr. Melchior was no less compelling in grasping and projecting Tristan's weight of woes. Like Mme. Flagstad's, Mr. Melchior's voice grows and mellows under terrific use. On Saturday it poured out like a geyser. With the Dano-Norwegian axis in such fine trim, the Metropolitan season truly ended in a vocal blaze of glory.

The others - Mme. Thorborg (Brangäne), Mr. Huehn (Kurvenal), and Mr. List (King Marke) - also rose to the occasion, within their individual limits, and kept Wagner's great hymn of love and loyalty throbbing humanely to the end. One and all came in for rousing ovations from the packed house.

Edwin McArthur, conducting his second "Tristan" of the season, rates a special encomium for a well-knit reading, vibrant with young ardor and reaching fine dramatic lift in the last act.



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