Metropolitan Opera Archives

The [beginning] of the Metropolitan Opera season at Public Hall last night was as expected, an outstandingly successful and festive occasion. It would be hair-splitting to maintain that the house was anything but completely sold out, and that applause was anything but whole-hearted.

With a few reservations to be made later, "The Marriage of Figaro" was a plausible choice for the [start of the season]. It is consistently light-hearted in character. It carried the dignity of a long tradition, being the oldest regularly performed opera extant. Furthermore, it contains some of the most exquisite music ever written for the human voice, and gives one or two of the best Metropolitan headliners a chance to sing it.

Altogether the singing, as such, was excellent. Ezio Pinza's magnificent bass, in the title role, gave forth a wonderfully sonorous flow of tones and words, while Bidu Sayao's agile soprano, in the role of Susana, had much pert attractiveness and developed some real tenderness in her final aria, "Deh vieni, non tardar."

Only slightly less admirable was the work of John Brownlee as the Count and of Risë Stevens, who strains the imagination by taking the part of the adolescent boy, Cherubino, and then has to pretend to disguise herself as a girl! She sang "Voi che sapete" very well indeed, but perhaps with more ardor than charm.

The ensembles, especially the large ones of six and seven singers, were particularly satisfactory; they clicked always with high precision for which no doubt conductor Ettore Panizza deserves his share of the credit.

Elisabeth Rethberg sang the Countess with emotional warmth, while the youthful vigor of Irra Petina's voice seemed to belie her exposure as Figaro's mother, Marcellina.

Salvatore Baccaloni, much heralded comic character player, portrayed the ambiguous Dr. Bartolo. He was in the alleged words of a well-known movie director, "warry axcellent, but nod colossal."

Others Do Well

Alessio de Paolis, George Rasley and Louis D'Angelo injected further comedy into the piece as Basilio, Don Curzio and Antonio respectively. Marita Farrel acquitted herself satisfactorily in the small part of Barbarina.

And now for the reservations. "The Marriage of Figaro" is a dizzy labyrinth of disguises, concealments, mistaken identities, intimations of adultery, cross purposes and intrigue. However well it might be acted, the real farce of the various situations can only be brought out by the wisecracks and amusing silliness of the dialog. This however is not accessible to most of a Cleveland audience when it is in Italian.

Thus, even the beauty of the music could not prevent the opera from seeming rather long. Some cuts in the recitatives might have been advisable.

Furthermore, Figaro is supposed to be a clever flunkey. But Mr. Pinza played him with such a lordly air that he seemed to dominate the Count, who is supposed to be the real lord.

Still, all in all, it was a fine performance.

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