Metropolitan Opera Archives

As a happy, handsome tribute to the 150th Anniversary of Mozart's death, "The Magic Flute" was felicitously revived by the Metropolitan Opera Association as its fifth offering of the season here in the Academy last night. It was a performance notable for its spirited unity of presentation, and especially for the personal triumph scored by Nadine Conner, who made one of the two debuts of exceptional interest on the distaff side.

It is 15 years since the Metropolitan's previous presentation of "The Magic Flute" in this city, and a dozen years since it was given here by the former Civic Company. Operatic mortality being what it is, all the roles, from the most important to the humblest, were taken by singers who had not been heard here hitherto in this work, and everything else was new, from the able English text prepared expressly for this revival by Ruth and Thomas P. Martin, to the tasteful and attractive stage settings by Richard Rychtarik.

LOS ANGELES SOPRANO

The debuts here of Miss Conner, a personable young lyric soprano from Los Angeles, as Pamina, and of Rosa Bok, Hungarian coloratura, in the vocally formidable role of the Queen of the Night, vied in interest with the superbly synthetic and sensitive conducting of Bruno Walter,

and the magnificent and sonorously sung Sarastro of Alexander Kipnis, the admirably equipped Russian-born basso.

The distinction of style, breadth and depth of tone, the dignity and understanding with which Mr. Kipnis sang the Invocation to Isis made it a highlight of the performance. It was a pity that his appearance was so limited in this operatic anomaly, with its masterly musical score, melodically fresh and unfaded after a century and a half, and its mystical nonsense and its allegorical implications.

SCORES SUCCESS

At the age of 28, and with virtually no previous operatic experience, Miss Conner made a quite completely captivating Pamina. In charm of appearance, she was a plausible and persuasive Princess. She seemed thoroughly at ease on the stage, despite her lack of familiarity with public performances, and she sang Mozart's gracious music with purity and clarity of tone, showing the good taste and intelligence to keep her voice generally within its natural dynamic bounds. She scored an emphatic and abundantly deserved success in the approval of the audience.

DIFFICULT MUSIC

Mozart wrote coloratura music of appalling difficulties in his arias for Astrofiammante, the Queen of the Night, designed to display the vocal agility and remarkably high range of his sister-in-law, Josepha Weber. Miss Bok sang this music fairly effectively, but she had obvious difficulty with the high F that should dazzlingly climax the chief aria, and her voice is not an organ of notable brilliance or size.

Charles Kullman was adequate, if not especially distinguished, as the rescuing Tamino, and he came successfully through the various ordeals devised by Sarastro, meeting the vocal requirements effectively, if not

impressively.

Mack Harrell, making his first appearance as the fantastic bird-man, Papageno, was capital vocally, and he captured the fancy of the audience with his comic gusto and the drollery of his impersonation of the role that Schikaneder wrote expressly for himself.

SCHORR AS HIGH PRIEST

Friedrich Schorr's veteran skill sufficed for the brief part of the High Priest. Stella Andreva made a sprightly Papagena. Karl Laufkötter's Monostatos tormented the English language as much as he did poor Pamina, but in much more quaintly amusing fashion.

The purely incidental parts of priests, ladies-in-waiting and temple youths were effectively taken and the stage direction by Herbert Graf was quite in key with the character of the work. But when everything is said and done, it was all utterly right.

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