Metropolitan Opera Archives

One of the most memorable and distinguished performances the Metropolitan has even given in Philadelphia was heard at the Academy of Music, when the "Götterdämmerung" was presented last night.

A superb cast of singing-actors was entrusted with the task of fitting into one of the most gigantic musical tapestries ever devised. It is a pleasure to report that it was impressively successful, and that at the close of the performance the large audience filed out of the Academy obviously awed and deeply affected.

"Götterdämmerung" has been presented too seldom in Philadelphia in recent years. The last performance, also by the Metropolitan, was on January 31, 1939. Of the principal singers only Lauritz Melchior and Herbert Janssen reappeared last night from that earlier cast, which also included Marjorie Lawrence, Karin Branzell and Emanuel List.

Of foremost interest last night was the Brünnhilde of Helen Traubel. She gave a performance of a kind very rare in these days of generally indifferent singing.

Step by step, her phenomenal voice and distinguished vocal artistry are being matched, slowly but surely, by her accomplishments as an actress and interpreter. Mme. Traubel took a long step in that direction last night with her dignified, deeply felt, often forcefully dramatic portrayal of the tortured Brünnhilde.

Her singing was all that it was expected to be, and evinced the extraordinary command of detail and the refinement of which she is so capable. Not to be denied were the splendor and impact of the upper tones which now and again rang through the house with stirring effect. Her crowning accomplishment was the Immolation Scene. It was a supreme achievement.

Lauritz Melchior of the cast-iron lungs and vocal cords was the familiar Siegfried, as usual profoundly moving and communicative in the death scene. Less familiar to Philadelphians were the eerie, malevolent Hagen of Alexander Kipnis and the affecting Waltraute of Kerstin Thorborg. Both are outstanding singing-actors, artists of the finest sensibility. Herbert Janssen was an unusually distinguished Gunther, singing the music of the role beautifully. In the less important part of Gutrune, Irene Jessner was more than acceptable.

Not a little of last night's success was due to the forceful conducting of Erich Leinsdorf. His is a wholly heroic conception of this gigantic score, and rightly so. Here and there, a little more care for detail, a little more subtlety of expression might have been desirable, but Mr. Leinsdorf swept everything before him in a blaze of vitality and enthusiasm which was undeniable and which would have been indeed difficult to resist.

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Search by title: Götterdämmerung,

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