Metropolitan Opera Archives

Mozart's "The Magic Flute," presented by the Metropolitan Opera Association at the Metropolitan Theatre last evening, was a spirited and admirable performance. Since Bruno Walter had been announced to conduct, there had been anticipation that he would duplicate his memorable "Don Giovanni" of a year ago. Expectation was fulfilled, and the soggy "Lohengrin" of Thursday was forgotten under a spell of Mr. Walter's effortless conducting, and the balanced ensemble of acting and singing.

"The Magic Flute" is a masterpiece, hard to sing well. It is also not a "grand opera," but fundamentally an entertainment for the musical stage, with interludes of spoken dialogue in place of recitative. The last "Magic Flute"' the town heard, 10 years ago last month, was of mixed and nondescript style. For their production, the Metropolitan had the right idea of using simple, but not vernacular, and of giving a modern theatrical effect as well as sound musical quality.

How well they succeeded you may observe in the consistent style, one that might be called an American style. It is American because it is indeed not European, because the stage business in general and the clowning of Papageno in particular have been modeled, it would seem, upon the modernity of the American theatre. And all at no detriment to Mozart's lovely score.

Mr. Walter must have had a hand in the supervision. To him must be due the beautifully styled singing and the subtle orchestral playing that prevail. To whoever trained the cast in English go heartfelt thanks for 80 percent of the text can be understood. In short, this is the sort of opera that is going to appeal to the American masses.

There were two singers new to Boston: Rosa Bok, the Queen of the Night, and Nadine Conner, the Pamina. Miss Conner is, from the standpoint of sheer technic, one of the most promising young singers one has heard in some years. Her lyric soprano is small, but she uses it with the ease, accuracy, authoritative Mozart style and intelligent phrasing that come from good training. But she has one shortcoming that ought to be remedied: putting an "h" sound before vowels. While there was a certain brilliance to Miss Bok's account of the Queen death and destruction aria, staccati being notably true, her voice is apt to be insecure in upper reaches. and the tone is of cool, reedy quality. Her first recitative and aria improved as she went along.

Mack Harrell was a splendid Papageno, clowning it to just about the right degree, speaking with true comic inflection. but not overdoing any aspect. He sang as the intelligent musician that he is. While Kipnis' voice has lost part of its once extraordinary richness and strength, he, too, is a most musicianly artist. His two arias went nicely, "Isis and Osiris," better than the other. But why does he also put "h" sounds before vowels? The short part of the High Priest was sonorously voiced by Mr. Schorr who proved, together with Mr. Kipnis, that singers of foreign birth and training can sing English understandably. Mr. Kullman's Tamino was all right, even if his upper tones were constricted. Eleanor Steber, formerly of Boston, made her first local appearance with the

Metropolitan as one of the Queen's Three Ladies.

Both the stage direction of Herbert Graf and the grotesque settings of Richard Rychtarik, long on mixed colors, provide good background.

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