Metropolitan Opera Archives

Opera at the Metropolitan this season came to a positive, definite end yesterday afternoon with the annual Good Friday performance of "Parsifal." Whatever has been the attitude of the public toward other works of Wagner during the past winter, its traditional devotion to this work continues. Yesterday's was the third large audience which has heard the score, and possibly the largest of all. There was scarcely room to turn a program page among the standees.

The cast was substantially the same as the previous ones, though it is doubtful if Alexander Kipnis has ever sung any role more beautifully than he did the Gurnemanz of this one. His voice was a superbly responsive instrument through its range, inflected with ceaseless art and subtlety. Since he is also a dramatic actor of mobility and resourcefulness, Mr. Kipnis was yesterday as close to an insuperable Gurnemanz as any artist could be.

Lauritz Melchior's Parsifal was sung with the wealth of expression he commands, and with a secure sense of the character's development. He edged from the stage little more cautiously in the Grail scene than he has in the past, but he was still absent during most of its. Kerstin Thorborg was the hard-working Kundry, with Julius Huehn as Amfortas, Nicola Moscona as Titurel and Walter Olitzki as Klingsor. Erich Leinsdorf conducted, sometimes with more haste than taste.

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