[Met Performance] CID:134000

Opening Night {58}, General Manager: Edward Johnson

La Fille du Régiment
Metropolitan Opera House, Mon, November 23, 1942




La Fille du Régiment (40)
Gaetano Donizetti | Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges/Jean-François Bayard
Marie
Lily Pons

Tonio
Raoul Jobin

Marquise of Berkenfield
Irra Petina

Sergeant Sulpice
Salvatore Baccaloni

Hortentius
Louis D'Angelo

Duchesse of Krakentorp
Maria Savage

Peasant
Lodovico Oliviero

Corporal
Wilfred Engelman

Notary
William Fisher

Little Duke
Allan Wayne


Conductor
Frank St. Leger


Director
Herbert Graf

Set Designer
Jonel Jorgulesco

Costume Designer
Ladislas Czettel

Choreographer
Laurent Novikoff





La Fille du Régiment received two performances this season.
Pons' costumes were designed by Valentina.
The opera ended in a paen to the Fighting French, with Lily Pons waving the fighting French Cross of Lorraine instead of the customary Tricolor with everybody standing and joining in a chorus of "La Marseillaise."

Review 1:

Review of Oscar Thompson in the Musical America of November 25, 1942

METROPOLITAN BEGINS 58TH SEASON

'La Fille du Regiment,' With Pons in Role of Marie, Heard on the First Night - Baccaloni, Jobin and Petina in Cast - St. Leger Conducts - Patriotic Tableau at the Close

Uniforms were plentiful in the capacity audience that applauded 'La Fille du Regiment' at the opening of the Metropolitan's fifty-eighth season of opera on the evening of Monday, Nov. 23. This was the opera house's second wartime first night and present were many who recalled that of Nov. 12, 1917, when Verdi's 'Aida' was the bill.

The 1942 opening began and ended with 'The Star-Spangled Banner.' In the second instance the national anthem came at the conclusion of the 'Salut à la France' which provides a patriotic finale for the opera and which ordinarily includes the playing and singing of the 'Marseillaise'.' Lily Pons, the Marie of the cast--- she has been in all performances since the Donizetti work was revived two seasons ago, carried forward the banner of the Free French and Wilfred Engelman, in the small part of the corporal, held high the flag of the United States. The audience responded with the expected enthusiasm.

This was the first time a Donizetti opera had launched a Metropolitan season. It was also the first time that an opening night had presented some semblance of a strip tease. There was, of course, the famous dressing room scene in 'Zaza,' and there may have been other episodes in performances of the past that were decidedly bolder than Miss Pons's little disrobing act. It came at the end of the opera's first act and was done to music borrowed from the later interlude that has a melodic phrase like that of the last war's `Over There.' The vivandiere apparently had decided to retire. But she did not proceed very far with the shedding of her garments before she discovered one of the soldiers spying upon her, whereupon the curtains closed. The opera gained nothing from this petty bit of vulgarization and it should be dropped from the repetitions.

Miss Pons was not in her best voice on the opening night and this contributed to a generally commonplace realization of the melodious old score. She and Salvatore Baccaloni, the portly Sergeant Sulpice, were again highly successful in their comedy scenes, though neither conforms to the traditions of the characters they portray. Miss Pons is an essentially cute Marie, not a flashing or dashing one. Mr. Baccaloni devises an admirable buffo personage, but 'La Fille du Regiment' is not an opera buffa. The soprano has the French style and approximates the necessary florid technique, but she remains a very miniature Marie.

The Marquise of Irra Petina is the most exaggerated of all her comedy portraits, but the broad farce of the third-act music scene did not fail of hearty laughter on this occasion. Raoul Jobin's Tonio, though it smacked of Nemorino, the tenor peasant of `L'Elisir d'Amore,' was a more legitimate operatic figure and in the main well sung. Others of the cast were Louis D'Angelo as Hortensius, Lodovico Oliviero as a Peasant, Maria Savage as the Duchess, Allan Wayne as Le Petit Duc and William Fisher as a Notary. Frank St. Leger conducted and Herbert Graf had charge of the stage.



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