Metropolitan Opera Archives

A dramatic " Tannhaeuser," admirably cast and brilliantly conducted by George Szell, opened the Metropolitan Opera's final week the Civic Opera house last night while a capacity audience cheered the performance as a whole and the courageous triumph in particular, of its Venus, the Australian soprano, Marjorie Lawrence.

Miss' Lawrence, as the world knows by now, is recovering from infantile paralysis and recently returned to the stage, where she is able to sing by sitting in a specially constructed chair. Last night, half reclining on the couch of the Venusberg, she sang radiantly, even magnificently. Her voice has taken on a new and lovely luster, It always had the healthy ring of a Bruennhilde, but, now it has added the richer tones of an Isolde. The conditions of her return merely added the warmth of audience admiration to what in any case would have been a resounding success.

Opposite Miss Lawrence was the great heldentenor, Lauritz Melchior, singing the title role, while Rose Bampton was a sumptuous Elisabeth and Lawrence Tibbett sang what was to my mind the most satisfactory Wolfram since the unforgotten nights of Heinrich Schlusnus. Like Mr. Melchior, Mr. Tibbett has the texture of legend in his voice and the quality of make believe in his presence. He is no mere singing actor in costume, but a believable figure of any time or place he chooses, momentarily, to inhabit.

Last night these two men gave the opera stage conviction, fire, and the dimensions of tragic beauty. Their meeting in the forest and their duel in the hall of song had the impact of genuine friendship predestined to conflict. Both were in good voice, Mr. Tibbett to brood in somber beauty over his strummed harp, Mr. Melchior to send a superb tenor ringing to the rafters or to touch a phrase with the indescribable magic of tine that gives it infinitely revealing significance.

Miss Bampton was a picture book Elisabeth, whose voice was warm and full and young enough to ride exuberantly with the climax of her greeting to the hall of song. Mr. Cordon was a Landgraf of dignity and presence, and with a bass you had to admire for the skill of its use even as you admitted its lack of sonority in a great role. Of the minstrel knights John Garris has a particularly fresh young tenor, while Maxine Stellman sang the shepherd with a pastoral quality of detachment completely charming.

Working in the pit, Mr. Szell opened the opera with a crackling performance of the overture, and sustained that brilliance in ensemble. He captured the warring elements of the score in remarkable fusion, strumming its pagan fire and its mystical tenderness with notable conviction. The chorus went along with him nobly, despite getting into a sad tangle in the hall of song. Apparently the Chicago settings are still a mystery, and some of the choristers and supers needed a blueprint of where not to stand.

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