Metropolitan Opera Archives

The people of the Metropolitan pulled themselves together last night at the Opera House and gave us a performance of Strauss's "Der Rosenkavalier" that made all - or most all - the expense and fuss of getting tickets worth the while. It might have had more style, and of course it looked perfectly terrible with the moth-eaten scenery, costumes and décor in general that seems oddly to enchant the Metropolitan, but it was marvelously well conducted by George Szell, excellently played by the orchestra and often beautifully sung by the four principals.

It didn't start any too auspiciously. The first act got by chiefly through the fine impression Irene Jessner, as the Marschallin, and Rise Stevens, as Octavian, made in the closing moments, since the [first] scene and the Marscahallin's audience scene were flawed by mediocre singing, improper balance between orchestra and singers and, inevitably, by untidy, unsightly staging. From then on, however, things looked up considerably all around and by the time they reached the great trio of the third act, all was forgiven - or most of all.

The opera, as you know, is easily one of the most beguiling in all the repertoire, but things being what they are on a Saturday morning, we'll have to deal largely with performance. It was, by all odds, George Szell's show in the pit. It was he who gave it pace, contrast, lift; he who underlined the subtleties of the score in connection with the instrumental commentaries on the action; he who gave the cumulative emotion of the third act the poignance and its meaning. Everything the opera became as it went along sprang, I think, from him.

Rise Stevens, who hasn't sung this role here in five or six years, was in better voice than she has been recently and made the most of it to accomplish a vocally highly satisfactory performance. At first her deportment was rather too feminine for the part, but the second and third acts found her in the vein. Emanuel List is always a wonderful old rogue as the baron, and so he was last night, while Nadine Conner conveyed a charmingly demure and chaste quality as Sophie, singing with fine purity of voice. Miss Jessner's conception of the Marschallin was sometimes coquettish rather than poignant, but on the whole hers was an admirable performance, too, and there were good bits by Herta Glaz and Walter Olitzki. Nobody else in the cast counts very much, but this hardly gives the Metropolitan leave to let them count in such random fashion and in such rags and tatters. Come to think of it, however, nobody does count with the Metropolitan but the stars, so I suppose it does not matter.

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