[Met Performance] CID:149000

Opening Night {64}, General Manager: Edward Johnson

Otello
Metropolitan Opera House, Mon, November 29, 1948 Telecast





Otello (94)
Giuseppe Verdi | Arrigo Boito
Otello
Ramon Vinay

Desdemona
Licia Albanese

Iago
Leonard Warren

Emilia
Martha Lipton

Cassio
John Garris

Lodovico
Nicola Moscona

Montàno
Clifford Harvuot

Roderigo
Thomas Hayward

Herald
Philip Kinsman


Conductor
Fritz Busch


Director
Herbert Graf

Set Designer
Donald Oenslager





Otello received twelve performances this season.
This was the first telecast from the stage of the opera house.

Review 1:

Review of Irving Kolodin in the New York Sun

The opera season that wasn't to be, opened in the Metropolitan last night with an audience which, for numbers and finery, gave no evidence of being improvised in haste. The pageantry outside was as well-rehearsed, as familiar in casting, as the opera inside; there was indeed a touch of elegance not customary in the fourrageres of the attendants representing the ABC network which made history by telecasting an opera for the first time from the house.

That opera, if it has escaped mention previously, was "Otello," which can be magnificent or drab according to the degree to which the performers fulfill the opportunities presented by the composer (Verdi) and the librettist (Shakespeare, amended by Boito). As often as it verged toward the higher category, the credit was due primarily to Fritz Busch, who conducted, and Licia Albanese, who sang Desdemona, both for the first time here. In fact, it was the high musical standard established by Busch which, refusing to be affected by early uncertainties, finally brought the work to an eloquent conclusion.

The mention of the musical standard is pertinent, for Busch inclines less to broad dramatic effects than to a clean, orderly (sometimes even subtle) addition of one detail to another. But, as we have learned before, from his "Tristan" and "Lohengrin," there is always line and purpose to his conception. I have heard the opening storm more furiously delivered, the rank drama of the second act played with more vivid colors, but the effects accumulated to a truly beautiful final scene.

ALBANESE IN FINE VOICE

That the success of this final scene depends most on the temper of the Desdemona is a tribute to the artistry of Mme. Albanese. She did not seize the mood of the work at once (the first act glamour of the love duet would not seem to be her style at all) but as the characterization becomes increasingly woebegone, the qualities which have made her an admirable Butterfly, for example, mount in importance. These include real skill in shaping a vocal line, and the talent (by no means common among prima donni) for arousing the sympathy of an audience. After a rather careful beginning, Mme. Albanese's voice was wholly at her command (save for a little waver in the "Ave Maria") with scant suggestion of the vocal weakness which followed her illness a year ago. Her "Willow Song" was an uncommon piece of vocal art.

In the early acts, dependent as they are on the Otello and Iago, the performance bruised rather than seared. Ramon Vinay had the use of a mantle used by Edwin Booth, a scimitar employed by E. L. Davenport, and a handkerchief touched by the hand of Salvini, illustrious Otellos all. Since no one has found the secret of transmitting the voice of Tamagno, Slezak or Martinelli to another, Vinay relied upon his own. All one can say is that he was probably more uncomfortable, even, than his listeners; for he has no top to speak of, and this is a part where, only occasionally, the writing is reasonable. One suffered with him, but not for the reasons intended by Verdi. He was never too tortured to smooth a sleeve or straighten his tunic, which left credibility a little lacking. Now and then his voice approached eloquence, but only fleetingly.

Since Shaw found Maurel, the original Iago, the equivalent of "a good provincial tragedian, mouthing and ranting a little" there is probably no purpose in taxing Leonard Warren for his dramatic failings. In fact, he blended better with Herbert Graf's stage pictures than before and was invariably good for a sonorous phrase when the performance was in need of it. Thought, or use, seems to have blemished the old vocal bloom of Warren; we hope it is the former rather than the latter, for that can be corrected. Mention should be made, too, of a clean, sensitive Cassio by John Garris and Thomas Hayward's able Roderigo.

The Metropolitan opening between Thanksgiving and Christmas might well be institutionalized as a supplementary holiday; it is cause for thanks, unquestionably, and yet does not carry the implication of unexpected gifts associated with the rule. Comment on the televising may be left for others, but the last was highly successful. The black and white pictures were unexpectedly effective, and the close-ups - musical and visual - were vastly beyond what any one in the theater could experience. If this is the infancy of the art, its adolescence (and maturity) can only be awaited with impatience.

Review 2:

Review of Radio-Television Critic John Crosby in the New York Herald Tribune

Opera by Video

After one of the wariest, most apologetic advance publicity campaigns in recent memory, the American Broadcasting Company last Monday televised the Metropolitan Opera for the first time with remarkable success. The difficulties were so manifold that every one concerned pleaded for more forgiveness than seemed, in the light of results, quite necessary.

Verdi's "Otello" by television, bugs and all, was a stirring experience, about five times as stirring, I should say off-hand, as "Otello" by radio alone. The camera men worked under incredible conditions. For one thing, the Met is wired for direct current; the cameras are geared for alternating current, which meant special lines had to be run in. Camera blowers couldn't be used because of the noise, so the cameras had to be cooled by dry ice, a makeshift arrangement. Where normally A. B. C. would have taken out some seats and installed their cameras at eye level, the network had to be content with positions in the orchestra pit. The effect was to distend some waistlines, which ordinarily are not precisely small, to grotesque limits. Every one, including Edward Johnson, director of the Met, looked like Falstaff.

Nevertheless, either by accident or design, there were some thrilling pictures. In some of the darker scenes, notably in the first act, the play of light and shadow on the singers in the great vault of the Metropolitan stage looked like Rembrandt prints. The great choral numbers, the orchestra and the leads were heard through television's FM with its wide-band transmission with a brilliance and tonal fidelity that AM radio cannot match.

There has been considerable sour comment in other quarters that visual opera will come as a terrible shock to opera lovers who have previously been exposed to it only on radio. I find this impossible. There is no doubt but that the Metropolitan's great roster contains some of the worst actors, and actresses on earth. Also by Hollywood standards the Met's, ladies are not likely to drive Betty Grable out of the pin-up business.

Still, the Met sells out every season not only in New York but on tour throughout the country and it's reasonable to suppose the television audience will overlook these failings as does the live audience. Certainly the small but immensely devoted radio audience is going to take happily to televised opera and I've a feeling that thousands of others who found broadcast opera tedious and meaningless will embrace it by television, where the action comes eloquently alive in front of them.

Licia Albanese, the tragic heroine of "Otello" is not my dream Desdemona, but her voice, though small, is pure as spring water, which is enough for me. Ramon Vinay, who played Otello, has been most adequately described by Virgil Thomson as "a staggerer and lurcher." The only thing I have to add to this is that television close-ups make these acrobatics even more preposterous. Something definitely will have to be done about Met acting. Leonard Warren was, in my not very professional opinion, a fine Iago in all respects.

While admitting the haphazard nature of the first broadcast, both the Metropolitan and. A. B. C. are more than happy with their experiment, which came off better than any one had hoped. The broadcast was filmed and, if the films - especially the sound - are at all faithful reproductions of the original, they will be shipped to other television stations. Opera will definitely be televised in the future, but whether it will be done again this year is debatable. The engineers have a lot of work ahead of them.

In the future, though, television will undoubtedly exert great influence on the Met (as did radio) in the selection of operas most suitable for television and also in the selection of a cast. The Met's roster includes some pretty glamorous girls (Dorothy Kirsten, Lily Pons, Gladys Swarthout) who can give the Hollywood queens a run for their money.

The between-acts fillers were pretty dreadful and will probably continue to be for some time. Every one of major or minor importance was dragged in front of the cameras and interviewed. None had much to say. Some of the comments: Lawrence Tibbett: "It feels marvelously." Lily Pons: "Eets jus' a treeliag night." Margaret Truman: "Sorry I'm late. There was a little traffic on Thirty-ninth Street."



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