[Met Performance] CID:149630



Siegfried
Metropolitan Opera House, Thu, January 27, 1949




Siegfried (210)
Richard Wagner | Richard Wagner
Siegfried
Set Svanholm

Brünnhilde
Helen Traubel

Wanderer
Joel Berglund

Erda
Kerstin Thorborg

Mime
John Garris

Alberich
Gerhard Pechner

Fafner
Luben Vichey

Forest Bird
Paula Lenchner


Conductor
Fritz Stiedry







Review 1:

Review of Robert Sabin in the February 1949 issue of Musical America

The season's second performance of Wagner's opera was one of those rare occasions when every element is in perfect balance. The orchestra, under Fritz Stiedry, gave a glowing account of the score, in which the winds and brasses and strings outdid themselves. It was playing to compare with that of our best symphonic orchestras in its finish, color and range of dynamics. The singers were in uniformly good voice, responding to the conductor with as much alacrity as the instrumentalists. Herbert Graf's stage direction was admirable, offering a visual fulfillment of the psychological implications of the words and music.

The cast was the same as that of the first performance, except that Joel Berglund replaced Herbert Janssen, who was indisposed, as The Wanderer; and Lubomir Vichegonov replaced Dezso Ernster as Fafner. Set Svanholm was Siegfried; Helen Traubel, Brünnhilde; John Garris, Mime; Gerhard Pechner, Alberich; Kerstin Thorborg, Erda; and Paula Lenchner, the Forest Bird. Mr. Svanholm is the ideal Siegfried, youthful in bearing and mature in musical knowledge; and Miss Traubel sang gloriously in the awakening and love duet. It would be hard to imagine a better Mime than that of John Garris, for he contrives to suggest the spitefulness of the character without reducing the vocal line to a series of sputterings, as many Mimes do. Nor should Mr. Berglund's majestic Wanderer go unpraised. He was as noble in bearing as he was resplendent in voice. Fafner both looked and sounded a little too elegant, but Mr. Vichey sang the role impeccably. This performance was a high point of the season, and a reminder that the golden era of the Metropolitan is not yet entirely past.



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