[Met Performance] CID:149750



Tristan und Isolde
Metropolitan Opera House, Mon, February 7, 1949




Tristan und Isolde (335)
Richard Wagner | Richard Wagner
Tristan
Set Svanholm

Isolde
Helen Traubel

Kurwenal
Joel Berglund

Brangäne
Kerstin Thorborg

King Marke
Dezsö Ernster

Melot
Emery Darcy

Sailor's Voice
John Garris

Shepherd
Leslie Chabay

Steersman
Philip Kinsman


Conductor
Max Rudolf







Review 1:

Review of Herbert F. Peyser in Musical America

The only unaccustomed feature of this performance was the conductor. In Fritz Busch's absence, the job of piloting the repetition of Wagner's tragedy fell to Max Rudolf, who acquitted himself like a competent routinier. True, there were two or three slight technical slips in orchestral playing during the evening and the tempi in the prelude and much of the first act were needlessly fast. Things picked up afterwards, although, of course, there were no unwonted departures, the orchestra having only to repeat what it had done time and again under Mr. Busch.

The cast was the familiar one. Helen Traubel, if not in her best voice during the [first] act, became her own admirable self in the second and from then on her tones gained steadily in luster. The Brangäne was Kerstin Thorborg, who found the high passages of the role something of a strain. Set Svanholm's Tristan remains a characterization of the most penetrating intelligence; and the tenor was in rare vocal shape. His delivery of the music revealed once more a fund of subtle inflections, Joel Berglund's Kurvenal, Deszo Ernster's King Marke, and the smaller contributions of Emery Darcy, John Garris, Leslie Chabay, and Philip Kinsman rounded out the cast.



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