[Met Tour] CID:150230



La Traviata
Boston Opera House, Boston, Massachusetts, Wed, March 23, 1949




La Traviata (316)
Giuseppe Verdi | Francesco Maria Piave
Violetta
Licia Albanese

Alfredo
Jan Peerce

Germont
Robert Merrill

Flora
Thelma Votipka

Gastone
Leslie Chabay

Baron Douphol
George Cehanovsky

Marquis D'Obigny
John Baker

Dr. Grenvil
Osie Hawkins

Annina
Thelma Altman

Dance
Peggy Smithers

Dance
Marina Svetlova


Conductor
Giuseppe Antonicelli







Review 1:

Cyrus Durgin in the Boston Globe

Albanese, Antonicelli Excel in Metropolitan’s Open*ing ‘La Traviata’

 

The Metropolitan Opera Association of New York returned to town last night and began its 15th Boston engagement with a good account of Verdi’s “La Traviata” at the Boston Opera House. Musically this was a very fine performance, due principally to Giuseppe Antonicelli’s authoritative conducting and the excellent singing of Licia Albanese in the title role.

 

We may as well follow the customary rule of ladies first and talk about Miss Albanese’s dynamic Violetta before going on to the powerful and subtle interpretation of Mr. Antonicelli. Miss Albanese is a quite remarkable Violetta because she is fully equal to the vocal demands, which are coloratura at one extreme and almost dramatic at the other, with a vast area of demanding lyrical pages in between. Furthermore, she is a notably skilled and convincing actress in a branch of musical theatre where “acting” all too often is just gesturing or perfunctory stage business.

 

If these were a detail of expression slighted in voice, the motion of her body or even the glance of her eyes, I failed to notice it. The result was a truly moving portrayal of Dumas’ ill-fated light lady of the camellias. To be sure, not all the rushing notes in the fioriture of “Sempre libera” were emitted with absolute evenness, but where can you find a soprano to do that?

 

Mr. Antonicelli’s conducting was no less than masterly. It had great strength, but it also had passion and tenderness and infinite shading. He did not seem to drive the orchestra, but it played with a finesse that one will not forget. Mr. Antonicelli indisputably was in control of stage and pit all the way. This was, further, a performance beautifully proportioned, right in the tempi and mellow in its overall conception.

 

Jan Peerce’s Alfredo was robust and sonorously toned, no marvel either of vocalism or of acting, but suitable in every respect. The rich natural baritone of Robert Merrill, who was singing the elder Germont for the first time here, is a superb voice, and it is well produced, But there was not a great deal of expressive variety in Mr. Merrill’s use of it.

 

Germont is a stuffy old codger, it is true, but more than a lush tapestry of sound is necessary to make the most of the role. This is especially true in “Di Provenza.” That four-square aria that Richard Wagner is said to have played frequently on the piano to show that Italian opera, in his time, was a dying form of art. (Never believe a composer about another composer!)

 

The smaller parts were competently filled. As for the staging, the empty bottles at the champagne party, the stiffly-groomed servants, the solid phalanx of chorus in the third act, all quickly indicated that the way of standard opera, like the way of the transgressor, hasn’t changed a bit.

 

Just before the second act began, H. Wendell Endicott, president of the Boston Opera Association, spoke to the audience, introducing Edward Johnson of the Metropolitan, and another old friend, Lucrezia Bori, in times past one of the Metropolitan’s brightest jewels.

 

Tonight will be an occasion at the Boston Opera House, for the “Salome” of Richard Strauss will be given her for the first time with Ljuba Welitsch making her Boston debut in the name part. “Salome: will be preceded by Puccini’s “Gianni Schicchi,” last sung here in 1927.



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