[Met Performance] CID:152100



Madama Butterfly
Metropolitan Opera House, Sat, December 3, 1949




Madama Butterfly (299)
Giacomo Puccini | Luigi Illica/ Giuseppe Giacosa
Cio-Cio-San
Dorothy Kirsten

Pinkerton
James Melton

Suzuki
Jean Madeira

Sharpless
John Brownlee

Goro
Alessio De Paolis

Bonze
Melchiorre Luise

Yamadori
George Cehanovsky

Kate Pinkerton
Anne Bollinger

Commissioner
Denis Harbour


Conductor
Giuseppe Antonicelli


Director
Désiré Defrère

Set Designer
Joseph Urban





Madama Butterfly received seven performances this season.

Review 1:

R. P. in The New York Times

MISS KIRSTEN SINGS “'BUTTERFLY” LEAD

 

Acclaimed by Audience at the Metropolitan—Giuseppe Antonicelli Is Conductor

 

The Metropolitan Opera is engaged in paying tribute to Puccini, and on Saturday night it honored him in a fitting way. It gave its first “Madama Butterfly” of the season a glowing performance.

 

The production was well integrated, dramatically convincing, handsome to look at and splendid to hear. Dorothy Kirsten was so good as Cio-Cio-San that one is tempted to call her superb. And Giuseppe Antonicelli, the conductor, had the production lifted off the ground from the excitement of the very first measures.

 

Only the two male leads — James Melton as Pinkerton and John Brownlee as Sharpless — were a little vocally dry. But they both suited their parts physically and Mr. Brownlee acted with a balance of humor and sympathy. Besides, it's a woman's opera anyway.

 

At the final curtain the capacity audience waited to cheer Miss Kirsten. She deserved it. Her performance was so well rounded that it is difficult to know which to praise most, her acting or her singing. She was as moving when

she stood in stunned silence on not finding Pinkerton in the final act as she was when singing her last farewell to her child.

 

Pure, clear, perfectly-assured tones poured from her lips as if singing were as natural as speech. From her high soaring notes above the chorus of women on her first entrance one could tell she was in excellent voice. And she sustained the level through the whole performance.

 

There was a new Suzuki in the person of Jean Madeira, who joined the company last season. It was her first appearance in the role, and will not be her last, for she is graceful in bearing, a sensitive actress and an attractive singer. Her flower duet with Miss Kirsten was really lovely.

 

Two other new singers did small parts nicely. Denis Harbour sang his first Imperial Commissary and Anne Bollinger her first Kate Pinkerton. Others in the cast were Alessio De Paolis, Melchiorre Luise and George Cehanovsky.

 



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