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[Met Performance] CID:153160



La Traviata
Metropolitan Opera House, Mon, March 13, 1950









Review 1:

Cecil Smith in Musical America

The late-season performance of Verdi’s “La Traviata” answered adequately to the specific demands of the score and the drama without engaging upon the listener’s imagination or persuading him that the particular interpreters of the evening were possessed of revelatory insight. Dorothy Kirsten, an ingratiating, but cool Violetta, sang impeccably, with more attention than usual to the devices of legato phrasing and piquant accent, but she never achieved the impassioned utterance of which the fourth act of Puccini’s “Manon Lescaut” has shown her capable. Charles Kullman’s  Alfredo may best be described as experienced and authoritative, since he was not in easy voice. Frank Guarrera made a static figure of the elder Germont, as most baritones do. In his singing, however, he demonstrated a praiseworthy, and for him unusual (at least at the Metropolitan), willingness to modulate his voice, and he presented a sympathetic balance with Miss Kirsten’s lyric tone throughout the second-act duet. Jonel Perlea conducted, and the shorter roles were carried capably by Thelma Votipka, Thelma Altman, Paul Franke, George Cehanovsky, Lawrence Davidson, and Osie Hawkins.

Search by season: 1949-50

Search by title: La Traviata,



Met careers

• Jonel Perlea [Conductor]
• Dorothy Kirsten [Violetta]
• Charles Kullman [Alfredo]
• Frank Guarrera [Germont]
• Thelma Votipka [Flora]
• Paul Franke [Gastone]
• George Cehanovsky [Baron Douphol]
• Lawrence Davidson [Marquis D'Obigny]
• Osie Hawkins [Dr. Grenvil]
• Thelma Altman [Annina]
• Audrey Keane [Dance]
• Peggy Smithers [Dance]