[Met Performance] CID:158500



Lucia di Lammermoor
Metropolitan Opera House, Thu, January 3, 1952




Lucia di Lammermoor (256)
Gaetano Donizetti | Salvadore Cammarano
Lucia
Lily Pons

Edgardo
Mario Del Monaco

Enrico
Renato Capecchi

Raimondo
Nicola Moscona

Normanno
Paul Franke

Alisa
Thelma Votipka

Arturo
Thomas Hayward

Dance
Janet Picarde

Dance
Karl Klauser


Conductor
Fausto Cleva







Review 1:

Review of Cecil Smith in the January 15, 1952 issue of Musical America

As the Lammermoor bride, Lily Pons languished and maddened in the company of two Scots who had not previously appeared in this guise at the Metropolitan-Mario del Monaco,

Edgardo, and Renato Capecchi, as Lord Enrico Ashton. Mr. Del Monaco was a handsome and impetuous lover, more at ease vocally in moments of anger and stress than in the gentler strains of the first-act duet and the closing "Tu the à Dio spiegasti l'ali." In Donizetti's music his failure to achieve any semblance of a legato line was disaffecting; but, in compensation, his honest and lively belief in the dramatic values of the score made his performance a vivid and lively one.

Mr. Capecchi, who sang well in his debut in "La Traviata," had by now fallen prey to the fashionable and ruinous desire of Metropolitan baritones to make a great big noise. His voice was alternately tightly forced and spread wide open and its sound was virtually never pleasant. He sang and acted intelligently enough, but the virtues of his interpretation were not sufficient to counterbalance the ugly sounds he made.

Miss Pons, in particularly felicitous voice, sang the mad scene as delightfully as I have heard her do it in a number of years. The tone was poised and pretty; the embellishments, scales and arpeggios were clear and accurate; and every note, including the final high F at the end of each part, was precisely in the middle of the pitch. Thelma Votipka was again a superior Alisa. Nicola Moscona, also in fine voice, was a sympathetic Raimondo. Gabor Carelli as Arturo and Paul Franke as Normanno completed the cast, and Fausto Cleva conducted



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