Metropolitan Opera Archives

Carmen received eighteen performances this season.

Review 1:

Review of Christie Barter in Musical America
Bizet’s “Carmen” was given its first performance of the season in the same version as revived last year and staged by Tyrone Guthrie. Rise Stevens again played the role to which she now has almost exclusive title at the Metropolitan and the other principal members of the cast—Mario del Monaco, the Don José, Nadine Conner, the Micaela, and Frank Guarrera, the Escamillo — had also been seen before in their roles.

The production was as colorful as ever, with settings and costumes by
Rolf Gerard, but Mr. Guthrie's exciting "mise en scène" had become rather slip-shod over the summer. The director was away, and although the original stage business was for the most part carefully retained, it frequently lost its effect through bad timing or over exaggeration. In the last scene, Miss Stevens clutched not one, but both of the cheese-cloth hangings at the stage-left window before slumping to the floor for her final gasp. Crowd movements tended to revert to older, more comfortable ways except in scenes, such as the [beginning] of the second act, where the dancers, who have had more discipline in remembering such things, moved according to the established pattern and the singers stood in a fixed tableau.

Miss Stevens' Carmen was, as usual, vital and uninhibited. Her characterization was overwhelmingly sympathetic, charming the spectator both visually and emotionally (even in its occasionally uncontrolled moments), but there was considerable strain and unevenness in the voice. Mr. Del Monaco sang Don José with spirit and dramatic conviction, and whatever vocal tightness there might have been in his earlier scenes disappeared in the fourth act. Although his tone quality was murky and failed to satisfy completely the vocal requirements of the role, Mr. Guarrera made an intelligent and imposingly athletic Escamillo. By far the best of the evening was the singing of Nadine Conner who, as Micaela, sang her third-act aria with alluring delicacy and expressiveness.

The card duet between Frasquita and Mercedes was nicely sung by Lucine Amara and Margaret Roggero. Others in the cast, all of whom handled their assignments capably were Osie Hawkins as Zuniga, Clifford Harvuot as Morales, George Cehanovsky as Dancaire, and Alessio de Paolis as Remendado. Fritz Reiner conducted the orchestra and contributed most to the measured success of the evening.

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