[Met Performance] CID:170970



Tosca
Metropolitan Opera House, Mon, February 20, 1956

Debut : Daniele Barioni




Tosca (339)
Giacomo Puccini | Luigi Illica/Giuseppe Giacosa
Tosca
Delia Rigal

Cavaradossi
Daniele Barioni [Debut]

Scarpia
George London

Sacristan
Fernando Corena

Spoletta
Alessio De Paolis

Angelotti
Clifford Harvuot

Sciarrone
George Cehanovsky

Shepherd
Peter Mark

Jailer
Louis Sgarro


Conductor
Dimitri Mitropoulos







Review 1:

Review of Irving Kolodin in Saturday

Daniele Barioni, a young Italian tenor announced for a debut a week ago in "Bohème," suddenly canceled when it became necessary for him to record as a "Metropolitan artist" even before he made that debut, was introduced as suddenly in a recent "Tosca" in place of Giuseppe Campora. At the appointed time Barioni, slim and good-looking in a suitably Latin way, walked through the door of the first-act set with no audience reaction to speak of. When he finished singing "Recondita Armonia" some five minutes later the audience let loose with a spontaneous reaction not often equaled of late.

At this time the strong voice and appealing looks are his primary qualifications, plus an intensity of manner that rode roughshod over dramatic niceties. He comes to the Met at twenty-six, approximately at the time of life that Giuseppe Di Stefano did in 1948. Let us hope he steers a surer course relative to his vocal star than that other gifted, if not too stable, artist.

This was otherwise a "Tosca" in the strong Mitropoulos mold, affected by the circumstances that the Tosca and Scarpia were neither Tebaldi and Warren, nor Milanov and Gobbi -- with whom he had previously rehearsed and worked-but Delia Rigal and George London. Rigal has more command of her voice than in the past, but the sound is not endearing, the dramatic projection unconvincing. London's Scarpia has much that is impelling, but a lot, too, that is crudely physical rather than intellectually subtle. Later in the week Barioni sang a Rodolfo in "Bohème" of similarly frank appeal, though a couple of climaxes were clouded by vocal ineptitude.



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