Metropolitan Opera Archives

The Metropolitan Opera has a brand new baritone in the person of Mario Sereni and the company has every right to place great stock in his future. On Saturday night he made his debut at the house singing the principal role of Gerard in Giordano's "Andrea Chenier," a work absent from the repertory last season, and he acquitted himself with a grandeur that told in eloquent terms of a sound vocal training and a remarkable operatic aptitude.

His voice, basically, is a big one, which fact does not prevent him from singing lyrically and with considerable color, and since his tones are produced smoothly, his work, for all its power, shows no hint of strain or effort. Near the bottom, in the middle or at the top of his range, the timbre of his voice remains clear, firm and consistently mellow. Mr. Sereni is no barker, nor does he bellow: he maintains a rounded and warm sonority-surface at any and all dynamic levels.

"Fine and Distinctive"

Occasionally, as in his air "Nemico della Patria," he was a mite careless in the moulding of phrases and let them emerge casually, without their fullest meaning; but all things considered, his singing was enormously fine and distinctive. Furthermore, he has a genuine flair for acting and moves about the stage as though it were his natural medium of expression. In all, his debut was an imposing achievement. One awaits with interest his appearances to come.

The production as a whole, with Zinka Milanov and Mario Del Monaco as Maddalena and Chenier, was quite in the best traditions of the work, and the audience responded with the kind of explosive enthusiasm that seems generated only by the Italian wing of the company's repertoire.

Applause Merited

There was ample cause, however, for the prolonged and repeated demonstrations, since Miss Milanov sang with the lustre for which she is appropriately lionized and Mr. Del Monaco, especially in his first act aria, sent forth a stream of tone that was as radiant as it was brilliant.

In addition, Belén Amparan and Ferando Corena, who sang the roles of Madelon and Mathieu for the first time with the company, made vivid, three-dimensional miniatures out of their respective parts; and Fausto Cleva, despite a tendency to overamplify all fortes, conducted' the work with a maximum of brio.

The remainder of the cast included Martha Lipton, Rosalind Elias, George Cehanovsky, Gabor Carelli, Frank Valentino and Alessio De Paolis. Each one of them, in his way, was an added light to the evening's general glow.

Search by season: 1957-58

Search by title: Andrea Chénier,

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