[Met Performance] CID:192870



Un Ballo in Maschera
Metropolitan Opera House, Wed, January 9, 1963




Un Ballo in Maschera (85)
Giuseppe Verdi | Antonio Somma
Amelia
Birgit Nilsson

Riccardo
Richard Tucker

Renato
Robert Merrill

Ulrica
Lili Chookasian

Oscar
Mattiwilda Dobbs

Samuel
William Wilderman

Tom
John Macurdy

Silvano
Roald Reitan

Judge
Paul Franke

Servant
Robert Nagy

Dance
Judith Chazin

Dance
Ron Sequoio

Dance
William Burdick


Conductor
Nello Santi







Review 1:

Review of Irving Kolodin in Saturday

Birgit Nilsson singing her first Amelias at the Metropolitan, the better of the two operas Verdi combined under the title of "Un Ballo in Maschera" is now closer to its best self than at any time since the present production was introduced a year ago. "Ballo" II is the one that begins midway in Act II, when Amelia, striving desperately to act the faithful wife, finds herself scorned for infidelity, and Verdi's sympathy for humans in distress leaps from the pages.

To this pass of events Miss Nilsson brings the intelligence that makes her a fine Isolde and the vocal resource that makes her a great Turandot. But as she does not sing Puccini as she sings Wagner, neither does she sing Verdi as she sings either of the others. Hers is not by nature the limpid, soaring sound native to his needs, and she has a problem to surmount in moderating its volume, amending its timbre to the style and to the scoring. But, being an artistic singer as well as an intelligent and resourceful one, Miss Nilsson finds her way to an adjustment within a relatively short time, say, by the middle of her duet with Riccardo. Thereafter, and especially in the trio with Riccardo and Renato, and in the scene of Renato's discomfiture at her supposed duplicity (the laughter of the scornful conspirators makes them blood-brothers to the courtiers in "Rigoletto"), Miss Nilsson sustains just the attitude and accent of injured innocence to make Amelia, as she should be, the key figure in the life-and-death drama involving the king and his best friend, her husband. Furthermore, by simple care in arranging her costume and veil, she gives some credibility to the pretense that her husband is unaware of her identity until she reveals herself. This is much to accomplish in an operatic role and she is to be thanked for showing that it can be done.

Her closest partner in credibility as well as vocal excellence was Robert Merrill, long a fine-sounding Renato and now a believable one in action as well. The current state of Richard Tucker's Riccardo was observed on an earlier occasion this season, and might be summarized as a combination of the sublime (to the ear) and the ridiculous (to the eye). Nello Santi was again the conductor.



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