[Met Performance] CID:193000

New Production

Adriana Lecouvreur
Metropolitan Opera House, Mon, January 21, 1963

Debut : Igor Youskevitch, Carlo Maria Cristini, Casa d'Arte Firenze di Ruggero Peruzzi




Adriana Lecouvreur (4)
Francesco Cilea | Arturo Colautti
Adriana Lecouvreur
Renata Tebaldi

Maurizio
Franco Corelli

Princess di Bouillon
Irene Dalis

Michonnet
Anselmo Colzani

Bouillon
William Wilderman

Abbé
Paul Franke

Jouvenot
Laurel Hurley

Dangeville
Helen Vanni

Duclos
Audrey Keane

Poisson
Andrea Velis

Quinault
Norman Scott

Major-domo
John Trehy

Dance
Judith Chazin

Dance
Patricia Heyes

Dance
Katharyn Horne

Dance
Igor Youskevitch [Debut]

Dance
Ron Sequoio


Conductor
Silvio Varviso


Production
Nathaniel Merrill

Set Designer
Camillo Parravicini

Set Designer
Carlo Maria Cristini [Debut]

Costume Designer
Casa d'Arte Firenze di Ruggero Peruzzi [Debut]

Choreographer
Alexandra Danilova





The production was designed by Carlo Maria Cristini after sketches by Camillo Parravicini.
Adriana Lecouvreur received ten performances this season.

FUNDING:
Production a gift of The Metropolitan Opera Guild

Review 1:

Review of Irving Kolodin in the Saturday

If the "Fidelio" was in accord with the best that Bing had promised, the revival of "Adriana Lecouvreur" was a sad concession to something he had assured us we need not fear-the star system. Tried and found wanting here as long ago as 1907, it would not have occurred to anyone to put it on again had it not occurred to Renata Tebaldi as just the sort of thing she should be doing at this phase of her career. Between the time of her decision last year ("No Adriana, no Renata") and her willingness to come this year, previous plans for a Cecil Beaton production were scrapped and a Neapolitan one copied instead. Opulently undistinguished, it suits the score perfectly in being superficially attractive and fundamentally barren of quality.

Dramatically derived from Scribe's convoluted rivalry of the actress Adrienne and the Princess de Bouillon for the love of the Count of Saxony (Maurizio in the opera), "Adriana" is theatrically vapid and musically void. It would be a laughable indulgence for a privately sponsored institution; for a public one that pleads poverty every time union pressures are exerted, this obeisance to Tebaldi's whim may have wider implications. Perhaps the money invested by the Metropolitan Opera Guild in underwriting the sizeable bill for rehearsing a large cast, chorus, and ballet as well as building the sets (probably $50,000) may be recovered, but not the time wasted in learning parts few will use again. The money would have gone far to produce such a worthy work as Halévy's "La Juive." or Boito's "Mefistofele," or even Verdi's "Giovanna d'Arco," which Tebaldi was once happy to sing, while time is the one commodity the Metropolitan traditionally has the least of.

The pretty tunes and succulent orchestration of them (even a solo violin sighing behind a declaration of love) are credited to Francesco Cilea, but surely this must be a "nom de guerre opératique" for someone named Massennini or Puccinet. There is scarcely a page or an episode in the four acts that could not be affiliated with a similar treatment in "Manon" (Parisian high life) or "Tosca" (for melodrama and theatrical atmosphere). Its several well-written arias come but do not go as they are plugged unmercifully, act after act.

Indeed, it is one of the distinctions of "Adriana" that you can miss the first act and still hear its arias in Act II, as she sings what he sang and then they sing it together. The threads of the plot may be harder to grasp this way, but they are mostly unimportant anyway. What is important is that Adriana wears four different costumes, is admired by her fellow mummers as "Magnifica," "splendida," "portentosa" (all are in the text), has the opportunity to recite lines from two plays of Racine (as the historical Adrienne did at the Comédie Française in the early 1700s), is able to live extravagantly and die glamorously from a poisoned flower dispatched by her rival in love. Unlike those whose works he admired, Cilea cannot stiffen the musical mix with dramatic substance when an issue is joined. It remains all icing and no cake.

Tebaldi had invested much time in slimming her figure by more than twenty pounds, and she carried herself handsomely in the flowing costumes designed by "Casa Firenze." But vocal constriction now sets in at about A, which was formerly a bell she rang with consistent clarity. Only the middle had the lovely sound of old. Dramatically, Tebaldi played the part of the sawdust puppet with all the endearing belief in its reality that animates a child fondling a doll. However, in choosing a vehicle for herself, she should not have elected one in which the reins may fall into alien hands. Often enough the one in the driver's seat was not Tebaldi, but Franco Corelli, whose figure is even more spectacular than hers, whose costumes as Maurizio were worthy of a doorman at the Ritz (or the Russian Bear), and who sang the music with a ringing brilliance that was even shaded now and then to just a "forte." The role of the Princess also provides some scene-stealing moments, but not as impersonated by Irene Dalis, who used her substantial voice to good musical ends, but without theatrical magnetism.



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