[Met Performance] CID:220810



Norma
Metropolitan Opera House, Thu, March 19, 1970

Debut : Ivo Vinco




Norma (68)
Vincenzo Bellini | Felice Romani
Norma
Joan Sutherland

Pollione
John Alexander

Adalgisa
Marilyn Horne

Oroveso
Ivo Vinco [Debut]

Flavio
Rod MacWherter

Clotilde
Carlotta Ordassy


Conductor
Richard Bonynge







Review 1:

Donal Henahan in The New York Times
MET 'NORMA' PAYS A TRIBUTE TO VOICE

Bellini's "Norma," which had its fifth performance of the season Thursday night in the Metropolitan Opera's new production, is a monument to an elder age in which voice, qua voice, was virtually all that counted in opera. In that sense, the current "Norma" makes legitimate claims to being a success, for it provides a seemingly endless exhibition of great vocalism and little or no theatrical punch.


Like her style of dramatic droop or not, Joan Sutherland carried off with extraordinary technical flair one of opera's most brutal roles, the title part. And her friend Adalgisa, as sung by Marilyn Horne, sounded less like a secondary Druidic virgin than the night's prima diva. Faced with such feminine fireworks, Ivo Vinco, the Italian basso, inevitably took a while to make an impression in his Metropolitan debut as Oroveso. But he asserted his dark vocal strength with the Archdruid's aria of anger, "Ah, del Tebro." (Where the score indicates "Con ferocia," Mr. Vinco complied by whacking his spear once on the floor, which was at least more theater than most of the production offered.)


In the neo-Wagnerian gloom of the production, John Alexander could be espied portraying his first Metropolitan Pollione. Mr. Alexander's tenor, while not-suitably flexible for Bellini, rang out well, and he held his end up in the great ensembles. His most dramatic contribution came when he stepped on Adalgisa's train as she lunged away from him, very nearly putting her in traction.



Search by season: 1969-70

Search by title: Norma,



Met careers