[Met Performance] CID:123180
Metropolitan Opera Premiere (Amelia Goes to the Ball)
Amelia Goes to the Ball {1}
Elektra {11} Metropolitan Opera House: 03/3/1938.
(Metropolitan Opera Premiere)
(Review)
Metropolitan Opera House
March 3, 1938
Metropolitan Opera Premiere
In English
AMELIA GOES TO THE BALL {1}
Menotti-Menotti
Amelia..................Muriel Dickson
Lover...................Mario Chamlee
Husband.................John Brownlee
Friend..................Helen Olheim
Chief of Police.........Norman Cordon
Cook....................Lucielle Browning
Maid....................Charlotte Symons
Conductor...............Ettore Panizza
Director................Leopold Sachse
Set designer............Donald Oenslager
Translation by George Mead
[Original title: Amelia al Ballo.]
Amelia Goes to the Ball received four performances this season.
ELEKTRA {11}
Elektra.................Rose Pauly
Chrysothemis............Irene Jessner
Klytämnestra............Enid Szánthó
Orest...................Friedrich Schorr
Aegisth.................Paul Althouse
Overseer................Dorothee Manski
Serving Woman...........Lucielle Browning
Serving Woman...........Doris Doe
Serving Woman...........Marita Farell
Serving Woman...........Helen Olheim
Serving Woman...........Thelma Votipka
Confidant...............Anna Kaskas
Trainbearer.............Irra Petina
Young Servant...........Karl Laufkötter
Old Servant.............Arnold Gabor
Guardian................Norman Cordon
Conductor...............Erich Leinsdorf
Review by Pitts Sanborn in the New York World-Telegram
It has taken "Amelia al Ballo" less than a year to bring its merry self to the august stage of the Metropolitan Opera House. The world premiere of Gian Carlo Menotti's one-act opera buffa occurred in English at the Philadelphia Academy of Music on April 1, 1937, sponsored by the Curtis Institute of Music. Now, by all the signs "Amelia", which last night served "Elektra" as curtain-raiser, is in for a prosperous Metropolitan career.
[The] plot, slight as it is, supplies enough of lively incident to keep something always brewing on the stage. And it also furnishes the reason-for-being of a rather delightful opera score. But to label "Amelia" in pride and thanksgiving an American opera seems to be unjustifiable. True, Mr. Menotti studied at the Curtis Institute and wrote the work-he is his own librettist-in this country. Yet he composed the voice parts to Italian words (which are not always easily and aptly rendered in George Mead's English version) and the score is distinctly in the Italian tradition, in spite of the composer's undissembled acquaintance with Richard Strauss, "Auld Lang Syne", and other non-Italian matters.
It is a score conceived in the great comic line of "Le Nozze di Figaro", "Il Matrimonio Segreto", "Il Barbiere di Siviglia", "Don Pasquale", and "Falstaff", as is the case of these masterpieces the orchestra maintains a constant and relishing commentary on the action. The living composer with whose work "Amelia" has the closest affinity is obviously Wolf-Ferrari. Mr. Menotti, however, is less assimilative than Wolf-Ferrari became in "L'Amore Medico", though he too can boast of a serviceable memory, and now and then the effervescent Menotti vintage is momentarily tinctured with lukewarm vanilla soda. To make an end of it all, "Amelia" is an agreeable example of modern Italian opera, vivacious and tuneful, sung in English. American it is not, except through geographical accident.
Aside from the unimportrant and now shabby set lent by the Curtis Institute, the production at the Metropolitan calls for little but praise. Muriel Dickson makes a wholly charming Amelia. John Brownlee portrays the husband with fine skill. Mario Chamlee, embodying the lover, is an expert rope-slider and a doughty fellow with his fists, as well as the possessor of a voice. As the Chief of Police Norman Cordon is quite superb. Ettore Panizza kept the orchestra fizzling like champagne. A capacity audience acclaimed the work , and the youthful composer came before the curtain with the principal artists to bow.
[The production of Amelia Goes to the Ball was borrowed from the Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia.]