[Met Performance] CID:140430
New production (Il Tabarro)
Il Tabarro {12}
Don Pasquale {38} Matinee Broadcast ed. Metropolitan Opera House: 01/5/1946., Broadcast
(Broadcast
Debut: Dino Yannopoulos
Review)
Metropolitan Opera House
January 5, 1946 Matinee Broadcast
New production
IL TABARRO {12}
Puccini-Adami
Giorgetta...............Licia Albanese
Luigi...................Frederick Jagel
Michele.................Lawrence Tibbett
Frugola.................Margaret Harshaw
Talpa...................Virgilio Lazzari
Tinca...................Alessio De Paolis
Song Seller.............Anthony Marlowe
Lover...................Maxine Stellman
Lover...................Thomas Hayward
Conductor...............Cesare Sodero
Director................Dino Yannopoulos [Debut]
Set designer............Joseph Novak
Il Tabarro received four performances this season.
DON PASQUALE {38}
Donizetti-Ruffini
Don Pasquale............Salvatore Baccaloni
Norina..................Bidú Sayao
Ernesto.................Nino Martini
Dr. Malatesta...........John Brownlee
Notary..................Alessio De Paolis
Conductor...............Fritz Busch
Director................Désiré Defrère
Designer................Jonel Jorgulesco
Don Pasquale received four performances this season.
Review of Virgil Thomson in The New York Herald Tribune
Puccini's one act opera, "Il Tabarro," which was produced yesterday afternoon at the Metropolitan Opera House for the first time since 1920, is a lugubrious little story about a sex triangle on a canal boat.
The music is pretty, though like all the music of Puccini's later years a little skimpily harmonized. Its atmospheric passages are genuinely atmospheric, too. They don't evoke anything in particular, but they are good for suggesting any scene that is painted on the backdrop. And the people have the standard Puccini life, chiefly a state of howling self-pity.
["Il Tabarro's"] density, I should say is about that of "The Girl of the Golden West." Which is to say that there are lovely moments in it but that there are also thin spots. Yesterday, at the end, the effects of terror and pity, which are the only criteria for judging such a melodrama, seemed not very prevalent in the house. Your reporter neither witnessed tears nor felt any milling in his breast.
The vocal rendering of the work was adequate, though at no point thrilling. The orchestra leadership and general pacing was clear. The acting was mostly a bit stiff. A worthy performance only.