[Met Performance] CID:152360
Madama Butterfly {301} Metropolitan Opera House: 12/29/1949.
(Review)
Metropolitan Opera House
December 29, 1949
MADAMA BUTTERFLY {301}
Cio-Cio-San.............Elisabetta Barbato [Last performance]
Pinkerton...............James Melton
Suzuki..................Lucielle Browning
Sharpless...............John Brownlee
Goro....................Alessio De Paolis
Bonze...................Melchiorre Luise
Yamadori................George Cehanovsky
Kate Pinkerton..........Anne Bollinger
Commissioner............John Baker
Conductor...............Giuseppe Antonicelli
Review of C. H. in unknown newspaper
MISS BARBATO SINGS ROLE IN '"BUTTERFLY"
Elisabetta Barbato, Italian soprano, who made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera in the role of Tosca this season, last night undertook the less intensive part of Cio-Cio-San in "Madame Butterfly." The listener, admittedly, had to take the bad with the good, but the odds, last night, were in the young singer's favor.
The fact is that Miss Barbato is a professional artist in many ways. She has a fine sense of pitch and sostenuto and an ear for subtleties of phrasing; she can develop dramatic intensity that called for cheers and - although rarely - produces entrancing vocal colors. Besides which she is an efficient actress.
These things were most apparent during her two big arias in the second act, where she portrayed warmly human person. Elsewhere, one was distressed by the varying types of her vocal production, from attractive, but nearly inaudible soft phrases to brassy fortissimos that seemed about to get out of control.
The remainder of last night's cast was familiar. James Melton, John Brownlee and Lucielle Browning had the leading roles, and Giuseppe Antonicelli conducted.