[Met Performance] CID:155590
Der Rosenkavalier {137} Metropolitan Opera House: 01/5/1951.

(Debut: Fritz Krenn
Review)


Metropolitan Opera House
January 5, 1951


DER ROSENKAVALIER {137}
R. Strauss-Hofmannsthal

Octavian.....................Risė Stevens
Princess von Werdenberg......Helen Traubel
Baron Ochs...................Fritz Krenn [Debut]
Sophie.......................Erna Berger
Faninal......................John Brownlee
Annina.......................Hertha Glaz
Valzacchi....................Alessio De Paolis
Italian Singer...............Kurt Baum
Marianne.....................Thelma Votipka
Mahomet......................Peggy Smithers
Princess' Major-domo.........Emery Darcy
Orphan.......................Barbara Troxell
Orphan.......................Paula Lenchner
Orphan.......................Margaret Roggero
Milliner.....................Genevieve Warner
Animal Vendor................Leslie Chabay
Hairdresser..................Etienne Barone
Notary.......................Lawrence Davidson
Leopold......................Ludwig Burgstaller
Faninal's Major-domo.........Paul Franke
Innkeeper....................Leslie Chabay
Police Commissioner..........Lorenzo Alvary

Conductor....................Fritz Reiner

Director.....................Herbert Graf
Set designer.................Hans Kautsky
Costume designer.............Alfred Roller

Der Rosenkavalier received seven performances this season.

Review of Irving Kolodin in The Saturday Review
The prospect of Traubel as the Marschallin, I need hardly mention, was one to give pause; so big a figure in the role whose performer should be wistful at least, if not fragile, appealing if not prepossessing, seemed all wrong. Maybe she shouldn't have undertaken it; but having decided to, she evoked a creature in her own image, no copy of another, and sang the music as no one heard here since Lotte Lehmann has-with an intelligence, a keenness, and a warmth remarkable for a first performance. Mostly she sat, and when she moved it was in a well-planned orbit. Some expressed surprise that she could color and shade her big voice so adroitly but it is precisely that which has been outstanding in her recent Isoldes. One can hardly call it a great Marschallin, for it is two-dimensional, so to speak; but it is a beautifully sung one which does honor to Traubel's purpose as an artist.

Krenn sang more of the notes in Ochs's part than have been heard here in years, with strength at both ends of the scale. It is a more youthful, limber playing of the roles than the Metropolitan knew in Emanuel List's time, but the touch is good, the comedy wholly naturalistic, unexaggerated. Doubtless it will gain in subtlety as Krenn finds himself more at home at the Metropolitan but he is plainly a Baron as well as an Ochs. Stevens has never sung a better Octavian and Berger's Sophie was all brightness of sound, all lightness of manner. In the final trio, the blend of voices was something to hear. Brownlee's Faninal was his first role here in German, but his commnad of the role was as apt as his Italian, French, and English, and as always he made the character live. In the pit Reiner made the performance glow with the kind of concentrated force and clarity that tipify his work at its best. For this season, this was it.