[Met Performance] CID:168480
Don Giovanni {184} Metropolitan Opera House: 04/1/1955.
(Review)
Metropolitan Opera House
April 1, 1955
DON GIOVANNI {184}
Don Giovanni............Jerome Hines
Donna Anna..............Margaret Harshaw
Don Ottavio.............Eugene Conley
Donna Elvira............Lucine Amara
Leporello...............Fernando Corena
Zerlina.................Nadine Conner
Masetto.................Lawrence Davidson
Commendatore............Luben Vichey
Conductor...............Max Rudolf
Review signed J. S. in Musical America
In the fifth and final performance of Mozart's opera this season, Jerome Hines portrayed the Don with considerable aplomb and vocal polish. Fernando Corona seconded him admirably as Leporello; the Catalogue aria was one of the high points of his performance, delivered with mock innocence yet satirical bite. Lucine Amara sang with a genuine feeling for dramatic style, and her Donna Elvira achieved tragic stature. Her voice was beautiful in cantilena passages, projected with a moving intensity. Nadine Conner sang her first Zerlina of the season with a lightness and grace that consorted well with this lyric role. Margaret Harshaw brought a little too much of Wagnerian style to the role of Donna Anna, but her voice was secure and well produced. Others in the cast were Luben Vichey as Il Commendatore; Eugene Conley as Don Ottavio; and Lawrence Davidson as Masetto Max Rudolf conducted, and kept things moving at a satisfactory pace, but with little feeling for nuances of phrasing and tempo.