[Met Performance] CID:170300
La Forza del Destino {81} Metropolitan Opera House: 12/16/1955.
(Review)
Metropolitan Opera House
December 16, 1955
LA FORZA DEL DESTINO {81}
Giuseppe Verdi--Francesco Maria Piave
Leonora.................Zinka Milanov
Don Alvaro..............Kurt Baum
Don Carlo...............Josef Metternich
Padre Guardiano.........Otto Edelmann
Preziosilla.............Margaret Roggero
Fra Melitone............Gerhard Pechner
Marquis de Calatrava....Louis Sgarro
Curra...................Thelma Votipka
Trabuco.................Alessio De Paolis
Surgeon.................George Cehanovsky
Conductor...............Fritz Stiedry
Director................Herbert Graf
Designer................Eugene Berman
Choreographer...........Zachary Solov
La Forza del Destino received seven performances this season.
Review of Robert Sabin in the January 1, 1956 issue of Musical America
Thanks to the glorious singing of Zinka Milanov, this performance was saved from dismal mediocrity on the stage. In the pit, Fritz Stiedry and the orchestra achieved much of the humanity and tragic feeling and some of the melodramatic wildness of the score. Miss Milanov began nervously, but by the time she had reached the scene before the Church of the Madonna degli Angeli (Act I, Scene 2 in the Metropolitan Opera production) she was singing with the beautiful tone, the floating ethereal phrasing and the luminous power that make her one of the great operatic sopranos of her time. Her "Pace, pace, mio Dio!" in the last scene had its full magic on this occasion. Miss Milanov is no Duse, when it comes to acting, and she can be vocally flustered at times, but how glorious she sounds, when everything is going well!
Kurt Baum substituted for Mario Ortica, in the role of Don Alvaro. He has appeared to far greater advantage in other performances, nor was the Don Carlo of Josef Metternich distinguished. The duets between the two were as dispiriting visually, as they were strained, vocally. In the duel, far from being in any danger of inflicting injury on each other, they seemed far more likely to injure themselves with their swords. As the proud Spanish father, Louis Sgarro wore a wig that made him look more like Whistler's mother than a grandee of Spain; and Otto Edelmann simply did not produce the low tones demanded by Verdi in the taxing role of Padre Guardiano, although above his voice was pleasing and rotund in quality. Gerhard Pechner won a deserved round of applause for his lively characterization of Fra Melitone, but he worked too hard for it.
Since Preziosilla is robbed of all of her best bits in this truncated version of Verdi's opera, Margaret Roggero did not have much to work with, but she sang well. The others in the cast were Thelma Votipka, as Curra; Alessio De Paolis, as Trabucco; and George Cehanovsky, as the Surgeon. The ballet, which has been improving this season, also suffered a lapse and was seldom on the beat in choreography that looks very effective when it is crisply executed.