[Met Performance] CID:205030
Fidelio {92} Metropolitan Opera House: 01/8/1966.
(Debut: James King
Review)
Metropolitan Opera House
January 8, 1966
FIDELIO {92}
Beethoven-Sonnleithner/Breuning/Treitschke
Leonore.................Birgit Nilsson
Florestan...............James King [Debut]
Don Pizarro.............Geraint Evans
Rocco...................Otto Edelmann
Marzelline..............Mary Ellen Pracht
Jaquino.................Charles Anthony
Don Fernando............Sherrill Milnes
First Prisoner..........George Shirley
Second Prisoner.........Russell Christopher
Captain.................Harold Sternberg
Conductor...............Karl Böhm
Production..............Herbert Graf
Stage Director..........Nathaniel Merrill
Designer................Horace Armistead
Fidelio received nine performances this season.
Review of Irving Kolodin in the January 22, 1966 issue of the Saturday Review
Return of Nilsson
Paraphrasing Shelley, one might ask: "If Nilsson comes, can Wagner be far behind?" The answer for the current Metropolitan season is, unfortunately, far, far behind. Our leading soprano of the heroic roles returned in Beethoven's "Fidelio" directed by Karl Boehm, but it will be March before anything of the Wagner repertory is heard.
About all that could be said of this" Fidelio" was, at least, that the German language was heard again (on the last night of the season's fifteenth week) for it was far from inspiring Beethoven. Nilsson herself, who has been suffering from an impacted tooth, was clearly below par, short of breath, and without the reserve to produce steadily below a forte. It was not a good night for Otto Edelman as Rocco: for all his authority, the voice was off center and without its usual sonority; and Geraint Evans, in his first venture as Pizarro, lacked the vocal thrust, indeed the proper range, for that malevolent creature. Add Mary Ellen Pracht as a thick-sounding Marzelline (where oh where was Judith Raskin, who has just the voice for the part?) and the vocal requirements for Act I were met head on only by Charles Anthony ( Jacquino) and George Shirley (First Prisoner).
There are, perhaps, some conductors who could, by sheer magnetism, take hold of such ill-adjusted elements and fuse them, for the while, into a glowing ensemble, but Boehm's gifts are not of that sort. His response was to drive hard, then harder, with no real effect on the singers and a kind of desperate but unavailing effort by an orchestra playing its second performance of the day and its seventh of a dismally disrupted (Quill) week. [Referencing Michael Quill, union leader]
In the circumstances, major interest veered to the debut as Florestan of James King, a Kansas-born baritone turned tenor. The time he has spent in Europe was evident in his clear well-articulated German and sure command of the role's dramatic demands. Promising, too, was the fresh, open sound of the voice, especially in the part of it (up to F) that remains of his original range. He did produce the top tones of his aria, but not without strain and a lot of "white" showing through. Whether this related to the occasion or the role (hardly what is known as "grateful") only the future can tell. A large audience that was eager to applaud had less opportunity, really, than it utilized.
Photograph of James King as Florestan in Fidelio by James Heffernan.