[Met Performance] CID:3130



Don Giovanni
Metropolitan Opera House, Wed, December 10, 1884

Debut : Hermine Bely


In German



Don Giovanni (13)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | Lorenzo Da Ponte
Don Giovanni
Adolf Robinson

Donna Anna
Marie Schr?der-Hanfst?ngl

Don Ottavio
Anton Udvardy

Donna Elvira
Marianne Brandt

Leporello
Josef Staudigl

Zerlina
Hermine Bely [Debut]

Masetto
Joseph Miller

Commendatore
Joseph K?gel


Conductor
Leopold Damrosch


Director
Wilhelm Hock

Set Designer
Charles Fox, Jr.

Set Designer
William Schaeffer

Set Designer
Gaspar Maeder

Set Designer
Mr. Thompson

Costume Designer
D. Ascoli

Costume Designer
Henry Dazian

Choreographer
F. Baptiste Ceruti





Translation by unknown
Don Giovanni received three performances this season.

Review 1:

Review by Henry Krehbiel, New York Tribune:

While meriting the most hearty praise for the reverent spirit with which they approached Mozart's masterpiece, it must be said that the German artists at the Metropolitan Opera House did not achieve a success in the representation of "Don Juan" last night at all comparable with that which crowned their efforts in the great German operas that they have given us. "Don Giovanni" is essentially Italian and it loses much of its spirit and nearly, if not quite, all its elasticity when translated and put into the hands of German singers?The dialogue and many of the recitations and arias demand a flexibility of utterance which is not native to the German tongue, and as much of the humor of the piece ("Don Giovanni" is in spite of its tragic conclusion an opera buffa) lies in those portions, there is naturally a lack in a German perforrnance of the work.

Review 2:

Review by W. J. Henderson, New York Times:

The largest share of the honor of the evening was born by Frau Schr?der-Hanfst?ngl, whose Donna Anna, from a dramatic as well as a lyric standpoint, was an admirable performance. The prima donna is one of the few artists of the age in whose style the grace and beauty of Italian methods are combined with the sincerity and accent of singers of the German school. From this it may be infrerred that the lovely numbers of Mozart's score, in which the influence of Italian masters and memories is perceptible in every measure, lost none of their honeyed sweeetness in her hands. Commencing with "Or sai che l'onore," in which expression and purely sensuous beauty of progression and tone are so happily united, Mme Schr?der-Hanfst?ngl's singing and acting may be described as of the very highest order. Fr?ulein Brandt was of course a capital Donna Elvira.



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