[Met Performance] CID:4310



Die K?nigin von Saba
Metropolitan Opera House, Fri, December 4, 1885




Die K?nigin von Saba (2)
Karl Goldmark | Hermann Salomon Mosenthal
Queen of Sheba
Marie Kr?mer-Wiedl

Assad
Max Alvary

Sulamith
Lilli Lehmann

King Solomon
Adolf Robinson

Astaroth
Marianne Brandt

High Priest
Emil Fischer

Baal-Hanan
Alexander Alexy

Dance
Marie Bonfanti

Dance
Bettina De Sortis


Conductor
Anton Seidl







Review 1:

Review in The New York Times:

METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE

The second rendering of "The Queen of Sheba" was witnessed by an overflowing audience gathered at the Metropolitan Opera House last evening. Wednesday's representation of Goldmark's work was so smooth that but little difference was noticeable in the later interpretation, although mention must be made of the fact that Herr Stritt was vocally in better form yesterday than on the first night of the opera, and that the impressiveness of the scenes in which Assad is concerned was largely increased by the tenor's efficiency. The efforts of the other artists were quite as successful as on Wednesday. Fr?ulein Lehmann's voice can hardly be classed with the most sympathetic and brilliant tones that have been listened to by local music lovers in years bygone, but it has vibrancy and carrying power, and the artist uses it with consummate skill. Her portrayal of Sulamith - and the personage is, in point of interest and force,?a thankless one to embody - is unquestionably the most finished performance witnessed in the production at the Metropolitan, while Herr Robinson's King Solomon, though it is open to the reproach of being at times somewhat declamatory and theatrical, claims praise for its picturesque effectiveness. The chief merits of Herr Stritt's delineation have already had notice in these columns, and are to be sought mainly in the singer's intelligent conception of the character and in its elaborate histrionic representation. Fr?ulein Brandt does all that can be done with Asteroth and Frau Kraemer-Weidl, if far from revealing the ideal Queen of biblical and lyric imaginings, carries the r?le with sufficient earnestness and vigor to endow it with becoming importance. All the minor r?les in the opera are in good hands, and the chorus and orchestra were last evening at their best. The stage attire of the work is, as set forth on Thursday, of unprecedented magnificence. There are five sets shown during the unfolding of the dramatist's story, and the artistic beauty of the less elaborate views, such as the moonlit garden and the final scene in the desert, and the wealth of color and abundance of striking and appropriate detail, as beheld in the pictures of Solomon's palace and the Temple, make up a spectacle that has never been equaled and is not likely to be surpassed on the operatic stage. Mr. Henry E. Hoyt is to be credited with this part of the production. The costumes are in keeping with the scenery, and so are the accessories. The ballet and processions, too, are gotten up on the same scale of grandeur and taste. With such adjuncts it is scarcely astonishing that "The Queen of Sheba" should have been received with immediate favor. A much less attractive and suggestive achievement would have fared almost as well with the same powerful assistance. Yet it must not be inferred that Goldmark's opera is simply a thread by means of which spectacular incidents are connected with each other. There is pathetic interest in the librettist's plot, there are legitimate opportunities for a free use of dazzling local color, and in the score is much sweet, rich, and sonorous music. That "The Queen of Sheba" is not an achievement that will go down to posterity with the best that Rossini, Meyerbeer, Verdi, and Wagner have accomplished in the same branch of art will not be disputed, we fancy, even by the composer's partisans, Goldmark is deficient in creative power and originality, he is seldom inspired, and when he is his inspiration lacks breadth and sustained beauty. On the other hand, his work is characterized by poetic thought, by rare ability to bring forth graceful and elegant themes and clothe them in a garb of uncommon sensuous loveliness, by a wide knowledge of stage effect, and by a happy and continuous avoidance of the Wagnerian ugliness that defaces many of the reformer's most admirable writings. "The Queen of Sheba" will be forgotten while "William Tell," "The Huguenots," "Aida," and "Tannh?user" are given the world over, but it will hold its own for some years in all opera houses as completely equipped for the presentation of kindred compositions as the Metropolitan.



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