[Met Concert or Gala] CID:39180



Special Performance
Testimonial Tendered To MR. EMIL FISCHER
MR. EMIL FISCHER
Metropolitan Opera House, Fri, March 15, 1907 Matinee





Special Performance


Testimonial Tendered To MR. EMIL FISCHER


MR. EMIL FISCHER



Metropolitan Opera House
March 15, 1907 Matinee


SPECIAL PERFORMANCE
Testimonial Tendered To
MR. EMIL FISCHER

Die Walk?re: Act I

Siegmund................Alois Burgstaller
Sieglinde...............Olive Fremstad
Hunding.................Robert Blass


Lohengrin: Act II, Scenes 1, 2

Elsa....................Johanna Gadski
Ortrud..................Ernestine Schumann-Heink
Telramund...............Otto Goritz


Die Meistersinger von N?rnberg: Act III, Scene 1

Hans Sachs..............Emil Fischer [Last appearance]
Eva.....................Johanna Gadski
Walther von Stolzing....Andreas Dippel
Magdalene...............Ernestine Schumann-Heink
David...................Albert Reiss
Beckmesser..............Otto Goritz

Conductor...............Alfred Hertz
Director................Anton Schertel








Review 1:

Review and Account in The New York Times

EMIL FISCHER'S BENEFIT

A Large Audience Hears Him in His Old Character of Hans Sachs

There were many old friends and admirers of Emil Fischer filling the Metropolitan Opera House yesterday afternoon at his benefit that celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his first appearance upon the operatic stage. It was an occasion that ought to have shown him that there are still remembrance and gratitude for his long service in the German opera in New York and for the artistic enjoyment he has in his time given to the musical public. The managers and singers of the Metropolitan Opera House united with the committee having the benefit to do honor to Mr. Fischer. Mr. Conried gave the use of the house, with the services of the attach?s; the conductor, Mr. Hertz, the business staff, and the heads of the technical departments co-operated, and the German contingent of the company gave their services.

The programme comprised the first act of "Die Walk?re," with Mme. Fremstad, Mr. Burgstaller, and Mr. Blass (an apology was specially made for Mr. Blass's hoarseness) in the first two scenes of the first act of "Lohengrin," with Mmes Gadski and Schumann-Heink and Mr, Goritz, and the first scene of the third act of "Die Meistersinger," with Mmes. Gadski and Schumann-Heink and Messrs. Dippel, Goritz, and Reiss, and Mr. Fischer himself as Hans Sachs, the character in which his art and his sympathies were most perfectly conjoined in the old days and in which he gave one of his most admired impersonations. It was natural that interest should centre upon Mr. Fischer's reappearance, and upon his acting and singing as Hans Sachs. He gave the part with much of his old spirit of geniality, humor, and tenderness that roused many memories. Time has made its inroads upon his voice, but the old finish of style and excellence of diction, the old declamatory expressiveness were there, and the fact that Mr. Fischer sang with so much voice and beauty of tone as he did in this, his sixty-ninth year, bespoke the art of the singer.

The audience followed his performance with sympathy and pleasure. At the fall of the curtain there was long-continued and sincerely enthusiastic applause, the expression of old-time attachment and admiration Mr. Fischer came out many times to bow; wreaths were given him; finally he spoke a few words in Germans expressing the fullness of his heart, recalling the fact that it was twenty-two years since he came to New York, and declaring that he felt that he had not lived and worked in vain in the face of such friendly remembrance. It was stated that the benefit had realized for Mr. Fischer a sum between $7,000 and $7,500.



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