[Met Performance] CID:95770



Siegfried
Ring Cycle [48]
Metropolitan Opera House, Fri, March 11, 1927 Matinee





Siegfried (136)
Richard Wagner | Richard Wagner
Siegfried
Rudolf Laubenthal

Br?nnhilde
Nanny Lars?n-Todsen

Wanderer
Friedrich Schorr

Erda
Karin Branzell

Mime
Max Bloch

Alberich
Gustav Sch?tzendorf

Fafner
James Wolfe

Forest Bird
Editha Fleischer


Conductor
Artur Bodanzky


Ring Cycle [48]








Review 1:

Review of Pitts Sanborn in the New York Telegram

'Siegfried' of the Cycle

Metropolitan's Matinee Wagner Series Reaches Third Member of the 'Ring' Tetralogy

A large audience turned out for "Siegfried" at the Metropolitan Opera House yesterday afternoon - the fourth performance in the matinee Wagner series. The woodland scherzo of "Der Ring des Nibelungen" had been given by Mr. Gatti-Casazza's company only once before this season. In that earlier representation the forest lad who has as grandsire the chief god of Valhalla and who bumptiously shatters that diety's spear was impersonated with rather startling effect by Walter Kirchhoff , the season's new and engaging tenor from Germany. Yesterday the role went instead to Rudolf Laubenthal, who had filled it here a year ago.

Mr. Laubenthal makes a good, if not precisely a great, young Siegfried. His singing yesterday was, in general, commendable and his red-gold curly bob proved the despair of the admiring onlookers on the distaff side of the congregation. Mme. Larsen-Todsen labored conscientiously and intelligently as Br?nnhilde, but her voice sounded tired, and both her singing and her acting lacked something in decision and accent. Mr. Bloch, who at his best is an excellent Mime, properly abstained from those exaggerations which had recently marred his portrayal of the sinister dwarf.

The Wanderer's music Mr. Schorr always delivers with nobility of tone and style. Mr. Sch?tzendorf made a capital Alberich; the singing of Mme. Fleischer as the Forest Bird was above the local standard for that cheering ornithological counselor. Mme. Branzell voiced the plaints of Erda tolerably and James Wolfe was heard as the talking dragon.

Mr. Bodanzky conducted with attention and spirit a performance that was over and done in record time. In fact, broader tempi, as well as less cutting of the score, would have added greatly to the impressiveness of the concluding scene, which, as written, is one of the supreme peaks in the entire range of the Wagner music drama.



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