[Met Performance] CID:100320



Lohengrin
Metropolitan Opera House, Fri, November 23, 1928




Lohengrin (361)
Richard Wagner | Richard Wagner
Lohengrin
Walter Kirchhoff

Elsa
Florence Easton

Ortrud
Margarete Matzenauer

Telramund
Clarence Whitehill

King Heinrich
Richard Mayr

Herald
Arnold Gabor


Conductor
Artur Bodanzky







Review 1:

Review of Charles D. Isaacson in the New York Telegraph

Easton Proves Ability to Sing Lohengrin Role

For some reason last night's performance of "Lohengrin" moved a bit slowly. And it was not in any way due to the conducting of Mr. Bodanzky, who adhered strictly to the traditional tempi. Something about the stage business, the manner of the company of singers, and very largely the extras, contributed the lackadaisical atmosphere of the performance. One could not put his finger and point at any principal singer and say, "You - and you did it."

Easton's Work Good

Miss Florence Easton appeared for the first time this season in the role of Elsa of Brabant. She gave it the habitually satisfactory treatment we have learned to expect from the best utility woman at the Metropolitan Opera Company, whose singing is far from being merely routine and matter of fact. Miss Easton is always intelligent and given to good theater manners, and certain never to sing poorly. If only every singer, male and female, in our lists of vocalists, could boast the same! But this is not to say that the Elsa of Miss Easton glows and throbs with a sainted and unreal epical life. Perhaps it is asking too much that any other Elsa shall be as that of Elizabeth Rethberg's.

The name part was sung by Walter Kirchhoff, who is a much more acceptable singer than the more handsome, if stiffer and less jumping-jack, Laubenthal. Others in the cast were Richard Mayr as the King, dignified and regal; Clarence Whitehill, credible and pursuing as Telramund, and Matzenauer, an equally conspiring Orturd, and finally Gabor as the Herald.

In closing, we much refer again to the work of Mr. Bodanzky, who gave us a swan-boat of his own, in which to float and dream, even before the curtain's rise. When the great German holds the baton at the Metropolitan there is a sense of solidity and authority which we cannot feel with any other of the conductors now directing opera in any of the companies, resident or touring. Mr. Bodanzky not only knows his score, but something of that ripe, music soul of him goes into every work he leads



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