[Met Performance] CID:122740



Lucia di Lammermoor
Metropolitan Opera House, Fri, January 28, 1938




Lucia di Lammermoor (182)
Gaetano Donizetti | Salvadore Cammarano
Lucia
Lily Pons

Edgardo
Frederick Jagel

Enrico
Richard Bonelli

Raimondo
Ezio Pinza

Normanno
Angelo Bad?

Alisa
Thelma Votipka

Arturo
Nicholas Massue


Conductor
Gennaro Papi


Director
D?sir? Defr?re

Set Designer
James Fox

Costume Designer
Mathilde Castel-Bert

Choreographer
George Balanchine





Lucia di Lammermoor received two performances this season.

Review 1:

Review signed E. D. in the Post

LILY PONS SINGS IN ROUTINE "LUCIA"

At the Metropolitan Opera House last night Lily Pons resumed her familiar role of Lucia in Donizetti's time honored "Lucia di Lammermoor." For New Yorkers, the mere name of Donizetti's masterpiece has a glamorous ring to it, which comes of a long list of gratefully remembered, exciting performances of the work at our own "Met."

Such glamour as attached to last night's performance, however, was reflected from a distant place called Hollywood.

In the standing room, where they were packed three deep, there must have been many who had seen our starry Lily on the screen and decided to hear her at least once from the hallowed stage of the Metropolitan. This is of inestimable financial advantage to the Opera House, but it also confers a certain moral responsibility. To have such people greeted by the uninspired routine of a performance like yesterday's, with its shabby scenery, "operatic" acting, inept stage direction and largely indifferent singing, is a questionable service to the popularization of opera in this country.

There was, of course, Miss Pons in a variety of fetching costumes, doing the kind of singing that has made her famous and, alas, some rather wooden acting. There was also Mr. Pinza, whose vice is an addition to any cast, as Raimondo, Thelma Votipka, Frederick Jagel, Richard Bonelli, Nicholas Massue and Angelo Bada. Mr. Papi, the conductor, could not seem to get very excited about "Lucia." And from the mildness of the applause, we judge the audience couldn't either.



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