[Met Performance] CID:130600



Siegfried
Metropolitan Opera House, Mon, January 20, 1941




Siegfried (192)
Richard Wagner | Richard Wagner
Siegfried
Lauritz Melchior

Br?nnhilde
Kirsten Flagstad

Wanderer
Friedrich Schorr

Erda
Kerstin Thorborg

Mime
Karl Laufk?tter

Alberich
Walter Olitzki

Fafner
Emanuel List

Forest Bird
Eleanor Steber


Conductor
Erich Leinsdorf







Review 1:

Review of Jerome D. Bohm in the Herald Tribune

"Siegfried" Sung With Flagstad as Br?nnhilde

Mme. Thorborg Also Joins Cast in Season's Second Performance of Opera

The second presentation of the season of Wagner's "Siegfried" at the Metropolitan Opera House last night brought with it the first seasonal appearance of Kirsten Flagstad as Br?nnhilde and Kerstin Thorborg as Erda. The cast was otherwise that of the earlier performance, with Lauritz Melchior in the title part, Karl Laufk?tter as Mime, Friedrich Schorr as the Wanderer, Walter Olitzki as Alberich, Emanuel List as Fafner and Eleanor Steber as the Voice of the Forest Bird.

Mme. Flagstad was in superb form, investing her impersonation with ravishing tones of unfailing purity. Her conception has grown in dynamic subtlety, in emotional scope and in dramatic cogency. Her handling of the difficult awakening scene was an impressive study in plastic gestures and appropriate facial play.

Erda is not one of Mme. Thorborg's convincing parts. Most of the music lies too low for a voice which is more of a mezzo-soprano than a true contralto and there was but one really effectively sung tone, the high A-flat of the word "Meineld," during the whole course of the role.

Mr. Melchior was in excellent form throughout the evening, singing the Forging Song with gleaming tones and giving an especially fine account of his portion of the final love duet. It would be pleasant to report that Mr. Schorr, too, was in good vocal shape, but unfortunately little remains of what was formerly one of his most arresting characterizations. Those passages in the first act in his scene with Mime which lie neither too high nor too low for him were tolerably delivered. But in the arduous third act episodes with Erda and Siegfried his heroic struggles to conquer the altitudinous tessitura of the part left him all but voiceless.

The Mime of Mr. Laufk?tter remains one of the most extraordinary delineations of the part of the malignant, cunning dwarf ever vouchsafed, but Mr. Olitzki's portrayal of his brother in crime, Alberich, misses the mark entirely, for he makes of him a humorous figure instead of a nefarious one. Miss Steber's voice has not the brilliancy of the Forest Bird's song. Her delivery thereof was labored and ineffectual. Mr. List did well with Fafner's lines. Mr. Leinsdorf conducted much of the score eloquently, and the orchestra played well.



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