[Met Performance] CID:134050

New Production

Lucia di Lammermoor
Metropolitan Opera House, Sat, November 28, 1942 Matinee Broadcast





Lucia di Lammermoor (194)
Gaetano Donizetti | Salvadore Cammarano
Lucia
Lily Pons

Edgardo
Jan Peerce

Enrico
Frank Valentino

Raimondo
Nicola Moscona

Normanno
John Dudley

Alisa
Thelma Votipka

Arturo
John Garris


Conductor
Frank St. Leger


Director
Lothar Wallerstein

Designer
Richard Rychtarik

Choreographer
Laurent Novikoff





Lucia di Lammermoor received five performances this season.
Pons' costumes were designed by Valentina.

FUNDING:
Production a gift of The Metropolitan Opera Guild

Review 1:

Review of Virgil Thomson in the New York Herald Tribune

TRAGEDY IN TRILLS

Donizetti's immortal "Lucia di Lammermoor" was given a presentation yesterday afternoon at the Metropolitan Opera House that this reviewer found highly agreeable. The performances of Lily Pons and Jan Peerce were both brilliant and moving and there was in their work a sizable modicum of that glamour and that power that make opera grand and memorable.

This is not to say that either of these artists is possessor of an unusually powerful voice. Their strength lies in stylistic rather than stentorian utterance. They sing incisively and move about with dignity. They know what they are doing, do it carefully, sincerely, beautifully. Of the two, Miss Pons is the more remarkable vocally because of her bird-like upper octave. Mr. Peerce is the more dependable musically, however. When he sings the rhythm becomes more animated, and the drama more vibrant.

Alone among yesterday's cast, he uttered his recitativo with verbal and tonal clarity, snapped its rhythms like a whip. His death scene brought out the most expressive tenor singing this reviewer has heard in some years. His vocalism at all times was lovely and his dramatic performance commanding. Mr. Peerce seems to have mastered the Italian styles of singing and of operatic characterization as few foreigners (he is a New York boy) ever do and to have avoided the vocal and dramatic abuses that even the greatest of the Italians are prone to allow themselves. His performance yesterday was not only a distinguished and beautiful one, it was commanding, authoritative and musically noble.

Miss Pons is a fine musician, too, and an operatic actress of real style. She uses her vocal resources with art and her charming stage presence with much grace. Her recitation yesterday was not always as cleanly projected as it might have been, but in her big arias she shone with true star quality.

Photograph of Lily Pons in Lucia di Lammermoor by New York Times Studio.



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