[Met Performance] CID:138050



Die Walk?re
Metropolitan Opera House, Sat, December 2, 1944 Matinee Broadcast
Broadcast Matinee Broadcast


Debut : Beal Hober, Jeanne Palmer




Die Walk?re (338)
Richard Wagner | Richard Wagner
Br?nnhilde
Helen Traubel

Siegmund
Lauritz Melchior

Sieglinde
Rose Bampton

Wotan
Herbert Janssen

Fricka
Kerstin Thorborg

Hunding
Alexander Kipnis

Gerhilde
Thelma Votipka

Grimgerde
Martha Lipton

Helmwige
Beal Hober [Debut]

Ortlinde
Irene Jessner

Rossweisse
Lucielle Browning

Schwertleite
Margaret Harshaw

Siegrune
Hertha Glaz

Waltraute
Jeanne Palmer [Debut]


Conductor
George Szell


Director
Lothar Wallerstein

Set Designer
Jonel Jorgulesco





Die Walk?re received seven performances this season.
Traubel's costume was designed by Adrian.
Available for streaming at Met Opera on Demand
Rebroadcast on Sirius Metropolitan Opera Radio

Review 1:

Review of Jerome D. Bohm in the Herald Tribune

Szell Conducts "Die Walk?re" at Metropolitan

Melchior Sings Lead Role in First Performance of Music Drama in Season

The first performance of the season of Wagner's "Die Walk?re" at the Metropolitan Opera House Saturday afternoon was in many ways an impressive one, much of the eloquence stemming from the superb discourse of the orchestral score by the greatly improved orchestra under Mr. Szell's profoundly perceptive direction. The conductor set himself a high standard from the very beginning of the presentation in a rare and stirring unfolding of the prelude, with its vivid depiction of a storm, and the listener's attention was held unflaggingly throughout Mr. Szell's intensely dramatic and poetic interpretation of Wagner's moving music drama.

Much of the singing, too, was at a high order, the best balanced impersonation being that of Mr. Janssen, whose Wotan was not only voiced with unfailing tonal sumptuousness and full realization of the many-faceted musical aspects of the role, but was distinguished dramatically as well.

Miss Traubel's vocal work, too, was of a high order, once her "Ho-yo-to-ho" (transposed into a lower key and still evidently not a too comfortable assignment for the soprano) was out of the way. Thereafter, she sang with firm, gleaming tones, often especially in her plea to Wotan in the third act, achieving truly thrilling interpretive moments.

Less satisfying was the Sieglinde of Miss Bampton. The quieter, more intimately poetic portions of her music she sang agreeably, often imbuing them with affecting tenderness. But in the ecstatic outbursts of the first and third acts and in the expression of hysterical fear in the second act, her spread manner of vocal production resulted in poorly focused, lusterless sounds.

The Fricka of Miss Thorborg had all of its customary authority of gesture and pose, but the contralto's powerful voice emerged with an unyieldingly steely hardness which divested the music of its inherent nobility and made it sound like the utterances of a thwarted shrew.

Mr. Melchior sang Siegmund's music in the first act with exceptional freedom and brilliancy, but in the second act his tones sounded constricted and sometimes clouded. As Hunding, Mr. Kipnis sang with the necessary weighty, baleful expressiveness and acted the part of Sieglinde's spouse with telling realization of the character's disagreeable attributes. The singing of the eight Valkyries was on the whole most effective.



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