[Met Performance] CID:152360



Madama Butterfly
Metropolitan Opera House, Thu, December 29, 1949




Madama Butterfly (301)
Giacomo Puccini | Luigi Illica/ Giuseppe Giacosa
Cio-Cio-San
Elisabetta Barbato [Last performance]

Pinkerton
James Melton

Suzuki
Lucielle Browning

Sharpless
John Brownlee

Goro
Alessio De Paolis

Bonze
Melchiorre Luise

Yamadori
George Cehanovsky

Kate Pinkerton
Anne Bollinger

Commissioner
John Baker


Conductor
Giuseppe Antonicelli







Review 1:

Review of C. H. in unknown newspaper

MISS BARBATO SINGS ROLE IN '"BUTTERFLY"

Elisabetta Barbato, Italian soprano, who made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera in the role of Tosca this season, last night undertook the less intensive part of Cio-Cio-San in "Madame Butterfly." The listener, admittedly, had to take the bad with the good, but the odds, last night, were in the young singer's favor.

The fact is that Miss Barbato is a professional artist in many ways. She has a fine sense of pitch and sostenuto and an ear for subtleties of phrasing; she can develop dramatic intensity that called for cheers and - although rarely - produces entrancing vocal colors. Besides which she is an efficient actress.

These things were most apparent during her two big arias in the second act, where she portrayed warmly human person. Elsewhere, one was distressed by the varying types of her vocal production, from attractive, but nearly inaudible soft phrases to brassy fortissimos that seemed about to get out of control.

The remainder of last night's cast was familiar. James Melton, John Brownlee and Lucielle Browning had the leading roles, and Giuseppe Antonicelli conducted.



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