[Met Performance] CID:158750



Rigoletto
Metropolitan Opera House, Fri, January 25, 1952




Rigoletto (314)
Giuseppe Verdi | Francesco Maria Piave
Rigoletto
Paolo Silveri

Gilda
Genevieve Warner

Duke of Mantua
Ferruccio Tagliavini

Maddalena
Nell Rankin

Sparafucile
Alois Pernerstorfer

Monterone
Norman Scott

Borsa
Paul Franke

Marullo
Clifford Harvuot

Count Ceprano
Lawrence Davidson

Countess Ceprano
Anne Bollinger

Giovanna
Thelma Votipka

Page
Margaret Roggero

Guard
Algerd Brazis


Conductor
Alberto Erede







Review 1:

Review of Cecil Smith in Musical America
Genevieve Warner made her postponed first appearance of the season and her first as Gilda at the Metropolitan in the ninth performance of ?Rigoletto.? Although Miss Warner had made an agreeable impression in smaller roles at the Metropolitan last year and in Mozart performances of the Little Orchestra, she was pretty thoroughly snowed under by the demands of this part. Making due allowance for possible nervousness, Miss Warner still did not seem possessed of vocal powers that could, in their present state, sustain the music of Gilda in a house the size of the Metropolitan. Except when she sang in a tiny and blandly inexpressive ?piano,? her tones were uniformly unsupported. At mezzo-forte, her voice had a sound of strain throughout its entire range, and at forte and louder a disturbing tremolo set in. She also sang just under the pitch a good deal of the time; her share of the ?Tutte le feste? duet in the third act was nearly all out of tune. She did not attempt to add any high coloratura embellishments, which was probably quite as well, for she was not easy at the top of the normal lyric-soprano register. Under the circumstances, it was perhaps too much to expect a polished acting performance; Miss Warner?s histrionism was limited to learned gestures and movement, stiffly employed. In short, she seemed to be in an uncomfortable medium, and failed to reproduce the success she has enjoyed in concert appearances in smaller halls.

Ferruccio Tagliavini sang the Duke for the first time this year. He was in gleaming voice and delivered ?Parmi veder le lagrime? superbly. In many other spots his generally agreeable singing was marred by rhythmic mannerisms and vagaries and in ?La donna ? mobile? he pushed for more volume than was musically desirable and physically discreet. George Cehanovsky being indisposed, Clifford Harvout returned to the role of Marullo. Other familiar members of the cast were Paolo Silveri, an effective interpreter of the title role; Nell Rankin, an ineffectual and rhythmically inaccurate Maddalena; Alois Pernrstorfer, as Sparafucile, and in shorter assignments, Thelma Votipka, Anne Bollinger, Margaret Roggero, Paul Franke, Norman Scott, Lawrence Davidson, and Algerd Brazis. Alberto Erede conducted.


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