[Met Performance] CID:159520



Carmen
Metropolitan Opera House, Sat, April 5, 1952




Carmen (475)
Georges Bizet | Henri Meilhac/Ludovic Hal?vy
Carmen
Ris? Stevens

Don Jos?
Mario Del Monaco

Micaela
Victoria de los Angeles

Escamillo
Robert Merrill

Frasquita
Paula Lenchner

Merc?d?s
Hertha Glaz

Remendado
Alessio De Paolis

Danca?re
George Cehanovsky

Zuniga
Norman Scott

Moral?s
Clifford Harvuot

Dance
Janet Collins

Dance
Loren Hightower


Conductor
Fritz Reiner







Review 1:

Review of Cecil Smith in Musical America
Victoria de los Angeles' enactment of the role of Micaela, which she gave for the first time at the Metropolitan in the season's last presentation of ?Carmen,? was as convincing and endearing a performance of the part as the present-generation audience has known. With the spontaneous honesty that characterizes everything she does on the stage, she evaded Tyrone Guthrie's conceit of Micaela as a high-school flirt and made her what she ought to be ? a simple, straightforward, good-hearted country girl whose whole raison d'?tre in the story is her affection (unawakened into passion) and concern for Don Jos?. Displaying her own black hair instead of the conventional blonde wig, and bearing herself as artlessly as she does on the concert stage when she sings Spanish songs, Miss de los Angeles created local color without even trying to. Her deportment was so natural and right that it was hard to realize that she could ever have needed to study the role. Her singing, while not wholly without flaws of production, especially in the passaggio, was lovely and always ardent without becoming artificially dramatic. Her final pleading with Don Jose to return to his mother was so genuine that his decision to leave Carmen seemed inevitable. The warmth and unabating lyric urgency of her delivery of her aria aroused the huge Saturday night audience to a considerable demonstration.

Mario del Monaco, as Don Jos?, gave a performance of enormous theatrical impact, stemming from an impersonation as consistent and true to the data of the libretto as any we have seen here in some years. He sang with great fire and abandon, yet some of his best moments were the quieter ones, such as the falsetto passage at the end of his first-act duet with Micaela. Robert Merrill, appearing as Escamillo for the first time since his recent reinstatement in the company, was sufficiently swashbuckling. His voice sounded dark through all its range and effortful on top, and he showed some insecurity about the notes where measures formerly cut had been put back into the score. As Carmen, Rise Stevens was in better voice than on some earlier occasions, and gave what, according to her lights and Mr. Guthrie's, must have been a good performance. The lesser participants were Paula Lenchner, Herta Glaz, Clifford Harvuot, Norman Scott, George Cehanovsky, and Alessio de Paolis. In the pit, Fritz Reiner was in inspired vein; even on the first night the orchestral score was not so transcendently played.


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