[Met Performance] CID:161430



Tosca
Metropolitan Opera House, Fri, December 26, 1952









Review 1:

Review of Raymond A. Ericson in Musical America
Delia Rigal, the third of the new Toscas at the Metropolitan this season, brought a voice of ample size and the special qualities of her intriguing personality to the role in a characterization that was consistently interesting without being very satisfactory or seeming completely developed. She sang with considerable vocal security, the wobbly or unresonant tones that often trouble her being relatively few. She lightened and colored her voice as much as possible for expressive purposes, although the voice seemed insufficiently malleable for the Puccini music. Still, it was gratifying to hear a voice that could rise powerfully to dominate the orchestra.

Miss Rigal's personal beauty, not particularly well set off by her costumes; her haunting stage presence; and the brooding intensity of feeling she projects resulted in a handsome, somber Tosca ? one that was not without animation on occasion. All her movements were not carried through with the same degree of conviction, suggesting that her ideas about the role had not fully matured.

As Cavaradossi, Jan Peerce sang with more freedom and ease than he had in the previous performance, and Paul Schoeffler was again heard in his intelligently conceived Scarpia. Fausto Cleva conducted.


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