[Met Performance] CID:170420



Soir?e
Don Pasquale
Metropolitan Opera House, Wed, December 28, 1955




Soir?e (2)
Gioachino Rossini/Benjamin Britten
Girl
Mary Ellen Moylan

Boy
Oleg Briansky

Hostess
Margaret Black

Spaniard
Adriano Vitale


Conductor
Thomas Schippers


Don Pasquale (43)
Gaetano Donizetti | Giovanni Ruffini
Don Pasquale
Fernando Corena

Norina
Roberta Peters

Ernesto
Cesare Valletti

Dr. Malatesta
Frank Guarrera

Notary
Alessio De Paolis


Conductor
Thomas Schippers







Review 1:

Review of Winthrop Sargeant in the New Yorker

On Wednesday evening, I caught up with the new production of Donizetti's "Don Pasquale" at the Metropolitan Opera House, having missed its premiere the previous week, and I am happy to report that it is one of the deftest and most ingratiating affairs currently on display there. Some of the production's sparkling quality is due to the intricate and altogether enchanting revolving sets designed for it by Wolfgang Roth, and some of it is due to an almost perfect job of casting. I found Fernando Corena, a bass whose comic talents never degenerate into mere buffoonery, very amusing as Don Pasquale; Roberta Peters, as Norina, sang brilliantly in a part that seemed exactly tailored to her particular gifts; Frank Guarrera was an excellent Dr. Malatesta; and the golden voice of Cesare Valletti, who sang the role of Ernesto, provided some of the evening's most enthralling moments. From the purely musical point of view, the performance was a masterpiece of crisp pacing and refined workmanship. The credit for this rests with the young American maestro Thomas Schippers, who held things together from the orchestra pit, pointing up the opera's delicate tracery and subtly changing tempos with an unusually sure hand. I have been watching Mr. Schippers' career as an operatic conductor for some time, and I am glad to find him at the Metropolitan, if only because that institution has thus far tended to slight talented American wielders of the baton. To my mind, Mr. Schippers is already turning out to be one of the most impressive additions that have been made to the Met's roster during the present administration, and I hope we shall soon have the pleasure of hearing other operas under his direction.



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