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Tosca
Metropolitan Opera House, Mon, February 20, 1956
Debut : Daniele Barioni
Tosca (339)
Giacomo Puccini | Luigi Illica/Giuseppe Giacosa
- Tosca
- Delia Rigal
- Cavaradossi
- Daniele Barioni [Debut]
- Scarpia
- George London
- Sacristan
- Fernando Corena
- Spoletta
- Alessio De Paolis
- Angelotti
- Clifford Harvuot
- Sciarrone
- George Cehanovsky
- Shepherd
- Peter Mark
- Jailer
- Louis Sgarro
- Conductor
- Dimitri Mitropoulos
Review 1:
Review of Irving Kolodin in Saturday
Daniele Barioni, a young Italian tenor announced for a debut a week ago in "Boh?me," suddenly canceled when it became necessary for him to record as a "Metropolitan artist" even before he made that debut, was introduced as suddenly in a recent "Tosca" in place of Giuseppe Campora. At the appointed time Barioni, slim and good-looking in a suitably Latin way, walked through the door of the first-act set with no audience reaction to speak of. When he finished singing "Recondita Armonia" some five minutes later the audience let loose with a spontaneous reaction not often equaled of late.
At this time the strong voice and appealing looks are his primary qualifications, plus an intensity of manner that rode roughshod over dramatic niceties. He comes to the Met at twenty-six, approximately at the time of life that Giuseppe Di Stefano did in 1948. Let us hope he steers a surer course relative to his vocal star than that other gifted, if not too stable, artist.
This was otherwise a "Tosca" in the strong Mitropoulos mold, affected by the circumstances that the Tosca and Scarpia were neither Tebaldi and Warren, nor Milanov and Gobbi -- with whom he had previously rehearsed and worked-but Delia Rigal and George London. Rigal has more command of her voice than in the past, but the sound is not endearing, the dramatic projection unconvincing. London's Scarpia has much that is impelling, but a lot, too, that is crudely physical rather than intellectually subtle. Later in the week Barioni sang a Rodolfo in "Boh?me" of similarly frank appeal, though a couple of climaxes were clouded by vocal ineptitude.
Search by season: 1955-56
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