[Met Performance] CID:190060



La Boh?me
Metropolitan Opera House, Sat, February 3, 1962




La Boh?me (604)
Giacomo Puccini | Luigi Illica/Giuseppe Giacosa
Mim?
Teresa Stratas

Rodolfo
Dino Formichini

Musetta
Laurel Hurley

Marcello
Mario Sereni

Schaunard
Roald Reitan

Colline
Jerome Hines

Benoit
Gerhard Pechner

Alcindoro
Alessio De Paolis

Parpignol
Hal Roberts

Sergeant
Lloyd Strang

Officer
Carlo Tomanelli


Conductor
Martin Rich







Review 1:

Review of Martin Bernheimer in the New York Herald Tribune

Teresa Stratas, the twenty-three year old soprano from Toronto who joined the Metropolitan in 1959, got the biggest break of her career with the company Saturday night when she sang her fist local Mimi in "La Boh?me." She rose to the challenge beautifully, for she has all the prerequisites of an ideal Mimi - youth, limpid tone, technical know-how, and a physical appearance that really makes the part credible. She did not have her voice under perfect control at all times (high passages early in the evening provided a couple of uncomfortable moments), and she sometimes gave a bit more voice than was either necessary or prudent. But such details will, no doubt, be smoothed out with future performances. Miss Stratas deserves a lot of them.

Three other principals were appearing in the Puccini opera for the first time this season. As Rodolfo, Dino Formichini (replacing the indisposed Barry Morrel, who, in turn, was to have replaced the overworked Carlo Bergonzi, was winning dramatically, and very agreeable vocally as long as he didn't force. (He deserves special credit for avoiding the downward transposition of his aria, as well as the interpolated High C at the end of Act One - both traditional, but unjustified.)

The show was almost stolen, however, by the Colline, Jerome Hines. He sang splendidly and played the student-philosopher as a hungry, bespectacled young bookworm - a comic tour de force. Mario Sereni, on the other hand, turned in a rather ineffectual Marcello. Martin Rich conducted masterfully.



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