[Met Performance] CID:197900



Macbeth
Metropolitan Opera House, Sat, April 11, 1964




Macbeth (23)
Giuseppe Verdi | Francesco Maria Piave/Andrea Maffei
Macbeth
Cornell MacNeil

Lady Macbeth
Irene Dalis

Banquo
Bonaldo Giaiotti

Macduff
Arturo Sergi

Malcolm
Franco Ghitti

Lady-in-Attendance
Carlotta Ordassy

Physician
Gerhard Pechner

Manservant
Edward Ghazal

Duncan
Walter Hemmerly

Murderer
Russell Christopher

Warrior
William Walker

Bloody Child
Lynn Blair

Crowned Child
Joy Clements


Conductor
Nello Santi







Review 1:

Review of Conrad S. Susa in Musical America
The fifth performance this season (April 11) of Verdi?s ?Macbeth? closed the Met?s 26-week 79th season not with a bang or a whimper but with a thud. So many elements conspire to make this production ugly ? the sets, the costumes, the blocking, the Piet-blue makeup ? that bad singing of a not too successful score only completed a disastrous evening.

Arturo Sergi made his first Met appearance as Macduff. His [first] air delivered with a forced voice and a style recalling the worst of Mario Lanza, was greeted coolly by the house. The role is not especially wonderful, but it has a few sympathetic moments which an alert artist should be able to put to good use.

Though the cast was the same as in earlier performances Irene Dalis? Lady Macbeth might be singled out as an above-average performance.

In an opera with so much choral work, mention should be made of the shoddy contribution of the Met chorus. While it is true that they were placed at inconvenient distances from each other, as in the witches? scenes, the problem seemed to be that the members didn?t know the words and music. Nello Santi, the conductor, had more than his measure of difficulty trying to keep the singing and playing together. Even the orchestra caught the careless attitude and let things slip. It was all truly ?sound and fury? signifying nothing.


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