[Met Performance] CID:291230



Luisa Miller
Metropolitan Opera House, Wed, January 20, 1988

Debut : Silvia Mosca, Meredith Derr




Luisa Miller (50)
Giuseppe Verdi | Salvadore Cammarano
Luisa
Silvia Mosca [Debut]

Rodolfo
Carlo Bergonzi

Miller
Wolfgang Brendel

Count Walter
Paul Plishka

Wurm
Sergei Koptchak

Federica
Isola Jones

Laura
Loretta Di Franco

Peasant
Meredith Derr [Debut]


Conductor
Nello Santi


Director
Nathaniel Merrill

Set Designer
Attilio Colonnello

Costume Designer
Charles Caine

Choreographer
Thomas Andrew

Stage Director
Lesley Koenig





Luisa Miller received eight performances this season.

FUNDING:
Revival a gift of Hill and Knowlton

Review 1:

Robert Kimball in the Post
Bergonzi lifts ?Miller?

The best news about the Metropolitan Opera's revival of its 20-year-old production of Verdi's relatively unfamiliar "Luisa Miller" is the presence of the great tenor, Carlo Bergonzi, in the role of Rodolfo.

Bergonzi's stylish, elegant, deeply expressive artistry provided a huge lift to Wednesday night's season-first presentation, and only the Met's 42d performance ever, of Verdi's fascinating domestic drama.

Bergonzi, an amazingly youthful 63, made his Met debut back in 1956, but this was his first company appearance in "Luisa Miller." Some of the bloom is gone from his top notes, but he is still a marvelous singer who phrases exquisitely. On Wednesday his lyrical, richly-nuanced interpretation of the Act II aria, "Quando le sere al placido," stopped the show.

Another high spot in what was an unevenly sung offering of Nathaniel Merrill ? the director ? and set designer Attilio Colonnello's massive, traditional evocation of 18th century Tyrol, was the skilled, idiomatic conducting of ever-reliable Nello Santi. (Santi's Met debut occurred in 1962 when he led an "Un ballo in Maschera" with a cast that included Bergonzi).

Silvia Mosca, a slender, attractive native of Naples essayed "Luisa Miller's" title role. It was her Met debut and in the early going she sounded a bit pressed in her production at both ends of her vocal range, but she sang impressively in the third act and drew a good ovation at evening's end. Wolfgang Brendel was a credible Miller, who also did his best work in the haunting third act.

Paul Plishka was a persuasive, often commanding Count Walter. Isola Jones, who went on for the indisposed Mignon Dunn (cold) as Federica on very short notice has an exciting stage presence, but her singing was frequently hard-edged.

Sergei Koptchak, acting as if he were in a grade-B Russian western, sang sonorously as the appropriately named villain Wurm.



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