Grand Opera: The Story of the Met

by Affron, Charles

  Otello: February 24, 1940

  When it returned at last on December 22, 1937, Otello had been out of the repertoire since 1913. The production was the capstone of Giovanni Martinelli’s long career. Lawrence Tibbett was the Iago. Elisabeth Rethberg substituted for the scheduled Desdemona, Eidé Norena. Reviewers targeted Tibbett’s tendency to oversing and overact and the aging voices of Martinelli and Rethberg. The Met released the third of its transmissions of the opera, the 1940 Otello, in its series “Historic Broadcast Recordings.” Martinelli, even less plush than he had been in the first in 1938, manages nonetheless to reach the full stature of the tragic hero through phrasing and intensity. Here, Tibbett recalibrates his tone to keep pace with Iago’s shifting machinations. And Rethberg sounds fresher and more engaged than she had in the earlier broadcast. Panizza’s orchestra is, as always, sensitive to the smallest variations of rhythm and dynamics. The opera was revived in 1945–46, 1946–47, and 1948–49, conducted by Szell and Busch. The first Otello of this later run, Wagnerian Torsten Ralf, was insufficiently Italianate, and the second, converted baritone Ramon Vinay (he had recently been in Toscanini’s historic broadcast with the NBC Symphony), was strained by the tessitura. Stella Roman enchanted listeners with her high pianissimos, only to exasperate them with her clunky phrasing; as the other Desdemona, the overparted Licia Albanese dropped the role after one season. Leonard Warren, sumptuous yet nimble, went on to sing more Iagos than anyone in Met history. The opera slumped at the box office. Otello would finally be anchored in the public’s affections in January 1955 when Mario Del Monaco was the Moor of Venice and Renata Tebaldi his unfortunate wife.17

  Le Nozze di Figaro: March 9, 1940

  Like Otello, Le Nozze di Figaro had been missing for more than two decades when it reentered the repertoire on February 20, 1940. During the long span, Mozart had been present only in Don Giovanni, with some regularity, and Die Zauberflöte and Così fan tutte, rarely. Reviewers of the February Le Nozze di Figaro took issue with Graf’s broad direction, with an interior stage both difficult to negotiate and acoustically inimical, with Rethberg, the Countess, her best years behind her and garishly costumed, and with an ensemble only at dress rehearsal level. But the importance of the occasion was uncontested. Best of all, the audience had a wonderful time at what was still thought of as fare for the cognoscenti. With this production, Le Nozze di Figaro became a fixture at the Met. In the 1940s, led first by Panizza, and then most notably by Walter, Busch, and Reiner, it was scheduled in all but two seasons. The principals remained largely unchanged: John Brownlee sang fifty-five Counts out of a possible sixty-two, Pinza and Sayão had a near monopoly on Figaro and Susanna, Jarmila Novotna and Risë Stevens alternated as the lovesick Cherubino, and Eleanor Steber soon became the Countess of choice. Evident in the March 9, 1940, broadcast is the degree to which Panizza’s brisk tempos sustain the hilarity. In contrast, in the broadcast of January 29, 1944, Walter infuses the score with the warmth of his expansive phrasing, both guiding and cosseting the singers. In 1944, Steber, through seamless legato, even articulation of fioritura, and the silvery sound that identify her as an exemplary practitioner of Mozart, fills the music with the sadness of the wronged wife. Under Walter, Pinza dispenses with buffoonery, Sayão has the time to put a smile in her voice, Novotna to tease out the threads of Cherubino’s adolescent ardor. Only Brownlee, careless in passagework, labored at the top, insufficient in resonance, and deficient in Italian pronunciation, disappoints in both broadcasts.

  Fidelio: February 22, 1941

  Kirsten Flagstad was the Leonore both of Bruno Walter’s debut and of the broadcast of the following week. If the soprano is ill at ease with rapidly articulated notes and her high Bs lack her familiar resonance, the beauty and size of her voice and the fullness of her commitment to the heroine’s plight compensate for these shortcomings. René Maison makes palpable the anguish of Florestan, traversing the arduous course of “Gott! Welch Dunkel hier!” with precise and piercing tone. The luxury casting of Alexander Kipnis as Rocco ensures the broad bass line of the ensembles as it does the geniality of the character. In its revival in 1945, Fidelio again belonged to Walter, this time in English. The star conductor led a starless and largely inadequate cast. The exception was the Leonore of Regina Resnik. Her performance, as documented in the broadcast, is difficult to reconcile with reviews that find her, in her debut season, unready for so demanding a part. To be sure, she does not possess Flagstad’s tonal mass; on the other hand, her slimmer voice is more responsive to the technical difficulties and dramatic requirements of the role.

  Alceste: March 8, 1941

  For the Met’s very first Alceste (Jan. 24, 1941), Rychtarik designed an impressive neoclassical décor, tiers of stairs and imposing Greek columns. Graf’s staging was too often punctuated by tableaus in imitation of temple friezes. The production was to mark the debut of Germaine Lubin, a French dramatic soprano, a Wagnerian, and a great favorite of Hitler’s. Before the war she sang frequently in Germany; during the occupation she maintained close contacts with the Reich. There is ample reason to doubt the candor of her apology, received by Johnson just two months before the premiere of Alceste: “I am heartbroken that it is impossible for me for the moment to leave occupied France. Let me hope I will be able to sing at the Metropolitan Opera next season” (Times, Jan. 4, 1941). That opportunity lost, there would not be another. Marjorie Lawrence was the obvious replacement. Lawrence’s early career had been based in Paris, where she and Lubin had often shared roles. In Virgil Thomson’s view, the Australian singer made a decidedly inferior Alceste (Herald Tribune). Rose Bampton stepped in for the indisposed Lawrence in the Saturday broadcast. Bampton makes a strong effect when her beautiful middle register is allowed to shine. But her soprano voice, rebuilt from its contralto origins, has deficits at both ends of the scale, particularly glaring in the score’s best-known aria, “Divinités du Styx.” And lacking sufficient breath to fill out the long phrases with composure, Bampton often comes under stress. Panizza’s direction propels the many scenes of sorrow with welcome energy, and sets bracing tempos for the extended dance sequences. Below average box-office receipts and tepid critical reaction dashed hopes for the rapid return of Alceste. Gluck’s demand for a true dramatic soprano was satisfied at the opera’s revival in 1952, in English, for Flagstad’s farewell and, again in English, for the long-overdue debut of Eileen Farrell in 1960.

  Don Giovanni: March 7, 1942

  In 1929, after a lapse of two decades, Don Giovanni resumed his amorous pursuits along Broadway. From then on, Mozart’s dramma giocoso would stray no more. In the March 1942 broadcast, Kipnis’s Leporello, inflected by his dark Russian bass, is maddeningly faulty in diction and rhythm; Charles Kullman, the Ottavio, takes extra breaths in key phrases; Novotna’s Elvira is stretched to the limit of her agility and range. Bampton is a secure and incisive Anna, Sayão a refreshingly brazen Zerlina. Pinza’s Giovanni is a memorable match of artist and role, and undoubtedly the enduring foundation for the opera’s popularity at the Met. In fourteen seasons over the span of twenty years, he sang virtually all of the many performances of the work. Under Walter’s direction, the crackling recitatives, passionate arias, and propulsive ensembles of the 1942 broadcast cohere to mark a theatrical event far greater than the sum of its not always perfect parts.

  Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute): December 26, 1942

  Revived for the first time since 1926, this English-language Die Zauberflöte captured the audience once and for all. Rychtarik’s sets combined “the baroque atmosphere of Mozart’s period, the fantastic Egyptian locale of the action and the significance of the drama as a progress from darkness to light.” Taubman viewed the concept as “sensitive and tasteful” (Times, Dec. 12, 1941), Thomson as “dignified, fanciful, and tasty” (Herald Tribune); Douglas Watts carped at the “endless changes of scenes” (News). The principals of the broadcast of the following December are an inconsistent lot. Josephine Antoine is a Queen of the
Night without an F above high C. Kullman, the Tamino, produces a weak and bleaty top. At times, Novotna’s affecting Pamina finds herself short of breath and obliged to strain for her highest notes; still, she delivers the dialogue not as an opera singer forced to speak, but as an accomplished actress. Brownlee puts over Papageno’s antics in diction so crisp that, for once, the audience gets the jokes. In a heavy Italian accent, and sometimes not quite in the center of the pitch, Pinza floods the listener with the depth and breadth of his voice. In the end, it is Walter who lifts the proceedings to their lofty plane. Without loss to the singspiel’s humor, the themes of virtue and love emerge transcendent.18

  Pelléas et Mélisande: January 13, 1945

  On January 26, 1944, after a brief hiatus, Pelléas et Mélisande returned to the repertoire with the debut of conductor Emil Cooper. Cooper’s unorthodox treatment, where overpowering emotions were given their due, prompted Thomson to declare, “The whole musical fabric, vocal as well as instrumental, becomes . . . as straightforward and sincere an expression as anyone can well imagine, and far more so than we are accustomed to hear in the theater” (Herald Tribune, Jan. 4, 1945). The broadcast of January 13 bears out Thomson’s judgment. Cooper frees the work from the mist in which it had been shrouded. And although Sayão dwells, of necessity, in her weak lower octave, and Tibbett struggles against high notes and dull tone, and Kipnis drenches the French text in Russian phonemes, all three extract vivid characters from Maeterlinck’s murky symbolism. Martial Singher, having wrested the role for the first time in Met history from the tenors for whom it was scored, is largely successful in negotiating passages outside his range. He makes a compelling case for a baritone Pelléas. But Debussy’s opera remained a difficult sell.

  Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio): January 18, 1947

  With the success of Don Giovanni, Le Nozze di Figaro, and Die Zauberflöte, Johnson set about increasing Mozart’s share of the repertoire even further. He next programmed Die Entführung aus dem Serail, again in a Ruth and Thomas Martin translation. Cooper was the conductor of the November 29, 1946, premiere. Designer Donald Oenslager and director Herbert Graf sought to shore up the opera’s appeal by adding “variety and movement” to the spectacle with scene changes of their own invention. Inspired by Persian miniatures, Oenslager filled the stage with intricately decorated structural elements in flattened perspective. Most reviewers were well disposed to the décor and far less to the singing and acting. Five poorly attended shows following on mixed notices would banish the title for more than thirty years. Eleanor Steber, the Constanze, may well have been underpowered in the house, as first-night critics commented. As heard in the January 1947 broadcast, she invests “Deepest sorrow [Traurigkeit]” and “Tortures unabating [Martern aller Arten]”—tests of legato singing and coloratura dexterity, often at the extremes of the range—with delicacy, accuracy, and, when needed, thrust.19

  Falstaff: February 26, 1949

  All split-second changes of rhythm and dynamics and intricate ensembles, Falstaff cries out for a virtuoso conductor. It found one in Beecham, who led the 1944 revival. Reviewers were critical of the English translation, cited both Tibbett’s impoverished vocal resources and his theatrical savvy, and above all cheered the “brilliantly paced” leadership of Beecham (Thomson, Herald Tribune, Jan. 15) and “the playing of the orchestra, which was crisp, full of color, or jocular allusion and lyrical warmth” (Downes, Times). Three years later, there was serious, ultimately futile talk of inveigling Toscanini back to the Met for Verdi’s comic masterpiece. But in 1949, it was Reiner’s turn. Leonard Warren in the title role is only one of the treasures of the broadcast. Cloe Elmo thunders Dame Quickly’s hilarious repetitions of “reverenza,” Giuseppe Valdengo plumbs the depth of Ford’s bitter jealousy, Giuseppe Di Stefano lends his freshest tenor to Fenton’s puppy love, and Regina Resnik animates the proceedings with her fleet, funny, and luminous Alice. Only Licia Albanese, unable to float high pianissimos at less than mezzo forte, is mismatched as Nannetta. Reiner’s baton forges a precise yet playful Falstaff. Referring back to the conductor’s triumphant Met debut just weeks before in Salome, Cecil Smith wrote that “his transfiguration of the Falstaff music demonstrated almost more strikingly how much we miss when we do not hear great operatic music conducted by a great craftsman.” Still reluctant to succumb to the mercurial Verdi of his final opera, audiences hovered just below the box-office average for the three-performance run of this exceptional edition, confirming again that the operatic monuments superlatively conducted do not necessarily make for capacity houses.20

  JOHNSON REHEARSED

  In 1945, Johnson signed a two-year renewal of his contract; at its expiration, he was continued for two more seasons and then for another. The last extension was accompanied by the announcement that the general manager would be leaving at the end of 1949–50. He may have talked of resigning once too often. The board had been distressed at the red ink on the 1947–48 ledger and had grown increasingly weary of his labor troubles and bad humor. Fifteen years was decidedly enough. Johnson’s gala farewell, February 28, 1950, featured two of the company’s biggest postwar stars, Ljuba Welitsch as a tempestuous Tosca and Ferruccio Tagliavini as a lyric Mario. In the pageant that crowned the evening, a review of the Johnson era, Bori paraded as Violetta and De Luca as Germont, Martinelli as Otello and Tibbett as Iago, Steber as the Marschallin, Frederick Jagel as Peter Grimes, Blanche Thebom as Ortrud, Schorr as Hans Sachs, and Set Svanholm as Lohengrin, decked out in the very costume Johnson had worn in Italy more than thirty years earlier.21

  The next month, during an intermission of the final Saturday broadcast of the season, the outgoing head spoke directly to the audiences sitting in the hall and by their radios: “You know how often I have told you that my greatest pride in my tenure in office here has been to give the American singer, the American artist, his chance in opera.” If Americanization was axiomatic to Johnson’s regime beginning in 1935, by 1939 it was as much a matter of necessity as of principle. In May 1942, he told his board, “The day is gone for an operatic manager to have any such surprise [as the withdrawal of so many performers who had been contracted] in store. His function is undergoing an inevitable transition from the purveyance of established foreign success to the discovery and development of native talent.” The company’s future would depend on a gifted and well-trained cadre of national singers. Two years later, with “reconversion . . . in the air,” Johnson wrote that the curtain would rise on “what is predominantly an American opera company,” the goal toward which the Met had tended since his appointment under the Juilliard standard. That fall, “nearly two-thirds of the singing personnel [had] been actually born in this country.” America would soon move from “importer of talent” to “producer of talent” and ultimately to “exporter of talent” (Times, Nov. 26, 1944).22

  Johnson had gotten ahead of himself. In his Met of the 1940s, new American stars, however lustrous, were insufficiently numerous to compensate for the European deficit. Veterans were kept on when their best days were clearly behind them: Schorr was drafted for Wotans he no longer wished to sing, Rethberg for the Siegfried Brünnhilde, a role she should no longer have assumed. Martin Mayer argues another point, that “the frequency with which light-voiced people sang heavy roles—and heavy-voiced people lumbered through light ones—became distressing, quite apart from more subtle questions of whether artists and roles fitted together in temperament or style.” Risë Stevens’s high mezzo was pressed into service for the contralto pronouncements of Erda. Astrid Varnay’s dramatic soprano was mismatched with Eva’s lyric lines in Die Meistersinger. And then there were those who made debuts with little or no experience. Irving Kolodin, in his epilogue to the Johnson era, questions “the wisdom of allowing young singers with no more than a textbook knowledge of their subject the freedom of a stage traditionally the object of a lifetime’s progress. . . . What should have been the tolerable exception became numbingly regular
in a flighty, planless, artistically arbitrary shuffling about of personnel.” Seventeen years old in 1943, Patrice Munsel was too green for the full battery of coloratura trials to which she was subjected. If Varnay and Regina Resnik, both in their very early twenties, passed their Met initiations with flying colors, there was a price to pay. In her debut season, 1941–42, four Wagnerian roles she had never before sung on any stage drained the bloom from Varnay’s voice; she nevertheless prevailed magnificently as Isolde and Brünnhilde through much of her lengthy career. On December 6, 1944, Resnik bowed as the Trovatore Leonora, and in less than two weeks added Santuzza and Aïda; the breakneck schedule may have shortened her days as a dramatic soprano but it did not inhibit her subsequent evolution into the dramatic mezzo she would inevitably become.23

  In his 1949 critique, Virgil Thomson had taken a tack different from the later Kolodin and Mayer analyses. Thomson charged that the Johnson administration had pandered to the low common denominator of audience preference, and that it had tolerated poorly staged and unevenly sung variations of the tried and true. What most galled Thomson was that the management had shunned “experienced musicians and opera lovers” on the one hand, and the critical establishment on the other. His fusillade aimed directly at what he termed “a pure box-office credo,” a “renunciation of the education function” for which, he added spitefully, the hard-won tax exemption should be revoked (Herald Tribune, Jan. 30, 1949).