Spring Experiment

For the first time since it opened its doors as a citadel for Society half a century ago. Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera House last week abandoned formality, became the scene of an experiment with popular-priced opera. Three dollars bought an orchestra seat that in the winter season sold for $7. Price-range for 1,500 places was from 25-c- to $1.50. Result was that customers popped up who had never been inside the Metropolitan before. Though the Company's headline singers were gone for the summer, there was a Carmen complete with horses, a Rigoletto and a sprightly new English version of Smetana's Bartered Bride.

The opening Carmen went off with such finish and pace that most critics pronounced it superior to the winter performances in which high-priced Rosa Ponselle impersonated the irrepressible gypsy heroine. For its spring season the Metropolitan had kept on 60 of its regular orchestramen, 60 choristers, the complete ballet corps. For its Carmen it had retained Bruna Castagna, a roly-poly Italian who joined the Metropolitan regulars last winter and was no stranger to New Yorkers who had heard her in the popular-priced Hippodrome performances and in the Stadium's summer opera. The Castagna Carmen is a jolly, rich-voiced woman who sings with authority and acts as if she thoroughly enjoyed being the life of the party. Back as the luckless Don Jose was Armand Tokatyan. for eleven years (1922-33) a leading Metropolitan tenor. Newcomer was pretty little Natalie Bodanskaya, 22, who grew up in a $9-a-month, cold-water flat in Manhattan's slums. Soprano Bodanskaya made her debut as the timid Micaela, won a warm ovation for her clear, fluty singing.

Rigoletto had big Chilean Baritone Carlo Morelli as the hunchbacked jester while Joseph Bentonelli (ne Benton) of Sayre, Okla. forced his light voice in an attempt to sound like the loud-mouthed Duke. The week's most inept performance was that of Gilda sung by San Francisco's Emily Hardy, who has been a member of her home company since 1933. In San Francisco Soprano Hardy has influential friends and on occasional appearances she has done herself proud. Chief trouble is that she has never developed a sound singing technique. Loyal San Franciscans admit that her voice is unreliable, that her greatest asset is her blonde good looks. Her appearance alone helped her in Manhattan last week.' Many a sensitive listener squirmed while she sang. Frequently she lapsed from pitch. Often her shallow tones were completely lost in the maze of the orchestration.

When Manager Edward Johnson accepted his post last spring he announced that his experiments would be limited at first to the supplementary spring season. True to his word, the first big production experiment was last week's Bartered Bride in English. Word leaked out from rehearsals that it was sure to be a rattling good show. The Marie was to be comely Muriel Dickson, who built up a following when she sang Gilbert & Sullivan with the D'Oyly Carte Company (TIME, Sept. 17, 1934). Her lover Hans was to be Tenor Mario Chamlee, who sang under the old-time Metropolitan regime.' Surprise came at the performance when Basso Louis D'Angelo, long confined to minor roles, emerged as a blustering comic. D'Angelo was the ubiquitous, bewhiskered marriage broker, with the flowered vest, the gaudy watch chain, the inseparable red umbrella. The stammering, half-witted Wenzel was Tenor George Rasely, a native of St. Louis, with a radio reputation and many a church job behind him. He had scarcely made an appearance, had scarcely stuttered a line before the audience accepted him, started to laugh its approval. Muriel Dick-Son exhibited a sure, clear voice, a pleasing professional stage presence and a diction, so polished that it was difficult to believe that the D'Oyly Carte once frowned on her for a burry Scottish accent.

In smaller roles throughout the week were several U. S. singers who made favorable showings. Contralto Anna Kaskas won an engagement in the Metropolitan Opera Auditions of the Air, a series of broadcasts sponsored throughout the winter by Sherwin-Williams Co. (paint). Basso Norman Cordon, a towering North Carolinian, was impressive as the ill-used father when he pronounced his curse on Rigoletto, did even better as the ludicrous circus manager in The Bartered Bride. In Rigoletto the swashbuckling assassin was Baritone John Gurney of Jamestown, N. Y., who took up music after Harvard Business School. Marie's mother in the Smetana opera was Lucelle Browning from Durham, N. C., a product of the Juilliard School of Music.

A popular-priced spring season was one of the stipulations made by the wealthy Juilliard Musical Foundation when it helped to save the Metropolitan last year with its grant of $150,000 (TIME, March 18, 1935 et seq.). Advertised purpose was to provide opportunities for more young U. S. singers, to attract people who want to hear good opera but who have hitherto shied away from the formality and the high prices that prevail throughout the winter season. The first week was pronounced a definite success. Rehearsals were called for more productions: a revival of Gluck's Orpheus aiul Eurydice; the U. S. premiere of Richard Hageman's Caponsacchi.

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