The biting and the fighting
On this day in 1939, the Metropolitan Opera on tour in New Orleans presented Carmen featuring Bruna Castagna in the title role.
On this day in 1939, the Metropolitan Opera on tour in New Orleans presented Carmen featuring Bruna Castagna in the title role.
James A. Wobbe in the New Orleans Sunday Item-Tribune:
Madame Castagna, who virtually stole the show as Amneris in Verdi’s Aida on Tuesday night, turned in the finest Carmen this reviewer has ever witnessed. Added to the great charm of her liquid voice, a voice of wide range and dominant personality, she is an actress in every sense of the word. Her coquettish, wanton, biting, fighting cigarette girl leaves us with the feeling that we shall never see it excelled.
The remarkable flexibility of her voice was demonstrated in her robust singing of the “Habanera,” and “Seguidilla,” and the tragic depth she put into the fortune-telling song “In vain! to shun the answer.”
201 years earlier, Handel’s Serse premiered in London.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4q4GcJSuBfM
WindyCityOperaman
Dan Soda (Windy City Operaman) is a Chicago native whose first visit to opera was at age 17 and Massenet’s Werther with Troyanos and Kraus. Nothing was ever the same. Opera and concert performances, recordings and video are an obsession. He prepares Parterre Box’s daily birthday and anniversary tributes. He also enjoys concerts, live theater and movies.
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Topics: On This Day
