"Puissant individuality"

F. Kubel in the Los Angeles Herald:

We have had all kinds of Carmens here, ranging from the delightful daintiness of Theo Dorre to the massive freshness of Signora Almirana, from the misconception of Emma Juch to the literal Collamarini, but we have never before had so thoroughly equipped an interpreter of the role as was shown us in Mme. Calvé last night. Her dramatic temperament is most powerful, and the impersonation and its force are heightened both by the willfulness and abandon of her moods and the strikingly beautiful means of expression which she has at her command. Calvé is a great singer as well as a lyric actress of a puissant individuality. She is an artist of brains, and her intellectuality showed itself repeatedly in her faculty for associating with the words a most suitable and expressive tonal color. She felt the words, the burning speech, the torrent of passion, and her warm, obedient tones mirrored her emotions most beautifully. Her Carmen is unlike the others that we have seen; she is the veritable Gitana of the story, the incarnation of the wild, fickle nomad of the south of Europe. She must have studied the type, taken of the ordinary gypsy what she deemed illustrative of Merimee’s story, and with her own conception of the character, have fashioned out of these the fascinating, tantalizing, coquettish and feline enslaver and destroyer of men known as “Carmen.” The loveliness of her musical individuality but augmented and emphasized the brilliant picture she drew. Her art of song is great; so great, indeed that it cannot be taught in conservatories and hence her undisputed…. achieved a success that was warmly indicated by the large audience.

On this day in 1965 bass Nicolai Ghiaurov made his Metropolitan Opera debut as Méphistophélès.

Birthday anniversaries of tenor Joseph Rogachevsky (1891); contralto Res Fischer (1896); conductors Alberto Erede (1908) and Lamberto Gardelli (1915); bass and composer Jerome Hines (1921) and soprano Ingrid Bjoner (1927).