Word: carmens
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...years Soprano Rosa Ponselle has openly aspired to be the Carmen of the Metropolitan Opera Company. Carmen in the repertoire, sung by any popular singer, means a crowded house, money in the till. Last week for the first time in four years the stage was set for the Bizet opera. Soldiers and cigaret girls filled the square when suddenly a fiery bushy-haired creature appeared on the parapet, tore down the steps, pushed her way to the footlights. Soprano Ponselle's wish had come true...
First impression was to wonder why anyone so flagrantly sexy as her Carmen should trouble to work for a living in a cigaret factory. She sang the Habanera belligerently, as if defying the world. She turned on bewildered Don Jose like a tigress, sidled up to the captain of the guards like an oldtime cinema vamp. The stage scarcely seemed to hold her. Ponselle's voice is naturally sumptuous, but she was too busy ranting to do justice by Bizet's music...
...audience appeared to love it. Here was a slender, sinuous Carmen who looked like a gypsy. Here was one who took the prize for vulgarity, elbowing guards in the stomach, whistling hoydenishly, spitting out fruit skins, wriggling her hips. Most effective scene was when she read death in the cards, gave the toujours la mart all its tragic implications. Most debatable costume was a slinky black velvet affair with a top like a bullfighter's jacket. This she chose for the final act as a symbol of her submission to Escamillo, the toreador...
...line-up of singers is, on the whole, proud. Among the sopranos there are such experienced performers as Elisabeth Rethberg, Gertrude Kappel, Florence Easton, Lily Pons, Queena Mario, Edith Mason, Editha Fleischer, Rosa Ponselle, who will sing her first Carmen, and Lotte Lehmann who was to open the Philadelphia season in Tosca...
...Traviata. One Mildred Gerber, a protegee of Alderman Jacob M. Arvey, trilled hesitantly as Lucia di Lammermoor. Though Chicago opera audiences are notably easy to please, there was vigorous hissing when Tenor John Pane-Gasser appeared in Il Trovatore, uncontrolled laughter at Virginia Pemberton who as Micaela in Carmen gave the season's most inept performance. In Carmen Manager Longone interpolated a floor show by the popular dance team, Veloz & Yolanda. His innovation had its box-office effect but purists shuddered at his taste, as they did again when he permitted a Buick sedan to be exhibited...