Word: fidelio
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Tenor Vickers made an inauspicious Met debut earlier in the year in Pagliacci, later scored a notable triumph as Florestan in Fidelio (TIME, Feb. 8). His performance last week in the role of Siegmund prompted some of the loudest and longest cheers heard at the Met this season. A solidly constructed man (5 ft. 9 in., 215 lbs., chest 47 in.), Vickers is a passionate, convincing actor; his voice is heavy but admirably flexible, capable of varied and subtle shadings. It was at its most spectacular when it surged over the orchestra in Siegmund's furious outbursts...
...children," said the dying Beethoven, "this is the one that has cost me the worst birth pangs." The "child" was Fidelio, Beethoven's only opera and one of his least successful works in his own lifetime. A failure at its first performance in Vienna in 1805, it did not win an audience until 1814, when it was presented in completely revised form. The work is hampered by a naive plot, an inconsistency of style (the first act is virtually light opera, the second grand opera), and vocal parts of fiendish difficulty...
...Fidelio also has passages of unsurpassed musical grandeur. Last week Fidelio returned to Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera for the first time since 1951 in a new production that did more to under, score the opera's, and the Met's weaknesses than to illuminate their strengths...
...journeyman Fidelio, a welcome but not memorable addition to the Met's repertory. The surprise of the evening was that, with the forces assigned to the new production, it did not come across as a resounding success...
...hired Norwegian Soprano Aase Nordmo-Lövberg, sight unseen. Last week Soprano Lövberg, 34, a statuesque blonde, appeared in Philadelphia's Academy of Music for her American debut. Despite a deep chest cold, she sang a challenging program of arias from Beethoven's Fidelio and Wagnerian selections. Soprano Lövberg proved to be a sort of Flagstad in miniature, more lyric than dramatic, with a round, pure and rangy voice. Said Conductor Ormandy: "One of the greatest singers I've heard anywhere...