Met's First Week

"A major miracle," cracked Variety, and more sedate critics generally agreed: for once, the bejeweled opening-night audience at the Metropolitan Opera actually seemed more interested in the opera than in itself. The reason, as Variety reported, was that the company had "put its best tonsil forward." The chosen 4,000--who had paid a record $59,961 admission, with orchestra seats at $30--heard as fine a Forza del Destino as modern Metgoers could remember.

The critics ladled out the praise generously to the cast, headed by Soprano Zinka Milanov, Tenor Richard Tucker, Baritone Leonard Warren and Basso Cesare Siepi. Just to keep franchise, the critics grumbled a little because of some of the cuts that were made (or some that were not made) in shortening Verdi's overlong opera. But they more than made up for that with praise of Painter Eugene Berman's "deeptoned and properly ominous" new sets (TIME, Nov. 17).

In general, the Met was in good form all week. Furthermore, Director Bing proved to have some scenic surprises up his well-tailored sleeve when it came to the Met's 300th performance of Lohengrin. That good old standby, he modestly announced, had been somewhat restyled for the occasion. However, the only perceptible resemblance between the new Lohengrin and the old was in Wagner's four-hour score. Met Stage Director Dino Yannopoulos, 32, working with Designer Charles Elson of the company staff, took Josef Urban's rich old sets apart, reset the best of the gloomy old forms against fields of bright new color. The Met had a vivid new set, "dirt cheap" (about $15,000), and a first-class singing cast topped by Tenor Hans Hopf in his first Met performance of Lohengrin and Soprano Eleanor Steber as Elsa.

It was not roses all the way. One night, Manhattan saw Soprano Dorothy Kirsten's Tosca, which had brought the house down in San Francisco two seasons ago. It sent only a mild tremor through the Met's formidable masonry. "Singing Tosca," chirped the Daily News, "she made an excellent Mimi." But at week's end Baritone Robert Merrill got off to an impressive start in his first Rigoletto, and his divorced bride Soprano Roberta Peters, as Gilda, matched him with a Caro nome that stopped the show.

Director Bing chose opening week to announce another bold venture. Early in December, said he, a performance of Carmen will be televised from the stage of the Met, piped on a closed circuit to some 30 motion-picture houses in cities from coast to coast. If people will pay (sometimes) to see televised prizefights, perhaps they will pay to see televised opera. In any case, Bing means to find out.

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