Hansel and Gretel Metropolitan Opera December 1937

Irene Jessner

Queena Mario

Hansel and Gretel was the regular Christmas broadcast between 1931 and 1938. It inaugurated the matinee broadcasts from the Met on Christmas Day 1931 and was heard on either Christmas Eve, Christmas Day or Boxing Day for the next seven seasons. Apart from a solitary January performance in 1947 it would not return to the broadcast schedule until 1967.

The broadcast gives us a chance to hear soprano Queena Mario (1896-1951) as Gretel. Mario was particularly noted for her Michaela in Carmen, Marguerite in Faust, and Antonia in Hoffmann. Partnering her is Viennese soprano Irene Jessner (1901-1994). Jessner sang the lighter Wagnerian roles at the Met (Elsa, Elisabeth, Eva) and regularly made cameos as a Valkyrie. Here we get the chance to hear her early on in her Met career (she made her debut in 1936), in a role that she rarely sang.

The sound is very noisy at times, as is typical with airchecks from this season. A much better sounding recording of this opera from April 1937 (with largely the same cast) exists in the New York Public Library deriving from the original transcription discs.

Metropolitan Opera House
December 24, 1937 Matinee Broadcast


HÄNSEL UND GRETEL
Humperdinck-Wette

Hänsel..................Irene Jessner
Gretel..................Queena Mario
Gertrud.................Doris Doe
Peter...................Arnold Gabor
Witch...................Dorothee Manski
Sandman.................Lucielle Browning
Dew Fairy...............Charlotte Symons

Conductor...............Karl Riedel

https://rapidshare.com/files/3399608747/1937HanselDec1.mp3
https://rapidshare.com/files/2136263492/1937HanselDec2.mp3