Carmen Metropolitan Opera 1948


Metropolitan Opera House
February 7, 1948 Matinee Broadcast


CARMEN

Carmen..................Risë Stevens
Don José................Ramon Vinay
Micaela.................Nadine Conner
Escamillo...............Martial Singher
Frasquita...............Thelma Votipka
Mercédès................Lucielle Browning
Remendado...............Alessio De Paolis
Dancaïre................George Cehanovsky
Zuniga..................Philip Kinsman
Moralès.................Clifford Harvuot
Dance...................Aida Alvarez
Dance...................Leon Varkas

Conductor...............Wilfred Pelletier

Risë Stevens dominated the role of Carmen at the Met like no other soprano before her. The opera was broadcast twelve times between 1947 and 1960 and Stevens took the title role in eleven of those. Her dusky mezzo was ideally suited to the role of Carmen, and in the early 1950s she filmed some extracts for American television. This particular broadcast is almost complete, only missing the second half of act 4. The sound is average at best, being recorded off air, but it does give a good sense of what Stevens was like when heard live. Among the rest of the cast Vinay sang many heavy tenor roles (including Otello, Siegmund and Tristan) in the late '40s and early '50s and is a solid Don Jose. French baritone Martial Singher made a name for himself in the popular French operas at the Met, particularly as Valentin in Faust and the villans in Hoffmann. 

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