German Opera
The genius of Richard Wagner loomed over the world of opera at the turn of the 20th century. While Italian and French composers developed their own new styles, Germans were more or less bound to follow Wagner’s precepts more closely. Engelbert Humperdinck assisted in the initial Bayreuth performances of Parsifal, and his Hänsel und Gretel premiered at the Met in 1905.
But it was the 1903 Met premiere of Parsifal that drew international attention. Wagner had intended his “sacred festival stage play” to be performed only at Bayreuth, and the composer’s widow, the iron-willed Cosima, sued to prevent the Met performances. A United States court ruled that the family’s ban could not prevent performances in this country, so the Met premiere became the first fully staged version outside Bayreuth.
Conried also jumped at the opportunity to present Richard Strauss’s Salome at the Met two years later. But the American audience, and more importantly, influential members of the Met’s Board of Directors, were scandalized by the plot—including the lead soprano’s erotic scene with the decapitated head of John the Baptist. After the premiere, the Board banned the opera, and Salome didn’t return until 1934. Strauss, however, was redeemed with his elegant comedy Der Rosenkavalier. The 1913 Met premiere launched Strauss’s most popular opera at the Met, one that has become a repertory warhorse in the 110 years since.
Wagner’s Parsifal
Set design for Act I of the Met’s first Parsifal in 1903. Set designs were credited to Leopold Rothaug and Burghart & Co.
Left: The esteemed critic of The New York Times Richard Aldrich wrote that soprano Milka Ternina’s Kundry “was a performance of supreme beauty.” She had previously sung the role at the Bayreuth Festival in 1899.
Photo: W. Höffert
Right: American bass Robert Blass was well known for his interpretations of Wagner roles. He sang Gurnemanz for Parsifal’s Met premiere in 1903 and continued performing the role until 1922, for a total of 52 times, the most in the company’s history.
Left: Among the 30 Flower Maidens in Act II of Parsifal was Ellen Förnsen, pictured here.
Photo: Aimé Dupont
Right: As Parsifal, Alois Burgstaller’s voice had “a richness and power that filled his declamation with a thrilling expressiveness,” according to New York Tribune critic Henry Krehbiel. The German tenor had sung the role previously at the Bayreuth Festival, but as the Wagner family opposed the Met staging, his participation was seen as a betrayal.
Photo: Aimé Dupont
The Met stage received a major renovation in order to stage Parsifal in 1903, a project that was detailed in Scientific American magazine. In the same year, the Met auditorium was redecorated by Carrère and Hastings, architects of the New York Public Library.
Left: Alfred Hertz conducted the Met premiere of Parsifal. From 1902 to 1915, Hertz led the German wing of the Met, conducting more than 700 performances.
Photo: Aimé Dupont
Right: The genius of Bayreuth, Richard Wagner, was the most influential musical mind of his day and one of the most important of all time. New York music critics were largely under the sway of Wagner’s ideas and tended to judge all new works in comparison to those of “the master.”
Photo: Pierre-Louis Pierson
Humperdick’s Hansel und Gretel
Above: The gingerbread house in Hänsel und Gretel at the Met in 1905. Humperdinck’s opera had an immediate appeal to Met audiences and appeared in every season following its premiere until German opera was banned during World War I. It returned to the repertory in 1927 only to again go on hiatus again for the Second World War. Since then, it has often been a holiday-season presentation particularly suited for young audiences.
Photo: White studio
Left: Soprano Bella Alten, the Met’s first Gretel, sang light lyric roles with the company for a decade from 1904 to 1914. In addition to Hänsel und Gretel, she sang in the Met premieres of six other works, including as Adele in Johann Strauss II’s Die Fledermaus.
Photo: Aimé Dupont
Right: Soprano Lina Abarbanell made her Met debut as Hänsel in the Met premiere of Humperdinck’s opera. Her 15 appearances in the role would be her only performances at the Met. She had previously sung at the Irving Place Theatre, which was also managed by Heinrich Conried.
Composer Engelbert Humperdinck traveled to New York for the company premiere of Hänsel und Gretel in 1905, then returned in 1910 when his Königskinder had its world premiere at the Met.
Strauss’s Salome
Soprano Olive Fremstad, the Met’s first Salome in 1907, was a leading Wagnerian soprano with the company from 1903 to 1914. As a powerful singing actress, she met the heavy demands of Strauss’s heroine. New York Tribune critic Henry Krehbiel wrote that Fremstad “accomplished a miracle” and “left the listeners staring at each other with startling eyeballs and wrecked nerves.”
Photo: White studio
Left: Tenor Karel Burian performed the role of Herod in the Salome premiere. The part was brief compared to his regular fare of Tannhäuser, Parsifal, Siegfried, and Tristan, which he sang at the Met between 1906 and 1913.
Photo: Aimé Dupont
Right: Salome’s final scene, in which the title character sings amorously to the prophet’s severed head, left the audience in “the grip of a strange horror or disgust” (as reported by The New York Tribune).
Photo: Aimé Dupont
The famed “Dance of the Seven Veils” in 1907 was performed by the prima ballerina Bianca Froelich rather than the evening’s Salome, soprano Olive Fremstad.
Photo: White Studio
When the opera house’s owners met at J. P. Morgan’s library shortly after the Salome premiere, they agreed to inform General Manager Heinrich Conried “that the performance of Salome is objectionable and detrimental to the best interest of the Metropolitan Opera House.” Further performances were banned, giving fodder for the press to exploit the scandal.
Wagner’s Der Rosenkavalier
The Met premiere of Der Rosenkavalier featured German mezzo-soprano Margarethe Arndt-Ober as Octavian and American soprano Anna Case as Sophie. Arndt-Ober had a flourishing Met career in dramatic parts of both German and Italian operas until the ban on German opera during World War I led the Met to cancel her contracts. Case, who generally sang smaller roles, interrupted her career under happier circumstances when she married Clarence H. Mackay, a Board member of the Metropolitan Opera Company.
Photo: White studio
Left: Baritone Otto Goritz as Baron Ochs collapsed on the couch at the end of Act II of Der Rosenkavalier, with baritone Hermann Weil as Faninal, mezzo-soprano Marie Mattfeld as Annina, tenor Albert Reiss as Valzacchi, two unidentified men, baritone Otto Goritz, soprano Rita Fornia as Marianne, and unidentified individual.
Photo: White studio
Right: Baritone Otto Goritz made his Met debut as Klingsor in the company premiere of Parsifal and appeared as Baron Ochs in Der Rosenkavalier in 1913. In all, he sang more than 600 performances of mostly German roles at the Met. Like Arndt-Ober, Goritz saw his contract canceled in 1917 when the company banned German opera.
Photo: White studio
Left: The cape worn by soprano Frieda Hempel as the Marschallin in the Met premiere of Der Rosenkavalier is in the Met Archives costume collection.
Photo: Jonathan Tichler
Right: Soprano Frieda Hempel as the Marschallin and German mezzo-soprano Margarethe Arndt-Ober as Octavian in the Met premiere of Der Rosenkavalier. The Met’s most distinguished coloratura soprano of the time, Hempel was also a noted Marie in Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment, Violetta in Verdi’s La Traviata, and Queen of the Night in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte.
Photo: White studio
Portrait of Richard Strauss. Following the debacle of Salome, Strauss’s reputation as an opera composer was finally established in New York with Der Rosenkavalier. The New York Times noted, “it was natural that the composer … should wish to escape into a less oppressive atmosphere.” Der Rosenkavalier was given 11 times in its first season, indicating a success, and has been revived regularly since, racking up 400 performances to date.
Photo: Richard Gissford (NY)
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German Opera