Maretzek Italian Opera: L’ Étoile du nord

“[O]n Monday we are to have ‘The Star of the North,’ which was so deservedly successful last year.”

The opera stage is newly designed, and the newly-painted scenery is supposed to be brilliant.

Reviews multiple performances. “Mr. Maretzek has thus far produced three favorite operas, none of which boast absolute novelty, but all of which have presented a fresh and excellent vocal strength….the Star of the North, one of Meyerbeer’s masterpieces, and the first extensive work yet produced, gave us Miss Kellogg in her exquisite vocal part of Katharina, and Miss Hauck as the pretty warbling Prascovia. Bellini’s Gritsenko and Antonucci’s Peters have been many times praised as characterizations and the national and military spirit of the music itself is sometimes grand, and always unique. A more strongly characterized work than this in some respects Meyerbeer did not write.”

Kellogg and Hauck are the audience’s favorites.  We hope that in the case of Hauck, she does not let this success go to her head and influence her performance. In Nordstern she behaved in a way that showed that she seems not to be aware of the great responsibility she has to the audience in fulfilling her task as a performer.