Maretzek Italian Opera: La Figlia del regimmento

Event Information

Venue(s):
Academy of Music

Manager / Director:
Max Maretzek

Event Type:
Opera

Record Information

Status:
Published

Last Updated:
19 November 2024

Performance Date(s) and Time(s)

21 Mar 1873, 8:00 PM

Performers and/or Works Performed

1)
aka Daughter of the Regiment, The ; Figlia del reggimento, La; Child of the Regiment, The; Regimentstochter, Die
Composer(s): Donizetti
Text Author: Saint-Georges, Bayard
Participants:  Maretzek Italian Opera Company;  [tenor] Locatelli (role: Corporal Cartouche);  Giorgio Ronconi (role: Sulpizio);  Miss [mezzo-soprano] Schofield (role: Marchesa);  Pauline Lucca (role: Marie);  Signor Vizzani (role: Tonio)

Citations

1)
Advertisement: New-York Times, 19 March 1873, 7.
2)
Review: New-York Daily Tribune, 22 March 1873, 12.

“It is strange that the ‘Daughter of the Regiment’ should have been reserved til the very end of the season, for of all the operas in which Madame Lucca has appeared it is the one in which she makes the most vivid impression. We do not mean to say that Maria is her best part; it is not to be compared, for artistic value, with her great personations, such as Margherita and Leonora; but its merits are conspicuous to the most careless observer; it charms the vast average public from the first scene to the last; it lays no tax upon the intellect; but it is thoroughly amusing, and therefore it will be remembered when better and more serious things have been forgotten. The Vivandière in her conception of the part is not a coquette—as pretty prime donne are apt to make her—but a hoyden. She has no delicate graces, no sentimental airs. She is a rude good fellow, just as a daughter of the camp ought to be, and she rollicks among the regiment of fathers with an unconventional gusto exhilarating to witness. Nothing could be more deliciously natural than her irritation when she is separated from Tonio in the early part of the opera—coarse but not vulgar, comic but not farcical. In the garb of a fashionable young lady she is just enough constrained to seem ill at ease yet not exactly awkward. And when she breaks away from the music lesson and has that famous escapade with Sulpizio, what a frolic there is to be sure! She is called back again and again, and the audience never has enough of it. The only part of the opera which she makes remarkable either by voice or vocalism is the great bravura aria of the second act; that was superb; all her other telling effects were produced by action alone; but any one who knows Madame Lucca and knows the opera might easily have predicted this.

Her Maria, in short, is so good that it made successful one of the worst prepared operas we have ever seen at the Academy of Music. The whole season has been remarkable for meager rehearsals, but we should suppose the ‘Daughter of the Regiment’ must have been produced with no rehearsals at all. There was a series of blunders from the raising of the curtain till its fall. The chorus once or twice provoked general laughter; but for the most part it was too outrageously bad to be laughed at. The Tonio was Sig. Vizzani; Sulpizio, Ronconi; Marchesa, Mrs. Schofield; Corporal Cartouche, Sig. Locateli; Hortensio, a gentleman whose name is withheld out of consideration of his family.”

3)
Review: New-York Times, 22 March 1873, 6.

“Donizetti’s bright and tuneful opera ‘La Figlia del Regimmento,’ was sung at the Academy of Music last evening with Mme. Lucca, Signor Vizzani, and Signor Ronconi in the principal rôles. ‘La Figlia,’ until yesterday, had not been done this season, and it was quite evident then that additional rehearsals would not have been fruitless. Happily, Mme. Lucca’s spirited acting and expressive and finished singing were potent as ever, and the lady’s personation of Marta rendered the recital quite acceptable. Like most opéras-comiques ‘La Figlia del Reggimento’ suffers by the substitution of recitative for the brisk dialogue of the original libretto. But there are not a few agreeable numbers in the score, and while Signor Vizzani approved himself a fair representative of Tonio, and Signor Ronconi compelled frequent merriment as Sulpizio, Mme. Lucca gave to the archness of the regimental song commencing ‘Ciascun lo dice,’ to the touching melody of ‘Convien partir,’ when she bids adieu to her adopted family; to the romping gaiety of the ‘Rataplan’ duet, and to the enthusiasm of the patriotic song, their fullest meaning and impressiveness. At the end of each of the two acts Mme. Lucca was called before the curtain again and again. On the other incidents of the entertainment we need not dwell; Monday’s repetition of ‘La Figlia,’ for the benefit of Mme. Lucca, will supply an opportunity for more extended reference.”

4)
Review: New York Post, 24 March 1873, 2.

“What a wonderful triumph and happy fate to be a great singer—to receive the attention, the plaudits and the homage of cultivated and enthusiastic assemblages—to be the admired, the feted and favored Diva wherever she goes. But the paths that lead to that eminence are often stony and steep enough.

Early in the present century there was in Paris a very poor girl, who had a beautiful voice and an inspiration rarely to be met with, singing at sight anything laid before her. She had won the first prize at the Conservatoire; and she was to make her appearance at the Opera Comique, but the engagement was postponed from week to week and from month to month, until only ten weeks of the season remained. In despair she had given up all hope and all her visions and dreams, when a friend took her to Donizetti. The moment he heard her he exclaimed, ‘Leave it to me; your fortune is made.’ He went to the manager and told him that he had found the singer that he wanted for his own new opera; and one condition of his delivering the score was that she should be engaged at once. Of course, a new score of Donizetti was a fortune. The condition was accepted, and Giuletta Borghese (she was French, the daughter of the lawyer Bourgois) was engaged.

So far, it was well, but there remained a difficulty [historical sketch continues for several more sentences]…Mlle. Borghese rose to fame. In like manner fifteen years ago a poor girl was engaged, in a Vienna Theatre, at six dollars a month. Like Mlle. Borghese, this poor girl with extraordinary voice and powers found a composer in Meyerbeer; and Pauline Lucca rose to fame.

The performance of this opera at the Academy of Music went off very successfully. We have more than once desired better rehearsal and preparation, and we think the audience have unmistakably expressed the same desire.

Considering the soloists, we have only space to say that Mme. Lucca has rarely sung better. Whatever she sings, one feels like asking, Does not this suit her best of all? So always with gifts like hers—such magnetic powers as an actress and such a limitless range of expression. She forces the hearer to laugh with the Rataplan or to cry in the Convien partir; and while he is astounded with her grandeur in ‘L’Africaine,’ he is struck with her vivacity in the naughty ‘Fille du Regiment.’ No one who saw her acting in the duet with Ronconi will ever forget it; for Ronconi is one of the few singers who, like Lucca, is perfect in acting. Signor Vizzani, who sings every night, was a little fatigued; and we hope, as of the others, to have better account of him in the second performance.”