Strakosch Italian Opera: Il Barbiere di Siviglia

“The Italian Opera thought it ought to do something special for Thanksgiving Day and so gave Rossini’s ‘Barbier von Sevilla’ last night at the Academy of Music. One might have been satisfied with this token of sympathy for our national holiday—on which everyone has the right to spoil their stomach to the best of their ability—if the performance had not been so poor. It was not well attended. The majority there were Germans, who had come to see and hear their compatriot, Herr Karl Formes, in his masterful creation of ‘Basilio’ once more. Herr Formes, who was in excellent voice yesterday, sang the only important number of the part, the Verkäumdungsarie, superbly—no, unsurpassably—as far as the skillful, artistic use of the voice and characteristic coloring of the part are concerned. He was recalled after the aria. If, alongside Herr Formes, we consider acceptable Del Puente as ‘Figaro’ and Fräulein Donadio as ‘Rosina,’ then we have said all we can in favor of this Italian Thanksgiving celebration. The pure caricature of a ‘Count Almaviva’ was Signor Benfratelli, who, it must be said, stepped in at the last minute to replace Debassini, who was ill. When Herr Benfratelli gets to the point that he can sing the music that Rossini wrote for this role, then he will be a great singer. But he will never learn it. Modern tenors don’t learn this sort of thing at all anymore. One of the few still capabale is Signor Debassini—and unfortunately he was indisposed last night. Fiorini’s ‘Bartolo’ is also an unlikely and unnaturally comic character. Under these circumstances, it is easy for one to imagine how dreadful the whole performance was.”

“The Italian opera does not seem to come under the popular head of Thanksgiving amusements, for there was a terrible dearth of patrons last night at the performance of Rossini’s comic opera ‘Il Barbiere di Sevigilia.’ The performance was not attractive in any sense of the word. The cast was the following [lists cast]. It is impossible to speak in terms of commendation of the performance except in the case of Del Puente. Mlle. Donadio failed to give even a passing interest in the rôle of Rosina, and Benfratelli was utterly inadequate to the requirements of the tenor rôle. Carl Formes has not recovered his voice, and hard as it is with one heard him in his prime to criticize twenty years later the performance of one of the greatest artists in his line, who has ever sung such rôles as Basilio, Marcel, Bertram and Leporello, we are compelled to say that the operatic career of Carl Formes is past, and that every rôle he essays at the present is an injury to his past fame. It would be difficult for any impresario to present a worse representation of Rossini’s opera.”