Maretzek Italian Opera: Crispino e la comare

Event Information

Venue(s):
Academy of Music

Manager / Director:
Max Maretzek

Conductor(s):
Angelo Torriani

Event Type:
Opera

Record Information

Status:
Published

Last Updated:
29 August 2018

Performance Date(s) and Time(s)

27 Oct 1865, 8:00 PM

Performers and/or Works Performed

Citations

1)
Advertisement: New-York Times, 26 October 1865.
2)
Advertisement: New-York Daily Tribune, 26 October 1865.
3)
Advertisement: New York Post, 27 October 1865.
4)
Advertisement: New-Yorker Staats-Zeitung und Herold, 27 October 1865.
5)
Review: New-York Daily Tribune, 28 October 1865, 1.

“The brilliant and humorous opera ‘Crispino e la Comare’ was performed at the Academy of Music last night, before a very large and fashionable audience. It was the third performance and the artists seemed to have fallen into parts that fitted them exactly. They sang last night with infinite spirit, and with a zest that proved how completely their hearts were in their work and how thoroughly they identified themselves with the characters. The public enjoyed the performance, and testified their delight by loud and frequent applause and by hearty and unanimous encores. ‘Crispino e la Comare’ is an unqualified success, and will attract many more crowded audiences.”

6)
Review: New-Yorker Staats-Zeitung und Herold, 28 October 1865.

[Translation pending.]

7)
Review: Courrier des États-Unis, 30 October 1865, 1.

CHRONICLE OF NEW YORK. – “Crispino e la Comare! Here is, in our opinion, the true genre of the Italians. The current composers of the peninsula forget a bit too much, perhaps, that it was the great success of La Serva Padrona, a bouffe work, that implanted decisively, in Europe and in the whole world, the taste for Italian music, and that it was in the essentially comic operas, such as Il Maestro di musica, and I Viaggiatori, of Leo, il Medico ignorante, of Pergolesi, il Paratajo, of Jomelli, gli Artigiani arrichiti, of Gaetano latilla, and other little masterpieces of the same style, that debuted the young ladies Tonelli, Rossi, Lazzari, and the great singers Manelli and Guerrieri, who were the ancestors of the Pattis and the Fraschinis’ and finally that at the time of its liveliest explosion, of Barber of Seville, of Italian in Algiers, of La Cenerentola and Don Pasquale, they were called, above all, Bouffes.

          The execution of Crispino, by M. Maretzek’s company, leaves nothing to be desired. Mlle Kellogg is charming, delightful, from one end of the piece to the other. She has verve, she has grace, she has sparkling vocalization. M. Rovere, who debuted in the role of Crispino, has conquered the votes of the public since the first evening. Excellent actor and good singer, he gives the stamp of perfoect comedy to this bungling upstart, without ever overdoing anything, without ever exceeding the charge of good taste. M. Rovere has the breadth and the comic fire of the best comic opera singers of the old school; we can compare him only to Zucchini, who in the same moment is singing Crispino in Paris.”