The World's Largest Public Domain Media Search Engine
Scenes and behind scenes at the Metropolitan opera / Hy Mayer ; drawn by Hy Mayer.

Similar

Scenes and behind scenes at the Metropolitan opera / Hy Mayer ; drawn by Hy Mayer.

description

Summary

Illustration shows a vignette cartoon showing Giulio Gatti-Casazza with the trained animals for various operas and a woman sitting in the "celebrated 'Horseshoe'" section of the operahouse; the surrounding vignettes show Alfred Hertz as a young man and as the current conductor, Enrico Caruso, "Italy's Standing Army", which is a group of men dressed for the theater, possibly critics, actors with props, and a primadonna too large to "fit the chairs of the period."

The Metropolitan Opera was founded in 1883, with its first opera house built on Broadway and 39th Street by a group of wealthy businessmen who wanted their own theater. In the company’s early years, the management changed course several times, first performing everything in Italian (even Carmen and Lohengrin), then everything in German (even Aida and Faust), before finally settling into a policy of performing most works in their original language, with some notable exceptions. The Metropolitan Opera has always engaged many of the world’s most important artists: Christine Nilsson, Marcella Sembrich, Lilli Lehmann, Nellie Melba, Emma Calvé, De Reszke brothers, Jean and Edouard, Emma Eames, Lillian Nordica, Enrico Caruso, Geraldine Farrar, Rosa Ponselle, Lawrence Tibbett and more. Some of the great conductors have helped shape the Met: Anton Seidl, Arturo Toscanini, Gustav Mahler, Artur Bodanzky, Bruno Walter, George Szell, Fritz Reiner, and Dimitri Mitropoulos.

date_range

Date

01/01/1915
person

Contributors

Mayer, Henry, 1868-1954, artist
create

Source

Library of Congress
copyright

Copyright info

No known restrictions on publication.

Explore more

gatti casazza giulio
gatti casazza giulio