metropolitanoperacompany

Perhaps related to the August 16, 1919 performance at Sheepshead Bay Speedway described in Musical Courier books.google.com/books?id=7SIqQHZL2_wC&pg=RA8-PA33&am... The New-York Tribune., August 03, 1919, Page 6, Image 36 chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1919-08-03/ed-... announces a performance at the same location for Sunday August 10, 1919. So perhaps there several open air performances that summer. NO -- According to the New-York Tribune., August 10, 1919, Page 7, Image 39 chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1919-08-10/ed-... the "mammoth open air performance of Aida" was postponed from August 10 to August 16 because of the Brooklyn Car Strike.

"At the Base of the Sheepshead Bay Sphinx"

(L-R) Luigi Albertieri (stage manager), Andrés De Segurola (principal bass and co-artistic director), Giorgio Polacco (Maestro), Princess Della Pattra (principal dancer), Manuel Salazar (principal tenor), Riccardo Stracciari (principal baritone), Fortune Gallo (co-artistic director) –based on caption from Musical Courier, August 21, 1919 p18

a negative review in the New York Tribune, August 24, 1919: "Racetrack opera is undoubtedly good for the health, that is except for the health of the singers, and the social benefits may also be many. Artistically it is hopeless. When the Metropolitan Opera House, which seats a little more than 3,000, is really too large for the finest artistic results, what will we say for an arena which seats ten times that number? " chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1919-08-24/ed-...

Art Siegel, that was an informative read -- I was expecting something else. (Grenville Vernon was the art critic for The New York Tribune and an author of several books on the performing arts.)

A NEW GERMAN SOPRANO Mme. Melanie Kurt Appears at the Metropolitan Opera in "Tristan" The Metropolitan Opera House has acquired a remarkably fine artist in Mme. Melanie Kurt, the German dramatic soprano, who made her first appearance here last evening in a performance of "Tristan and Isolde". — The New York Times, February 2, 1915   Melanie Kurt (1880–1941) was an Austrian opera singer (soprano). She first studied to become a pianist in her native City of Vienna before starting to take singing lessons. From 1897 to 1900 she only appeared as a pianist. Later she went to Berlin, and London where she studied and performed with renowned opera singers. In 1914 she was at the peak of her career when she joined the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, where she succeeded Olive Fremstad as the company's leading Wagner soprano for three years. When America entered World War I in 1917, Wagner operas were banned as being too German. Torn by the war, Kurt remained in the US until 1919 before returning to Germany. — Excerpted from Wikipedia.

Her wikipedia entry: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanie_Kurt

See www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/15434393504/ www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/3066020126/

Sophie Braslau (1892-1935) was a contralto prominent in United States opera, starting with her debut in New York City's Metropolitan Opera in 1913 when she was just 21 years of age. [1] In her obituary The New York Times wrote, "The singer considered as her greatest triumph an experience during a rehearsal for a concert at Richmond, Va., where she had been sent to substitute for Mme. Louise Homer. After an introduction to the musicians in the empty auditorium, she sang an aria for rehearsal."

"I finished and there came a dead silence," she recalled later, "quickly followed by the strangest sound I had ever heard.  The musicians tapped their music stands with their bows or clapped their hands." In a few seconds it seemed as if pandemonium had let loose, and how happy I was! It was really the finest moment of my life. My mother was there, and it seemed to me that this was her triumph, for the evening concert was a great success and this was the first big joy she had experienced after her many years of devoted supervision."

(Many photographs of Mme. Homer can be seen in the LOC Bain Collection here.) There are currently nine photographs of Sophie Braslau in the LOC Bain Collection from c.1910-1915 here.)