Luisa Miller

Louisa Miller was the name of a prize-winning Holstein cow now deceased, which once belonged to President Daniel Willard of the Baltimore & Ohio R. R. Louisa Miller, spelled in the Italian way without the o, is the name of an early Giuseppe Verdi opera which last week was raised from a sleep seemingly as sound as the bovine Louisa's and given performance at Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera House.

The great poet Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller conceived the character of Luisa Miller, made her the unhappy heroine of his play Kabale und Liebe. Italian Poet Salvatore Cammarano fashioned the opera libretto from the Schiller piece, aptly labeled the acts Love, Intrigue, Poison. The scene is in the Tyrol. Luisa, a beautiful peasant, loves Rodolfo who turns out to be the son of the village's haughty overlord. He would forbid their marriage, arrest Luisa and her doting father. But Rodolfo, Hamletwise, knows of the murder which won his father his titles and his wealth, threatens him with exposure. Intriguer Wurm then intervenes. To get Luisa for himself, he kidnaps her father, tells her that to save his life she must sign a paper denying her love for Rodolfo. She complies. The paper reaches Rodolfo and he, grief-crazed, seeks her in her cottage. Together they drink poison from a glass of lemonade, sing loudly of their love despite most awful agony, die.

For all this Verdi wrote songful dramatic music which 80 years ago had great success. Last week it was stamped by most listeners as pleasant, old-fashioned stuff significant only because it gives a hundred hints of the later, greater Verdi. Distinguishing feature of the performance: the sumptuous singing of Soprano Rosa Ponselle, prevented by a severe throat affection from appearing earlier in the season.

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