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Ildiko Komlosi as the Nurse

Die Frau ohne Schatten, 2013; Vladimir Jurowski conducting

Photo: Ken Howard, courtesy of the Metropolitan Opera

A side note to my earlier post about Die Frau ohne Schatten: I looked up Harold C. Schonberg's 1966 NY Times review of the first Met performances. (They weren't the first U.S. performances, an honor taken by San Francisco Opera.)

The review is quite a lot of fun. He calls the finale "vulgar" and remarks with some amusement about the staging effects, which showed off the stage elevator in the new Met. (The current production does as well.)

If you're a Times subscriber, you can see the review here: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/.../1966/10/03/issue.html

BUT, regardless, what I most want to call out is the shows that were running on Broadway at the same time that Frau opened. They included:

• Tandy and Cronyn in Albee's "A Delicate Balance."
• Ethel Merman in a new version of Irving Berlin's "Annie Get Your Gun"
• "Barefoot in the Park," directed by Mike Nichols
• Lauren Bacall in "Cactus Flower"
• Arlene Francis, Walter Pidgeon, and others in "Dinner at Eight"
• Fiddler on the Roof," with Herschel Bernardi, dir. Jerome Robbins
• Mimi Hines in "Funny Girl"
• Ginger Rogers in "Hello, Dolly!"
• Barbara Bel Geddes and Gene Wilder in "Luv," directed by Mike Nichols
• Angela Lansbury in "Mame" ("The new smash hit musical")
• "Man of La Mancha"
• Gwen Verdon in "Sweet Charity"
• Barbara Harris, Larry Blyden, and Alan Alda in "The Apple Tree," a new musical directed by Mike Nichols
• Eddie Bracken and Mike Kellin in "The Odd Couple," directed by Mike Nichols.
• Lee Remick in "Wait Until Dark"

Mike Nichols had FOUR SHOWS running simultaneously.