Ha!

There's mean and there's funny, and this (written by an actual Fleming fan, no less...) is hilarious.

Onegin

scene-by-scene synopsis with production photos

Does anyone -- outside, perhaps, the school groups who populate the upper levels of a dress rehearsal -- read the miscellany of quotes patched together for each broadcast opera at the Met Broadcast website? The Eugene Onegin page includes this pre-emptive lament by the composer:

Where shall I find the Tatyana whom Pushkin imagined and whom I have tried to picture in music? Where is the artist who can even approach the ideal Onegin, that cold dandy penetrated to the marrow with worldly bon ton? Where is there a Lensky, an eighteen-year-old youth with the thick curls and impetuous and original ways of a young poet a la Schiller? How Pushkin's charming and original picture will be vulgarized when it is transferred to the stage, with its routine, its senseless traditions, its veterans of both sexes who ... shamelessly take on the roles of sixteen-year-old girls and beardless youths.

In fact, the opera works for a fair range of Tatyanas, Onegins, and Lenskys -- broader, anyway, than the viable character range in, say, Der Rosenkavalier. Still, I think the current revival gets two of these three exactly right in a way that feels unprecedented.

Ramón Vargas as Lensky I've already praised. Dmitri Hvorostovsky is about as remarkable, despite being bored with his role. His public and stage persona is Onegin, "that cold dandy penetrated to the marrow with worldly bon ton": as Maury put it, "his vocal suavity and the hint of coldness about him are Onegin in a nutshell". So perhaps Hvorostovsky's bored with his own part in the world -- which, too, fits Pushkin's creation. At any rate, he sounds great, his endless breath making much of Onegin's brush-off of Tatyana.

But Hvorostovsky's excellent Onegin is a detached one, not the self-involved actor that Thomas Hampson last made of him. So the story needs a more active Tatyana, and there unfortunately Renée Fleming isn't the best. Now she makes an overall success of her part, keeping unfortunate Fleming-isms in check and well deploying The Beautiful Voice™, particularly in the finale. But both temperament and voice are best suited to the rapt, contemplative side of Tatyana's part and not the declamation that makes up so much of her letter scene. It's an uneasy fit, more noticable next to these ideal male colleagues.

Elena Zaremba (the Olga) shows two main virtues: she's Russian, and she looks plausible as Fleming's sister. The rest is unobjectionable, but doesn't this golden age of mezzos call for better?

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The real star of the last revival, I thought, was Vladimir Jurowski. The warm sound and old-school phrasing he drew from the pit filled in perfect complement the cool open expanses of Robert Carsen's production. This time Jurowski's more famous Russian colleague, Valery Gergiev, takes a more objective approach to the score. On opening night (heard over the wire, anyway) Gergiev whipped through Act I with dramatic fire, carrying Fleming and Hvorostovsky along in an awesome climax that later acts couldn't recapture. On Tuesday he was more deliberate, almost frustratingly so at the beginning. It seemed more of an epic than dramatic reading: about the only really consistent thing was Gergiev's love of playing dance music incredibly fast. With such a mercurial, dramatically responsive conductor, the difference could simply be in the temperature of the audience.

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Whatever Pushkin's poem shows, I'm not sure Onegin comes off so badly in Tchaikovsky's rendering. Now his provocation of Lensky is pretty low, but what about that garden scene? It seems to me he does as well as one could in that situation: being rejected is hard, but having to reject honest feeling is terribly tricky. I've always been sympathetic, even (or particularly!) while on the receiving end.

In fact, the opera may take almost as bleak a view of coupled happiness as, say, Bluebeard's Castle. Though they may talk of what might have been, is it not clear that Onegin's desire arose from Tatyana's new remoteness, as hers was inflamed by his cold nature? And the expressive, mutual love of Olga and Lensky -- it's too much to take: she gets bored, even if only for that short, fatal span. Ah, love.


UPDATE (1:25PM): I forgot to mention that I believe the lighting has been changed from the previous revival. The end of the letter scene, in particular, seems different (it's all lit instead of moon&stars), but there may be other altered elements. (Or I may be misremembering.) Is this to accomodate the movie-cast?

Ideal

When I say that Ramón Vargas is the ideal Lenski, I mean no slight to his great predecessors, many of whom (Sobinov, Kozlovsky, etc.) had the irreplacable advantage of being native speakers. Nor would I call him flawless, nor most resplendent: there have been more tonally delicious performances of the part in this very production (not too many, mind you). No, no, never mind all that. Vargas is more completely and vividly Lenski than anyone at the Met has been any character this season -- including the heavyweights onstage tonight -- and he is a Lenski of rare character. For once, I believe Lenski is a poet, even a good one: there is no indulgence or affectation in him, and every note, phrase and gesture is transparent in showing a real sensibility, retiring by habit until unselfconsciously called forth by love or honor. His sound in the part is as clear as this phrasing and characterization, if not as uniquely remarkable. It's revelatory.

More on last night's Onegin later.

Tenor watch (miscellany)

Salvatore Licitra sounded pretty good on yesterday's broadcast Cav/Pag, but to be honest it was a shadow of his impact in the house. He shows, especially in Pagliacci, the thrillingly full middle voice that one simply doesn't hear these days -- despite a wealth of current tenors.

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I'm as suspicious of the OONY scene as anyone, but seeing Giuseppe Filianoti and Latonia Moore (whom, I admit, I haven't heard in seven years) together is too tempting to pass up. Even if it is L'Arlesiana.

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You may have noticed that Kim Begley, who sounded a bit ill and out of sorts last Tuesday, was unable to recover from whatever kept him from the first few recent Jenufas. Jorma Silvasti goes back to Laca, and in the last two performances unknown-to-me Jay Hunter Morris steps in as Steva. I hope he makes much of it.

At home, for once

It sounds like I'm missing an event. (I'd forgotten Gergiev was doing this.)

Free live stream here.

West Side name-whoring

Coming soon (maybe): Lincoln Center Abu Dhabi.

Of course one expects this from the French or the Guggenheim chain, but Lincoln Center? Lunacy.

Where's Joe Volpe when you need him?

UPDATE (2/15): A reader emails me that Volpe may actually have been involved in the genesis of this thing.

Which leaves me wondering, I guess, where's Joe Volpe when Joe Volpe needs him?

Formatting

As you may have noticed, I'm wrestling with the new Blogger template system. I hope to get the color scheme widgets working again soon.

I also plan to add cast and synopsis reference links to my recent reviews.

UPDATE (2:45PM): I put the original back. I'll do some offline tinkering before re-implementing the new template.

21 seems a bit young...

But maybe that's the target demographic.

To be honest, LA Opera has a nicer page.

The turkey

I don't think I've ever been to a performance where the entire cast was as visibly unengaged in the opera as last night's I Puritani. The men, it seemed, would rather have been doing anything else but singing in this revival, and the woman (to be fair, Maria Zifchak was OK in her walk-on part) -- ahh, Anna Netrebko. She was engaged, it's true, at least for her solos. But with the opera, and her character's fate? Unfortunately not. It was the (unmediated) toying of a star with an audience prepared to adore her.

After an abominable entrance scene of ill-supported crooning (the point at which I switched off last month's matinee broadcast), Netrebko's vocal night did improve as it went on. With her high notes long-held and mostly (when in tune) solid, and a now-stable darker squillante fullness in slower parts, she even made a sonic success of her part. Well, as much of a success as an Elvira who goes off pitch with every (muddled) coloratura passage can have.

But let's be clear: just because Netrebko is young, thin, and mobile does not mean she can act. In fact, her "acting" works best when she sits still in a pose and hits a high note; in motion, her gestures fall between a nice try and bad camp. Of course she's not at all helped by her trapped colleagues, the bland production of Sandro Sequi, and the invisible stage direction of Sharon Thomas, but the essential culprit is -- as in last season's Don Pasquale -- her own lack of interest in the character she's playing. Elvira's inner contest between sweetness and sublimated rage? Nowhere to be seen. The real contest is between the bored audience and this would-be star trying to shake them out of their seats by any means to hand (or, as with the lying-over-the-pit stunt, head). Bellini is not the winner.

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Let's not, however, take this as an excuse to tar the composer or even his much-maligned librettist Pepoli. The action, if unbelievable, is a decent correlative for the slow and quick melodies, contrasts, and elaborations that make the score enjoyable even in this provincial-level presentation. And credit to Patrick Summers, too, for sustaining a respectable and even occasionally urgent musical underpinning to the mess. Under his baton flutist Michael Parloff had, I thought, the best bel canto moments of the night.

On hearing Jenůfa (again)

I began going to multiple performances of Karita Mattila productions here because I discovered (years ago) that any particular evening might turn out like, well, this one. As good as was Monday's Jenufa season premiere, it now seems but a dress rehearsal for Friday night's overwhelming account.

It was not even Mattila's particular triumph! Yes, she is as good as she's ever been, and the wholehearted, transcendent acceptance in act 3's redemption music may even have been new, but that is her standard. On this night, though, everyone was so inspired, from Silvasti -- again terrific in his character dynamic with Mattila, through to the remarkable final scene -- to Silja, whose act 2 solo and act 3 cry at seeing the baby's cap were blood-curdling, and not least conductor Jiri Belohlavek. On Monday orchestral and stage voices bumped pellmell into each other (as the last post complained), but this time all the Met's forces followed Belohlavek's compulsion -- and each other's -- even as the river of his sound idea ran wilder and more urgently than was even hinted Monday, in now-truly-intoxicating course.

Janacek's genius -- his idea of life, and sound -- was well served. Mattila appeared moved to the edge of tears at her ovation.


UPDATE (11:15AM): Forgot to mention concertmaster Nick Eanet, whose obbligato in Jenufa's act 2 prayer was as expressive as any sound all evening.
UPDATE 2 (2/7): Not only did I forget Eanet, I forgot when his solo actually happens (earlier).

On hearing Jenůfa

On its initial Met presentation four years ago, the current Olivier Tambosi production (with Frank Philipp Schlössmann's striking sets and costumes) of Janacek's piece drew two main musical criticisms: first, that Deborah Polaski's characteristically inward Kostelnicka was uncommunicative and on too small an emotional scale; second, that conductor Vladimir Jurowski's (also characteristic) lyrical approach short-changed the score's rustic and dramatic elements.

These both have changed, but at least as striking is the turnover in tenors. Jorma Silvasti (the current Laca) sings well and reveals details of character missing in Kim Begley's original version -- the mischievousness in Laca's first-act baiting and stalking of Jenufa is terrific -- but Begley's fearless power made the moral gravity of the man better stand out. Raymond Very, on the other hand, sounds good but misses some of the character of Steva, in particular the handsome-playboy manner that predecessor Christopher Ventris embodied well. On the whole, not an improvement, but later performances will have Begley back as Laca and Silvasti as Steva.

Anja Silja had been Kostelnicka when Karita Mattila and this production had been in London, and 2003's reviews tended to lament her absence. Meanwhile she has hit 71, and may finally be showing it: the top, while still forceful, has constant wobble and pitch issues, while the rest of the voice is barely audible over orchestra. (She showed solider voice just a year ago, in Erwartung.) Still, there's enough to do what she does, which is considerable. There is a clarity and audience focus to her acting that fits the clear white sound she's always had, and Silja is spellbinding from the Kostelnicka's upright walk on stage in the first act to her tortured mental turns of the last two.

I agreed, at the time, with reservations about Polaski -- her partnership with Mattila has often been a wierd hot-and-cold mismatch -- but Jurowski has long struck me as one of the best guest conductors, allowing and encouraging not only singers but the terrific Met Orchestra winds to phrase as they should. Still, many seem not to like him, and a somewhat less refined Jenufa can certainly work.

Presumably more authentic is Czech conductor Jiri Bělohlávek, and he definitely injects a certain full-blooded vitality to the sound of the current revival. In fact the orchestral climaxes are often terrific, with Belohlavek drawing bursts of the most glorious sound and energy. But his (perhaps intentionally) haphazard sense of coordination causes him to step on singers' phrases, spoiling some of the best character moments. Perhaps the cast will adapt by the end of the run, but this evening could have used a somewhat firmer hand at the wheel.

Finally, if audiences may be growing weary of Mattila doing reruns (though a look back shows the same "why aren't people going?" lament in 2003), she herself certainly isn't. On stage she is as energized as she's ever been, and in larger voice than ever.

Don't miss it.

Thoughts before Jenufa

I suppose it bodes poorly for the house's future that my favorite Metropolitan Opera evenings of the season have been lightly attended, while some of the most heavily-sold (and promoted) engagements have been outright disaster. This month's Jenufa revival, which began yesterday, continues the trend -- on the unseen/terrific side.

For this unpopularity one might blame whichever fool is holding up release of Karita Mattila's Salome video... Or perhaps Mattila herself (if she's not suppressing her own recording!). Taking the same productions -- Jürgen Flimm's Fidelio, this Olivier Tambosi Jenufa and now Tambosi's Manon Lescaut -- around the world has its plusses for her and the opera houses, but by the time a much-traveled show hits town the second time, it's got little novelty to sell it. (The Met's increasing forays into co-production make this an important point for the future.) And further, she seems to take little interest in non-opera fame (outside of Finland, anyway), being remarkably low-profile for the most universally and deeply admired singer around. Having found herself at the height of fame, she said in an interview last year, she found that she didn't like it:

Colleagues such as Renée Fleming and Angela Gheorghiu have their official websites, publicists and Rolex contracts, but Mattila shuns these. 'As my husband says, it's a question of how famous I want to become. I wouldn't be able to handle it. I know myself. After Salome in New York, two years ago, people started recognising me on the street. I felt like an animal in a cage.'

You recognize this when the curtain falls: her bows are short, and she quickly deflects attention to her colleagues. But a certain amount of accepting adulation is not only good for business, but proper. (Applause, as I've noted, is the consummation of drama, and squelching it is as poor form as Gheorghiu-style milking.)

But enough dissatisfaction: that evaporates as this show's curtain rises.

[Review in a post to follow.]

Short late Traviata notice

On a friend's recommendation, I saw the Met's Tuesday presentation of La Traviata. Renee Fleming and Angela Gheorghiu aren't in it: the more modest casting that's dominated this production since those two cancelled its 1998 premiere is. But that has its advantages.

In Aristotelian terms, for example, Gheorghiu's portrayal offered a decent amount of terror but not much pity. One was impressed, stirred even, without being so touched by personal sympathy for Violetta's plight. Hei-Kyung Hong, who sings the part again this Thursday, reverses the balance. Neither voice nor stage presence dominates the stage -- it's what some might call a lack of star quality. But though the instrument lacks force and is going raw on top, the soft singing it produces is terrific, and perfectly complements Hong's utterly natural portrayal of the courtesan. The whole effect varies by act: the first takes too much vocal husbanding, though her body's illumination by love is priceless; the second with its extremes of emotion isn't as striking as it is for others; but the third act, with a letter-reading and aria (in only one verse, sadly) that in its touching believability puts her predecessors to shame, is Hong's triumph.

Whether by chance or to attract Korean crowds (if it's the latter, it worked), Hong was matched with debuting tenor Wookyung Kim. He seemed nervous at the beginning, but strengthed as the evening went on. (This run includes the sometimes-cut cabaletta to his Act 2 aria, "O mio rimorso".) His liquid, Italianate sound and basic phrasing is very appealing.

Another promising young singer, recent Lindemann graduate Charles Taylor, was the elder Germont. He has a big, enjoyable voice that was doing well until an oddly choppy and pinched rendition of his big aria ("Di provenza"). Taylor has had to cancel a previous performance in this run, so perhaps this poor patch was a fluke.

Carlo Rizzi got better sound than the orchestra usually produces for him, but had occasional coordination problems with a number of the singers. It's disappointing that the Met brought him back for this run, after a few years blissfully free of his routine.

Between the acts

The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra does a lot of accompaniment, but it's still notably rare for it to have a soloist as inspired as Christian Tetzlaff was Sunday. He played Beethoven's violin concerto, a piece in which debutant Sergey Khachatryan made a huge impression at last summer's Mostly Mozart Festival. But Tetzlaff's success couldn't have been more different.

The young (now 21) Armenian's triumph was largely one of sound: his wondrous tone had so much color and breath in it that he could have spellbound the audience just playing scales. Tetzlaff lacks that resource. His tone, while not dull, is mostly notable for its focus: among world virtuosi it will never be renowned for warmth or amplitude. But this whitish sound is remarkably responsive within its scope, becoming vividly tense or mellow, outspoken or intimate at will. And Tetzlaff's interpretive instinct is to use all of these extremes, and similar varieties of impulse and rhythm, at the service of an aesthetic I can only describe as very German. (That is, he shares none of the postmodern approach to styles of sound that makes listening to his countrywoman Anne-Sophie Mutter sometimes feel decadent.)

He has, in other words, the tools for a great, dramatic -- Beethovenian -- performance of this great piece. And this is what actually happened. Tetzlaff was helped by James Levine's steady but responsive accompaniment (the considerably enlarged orchestra was transparent and balanced throughout, even with the soloist's love of the mp-ppp range) and an audience remarkably attentive even after an undernourished and apparently underrehearsed Brahms 3 and a new Charles Wuorinen piece of middling success. The dramatic element -- the dynamic of performer before audience -- that is a huge aspect of opera is not absent from instrumental performance, particularly before an operagoing audience. That the listeners were so present as to break into spontaneous applause after the concerto's first movement was no small cause of the day's success.

Tetzlaff, after a series of huge ovations, did share with Khachatryan the decision to play a bit of Bach's Sonatas and Partitas as an encore. Tetzlaff's first recording of these was not so much German and dramatic as needlessly romantic. Perhaps his new version -- apparently coming soon -- will be better. Meanwhile, now that they've hit the fifty-performance milestone, perhaps the Met could look into releasing some of the best of these Carnegie Hall outings onto Sirius: there's a searing 2001 Verdi Requiem (Fleming, Borodina, Giordani, Pape) that's still echoing in my head.

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I have noted that my primary sensation of music is of time; Tommasini's NYT review of this Tetzlaff/Met Orchestra concert seems to indicate the same about him. Interesting.

The Teflon Diva

This blog began by noting the multiplicity of legitimate perspectives on opera performance, some of which have little (or nothing) necessarily to do with singing. So I suppose it's no surprise that I float this question:

What, if any, is the number of press (and TV, etc.) clippings n, after which these non-sonic perspectives are so charged that it literally does not matter what sounds come out of a performer's mouth?

It seems to me that Renee Fleming reached this point years ago, at least in the United States. That's not to say that she's always or even often below par, but that it simply does not matter to her career and public perception. (I note that next month's Onegins -- her first Tatyanas in a major house -- sold out in a flash despite a very poor Letter Scene at last year's Met Orchestra concert.)

And that's why I've called Anna Netrebko the Russian Renee. But she should be careful, for she may not have hit that point yet -- at least in the United States.