In the beginning

Opening night has brought out, as it does, even some people who were supposed to be gone (the latter with a giant pile of news that deserves a more thorough look soon), but there isn't, in fact, much to write about. The show succeeded, because (there's no "[a]ctually" or "however"/"oddly" about it) it was quite deeply traditional, certainly more so than any Ring production you'll see outside the United States.

If we learned anything from Robert Lepage's Damnation of Faust, it was that he has little interest in the singers (and characters) in these shows except as figures in his setscapes. And if Lepage and/or the Met learned anything, it was that because of this unbalanced interest, he should be given license to create stunning setscapes -- insofar as they don't swallow the singers or their doings. Thus we got no fewer than four assistant stage directors -- and, as one would expect, no particularly singular perspective from that end of things (though there were some nice touches). It was the stage picture that was most individual.

But that, too, was largely traditional. For all the elaborate and famously expensive machinery and software used in the show, its most striking view -- the white midair bridge towards Nibelheim -- was a old-school shot of lighting and contrast. In fact, between the impressive burst of tech wizardry at the beginning (the pebble-displacing, underwater-bubbling Rhinemaidens) and the impressive wizardry-that-wasn't at the end (the Valhalla malfunction left us only with a soothing '70s-style rainbow light show as the gods walked offstage), Lepage's screens and projections became mere swirling shadow-clouds behind the gods and the detailed but static red-earth caves of Nibelheim itself, and his revolving set mostly an acoustical aid for the singers. Walls and wallpaper, in other words, and the lesson here is apparently that it's very expensive to make a unit set that doesn't look cheap or cheesy. (The men's costumes could use some help on that front, though.)

*     *     *
Given a helpful and engaging stage (and not a tyrannically overstuffed one), the singers and house directors had room to play out their mostly standard business. The here-unabashedly sympathetic Fasolt (Franz-Josef Selig) got some unexpected attention, with Freia (Wendy Bryn Harmer, making a notable impression) more sympathetic to him than usual -- and more affected by his murder. The rest of the body language was perhaps a bit too much stock-Wagnerian, but that's the Ring.

In fact, though the gods got star casting, the show was stolen by Eric Owens' Alberich, who showed enough of the divine spark for his role as the series' demiurge (it all starts, after all, with the Rhine-daughters' mostly-innocent flirting) to make some real sense. None of the others did poorly, but Bryn Terfel -- an almost literally unbelievable source of thrills in the spring's Toscas -- seemed rarely interested in what was going on, showing a bit of life only on hitting conflict near the end. But Rheingold is only really accessible to listeners familiar with the whole subsequent cycle: Terfel, I assume, will find more to his part when he learns and sings Wotan's later variations. Valkyrie does, after all, offer more red meat.

Season seven

This back-dated post indexes the blog's commentary on the 2010-2011 Metropolitan Opera season. It will be updated as new reviews are posted.

Season preview

Opening night: Das Rheingold
Les Contes d'Hoffmann
La Boheme, and a later cast
Il Trovatore, and a later cast
Cosi fan tutte
Don Carlo, and the second lead tenor
La Fanciulla del West
Pelléas et Mélisande
Carmen
Tosca
Rigoletto
La Traviata
Simon Boccanegra
Lucia di Lammermoor
The Queen of Spades
Le Comte Ory
Capriccio
Die Walküre

The 2010-2011 season (again)

So with less than a week before Opening Night, let's see what's changed on the schedule since February, shall we? Cast alterations since the original season announcement are underlined. Commentary has been updated where necessary.

Das Rheingold (new Robert Lepage production)
Terfel, Owens, Siegel, Croft, Selig, König, Blythe, Harmer / Levine (opening night through October; March-April)
The Met's first new Ring in decades -- a big event even if Lepage's tech tricks prove to be as soporific as they were in Damnation. Every show is sold out except opening night.

Tales of Hoffmann
Filianoti, Lindsey, Abdrazakov, Christy, Gerzmava, Shkosa / Fournillier (September-beginning of October)
Filianoti, Lindsey, Abdrazakov, Mosuc, Gerzmava, Shkosa / Fournillier (October)
Mr. Borodina (Abdrazakov) still -- happily -- stars as the villains, but the lady herself is out as Giulietta. Albanian mezzo Enkelejda Shkosa makes her house debut in Borodina's place. The show's success will mostly depend on Filianoti's vocal state: when I last saw him here last year, he sounded not yet recovered from his illness-prompted vocal issues of the year before. Let's hope the big engagement is a sign there was no permanent damage. Patrick Fournillier debuts in the pit.

Rigoletto
Ataneli, Schäfer, Meli, Silvestrelli, Surguladze / Arrivabeni (September-beginning of October)
Gagnidze, Schäfer, Meli, Silvestrelli, Surguladze / Arrivabeni (October)
Meoni, Machaidze, Calleja, Kocán, Chávez / Arrivabeni (January)
Lucic, Damrau, Filianoti, Kocán, Herrera / Luisi (April-May)
The addition of last season's baritone revelation Giovanni Meoni (replacing, as he did for his debut, Carlos Alvarez) makes the January cast now a must-see. Young Italian tenor Francesco Meli (who sang this last year at Covent Garden) makes his house debut before more familiar Dukes take over. Also debuting: soprano Nino Machaidze and conductor Paolo Arrivabeni.

Boris Godunov (new Peter Stein production)
Pape, Antonenko, Semenchuk, Nikitin, Balashov, Petrenko, Ognovenko / Gergiev (October, March)
(Rene Pape is now listed for all performances.) Pape, a bunch of Russians, and an impressive-voiced Latvian (Antonenko as the False Dmitri) try Mussorgsky. Note that Pavel Smelkov is conducting one performance each in October and March.

La Boheme
Kovalevska, Grigolo, Kizart, Capitanucci / Rizzi Brignoli (October-November)
Stoyanova, Calleja, Dehn, Capitanucci / Rizzi Brignoli (December)
Kovalevska, Beczala, Phillips, Mattei / Rizzi Brignoli (January-February)
Kovalevska, Vargas, Phillips, Mattei / Rizzi Brignoli (February)
Latvian soprano Kristine Opolais, originally in three of the four casts, is out, replaced by two Americans: Takesha Meshé Kizart (debuting) in the fall and Susanna Phillips (Musetta in the 2008 revival) in January and February. Four remarkable casts, though unfortunately Kovalevska (peerless today as Mimi) and Calleja don't sing together. Having Peter Mattei as Marcello for the third and fourth iterations is serious luxury.

Il Trovatore
Racette, Cornetti, Álvarez, Lucic / Armiliato (October-November)
Radvanovsky, Zajick, Álvarez, Hvorostovsky / Levine (April)
As good as Racette is, florid Verdi isn't her strength. Still a promising alternate fall lineup, though, before April's not-to-be-missed premiere cast reprise (this time with Levine!). Note that Julianna Di Giacomo (heard last season in Stiffelio) will do one Leonora on November 11.

Don Pasquale
Del Carlo, Netrebko, Polenzani, Kwiecien / Levine (October-November, February)
I loathed this production when it opened, though Del Carlo did do much to make it work in his sole performance of the run. And Netrebko's bel canto outings since then have only grown more vocally iffy.

Carmen
Garanca, Jovanovich, Cabell, Relyea / Gardner (November-December)
Vizin, Jovanovich, Hong, Relyea / Gardner (December 9)
Aldrich, Alagna, Kühmeier, Szot / Gardner (January)
Hong in for a pair of Micaelas (one on December 4th with Garanca as well), and the TBA Escamillo turned out to be Paulo Szot (last seen without his Nose). Otherwise it's a reshuffling of last season's Joses and Carmens, though the conductor and Micaelas aren't as exciting. It will be interesting to see how Garanca and Alagna fare in this without Nézet-Séguin.

Cosi fan tutte
Persson, Leonard, Breslik, Gunn, de Niese, Holzmair / Christie (November-December)
From Sophie to Fiordiligi? Holzmair at the Met? With Christie in the pit?
So many oddities, it almost has to work.

Don Carlo (new Nicholas Hytner production)
Poplavskaya, Smirnova, Alagna, Keenlyside, Furlanetto, Halfvarson / Nézet-Séguin (November-December)
Poplavskaya, Smirnova, Lee, Keenlyside, Furlanetto, Halfvarson / Nézet-Séguin (November-December)
The Met is scrapping its finest Verdi production to bring over Hytner's cheesy Lego sets? With a great Francophone conductor and tenor and it's still in Italian? What a waste.
That said, it'll probably still be really good. (But still a waste.)

La Fanciulla del West
Voigt, Giordani, Gallo / Luisotti (December-January)
Uusitalo out, but Lucio Gallo (last seen as a mediocre Escamillo) adds no glamor to this centenary revival. Luisotti in the pit again for Puccini is a treat, but the onstage lineup isn't exactly Destinn, Caruso and Amato.

Pelléas et Mélisande
Kožená, Degout, Finley, Palmer, White / Rattle (December-January)
You'd be crazy to miss this. Probably will sell badly, though, despite Rattle and the amazing cast.

Magic Flute
Phillips, Miklósa, Thomas, Gunn, Robinson / Nielsen (December-January)
Like this season's Hansel&Gretel, this is a really good cast for a kids' version.

La Traviata (new Willy Decker production)
Poplavskaya, Polenzani, Dobber / Noseda (New Year's Eve through January)
Poplavskaya, Meli, Dobber / Noseda (January)
Decker's famous Salzburg Traviata arrives -- minus the stars (Netrebko and Villazon) who made it famous. This may be for the better.

Tosca
Radvanovsky, Álvarez, Struckmann / Armiliato (January)
Urmana, Licitra, Morris / Armiliato (March-April)
Wouldn't have imagined Urmana as Tosca myself. Radvanovsky, yes. In fact, the Radvanovsky performances now look like one of the season's highlights.

Simon Boccanegra
Hvorostovsky, Frittoli, Vargas, Furlanetto / Levine (January-February)
The men's names speak for themselves.

Nixon in China (Met premiere with Peter Sellars production)
Maddalena, Kelly, Fink, Brubaker, Kim, Braun / Adams (February)
Ahh, the days when John Adams realized he needed an actual librettist.

Iphigénie en Tauride
Graham, Domingo, Groves, Hawkins / Summers (February-March)
Kitschy, over-the-top production + excellent music = ?

Armida
Fleming, Brownlee, Osborn, Siragusa, Banks, van Rensburg / Frizza (February-March)
"TBA" turns out to be Italian tenor Antonio Siragusa as Gernando (the José Manuel Zapata part in Act I). Most of the same players from the Rossini show that did well in the spring.

Lucia di Lammermoor
Dessay, Calleja, Tézier, Youn / Summers (February-March)
Dessay and Calleja should provide fireworks -- if Dessay is healthy (what's plan B?). Stephen Gaertner does one Enrico on March 12.

Roméo et Juliette
Gheorghiu, Beczala, Boulianne, Meachem, Morris / Domingo (March)
Undeterred by his inability to draw audiences from the pit in this season's Stiffelio, the Met saddles yet another impressive cast with Domingo's subpar stick work.

The Queen of Spades
Mattila, Galouzine, Markov, Mattei, Zajick / Nelsons (March)
Yet another incredible cast you'd be crazy to miss.

Le Comte Ory (new Bartlett Sher production)
Florez, DiDonato, Damrau, Resmark, Degout, Pertusi / Benini (March-April)
Don't know the piece, but the cast is certainly something.

Capriccio
Fleming, Kaiser, Braun, Rose, Connolly, Larsen / Davis (March-April)
The Countess is a tricky part, particularly for one of Fleming's instincts. But she did eventually make a success of the Marschallin...

Wozzeck
Goerne, Meier, Skelton, Siegel, Fink / Levine (April)
I believe this will be Goerne's first appearance at the Met outside Papageno's bird suit. But even he, Waltraud Meier, and James Levine will be hard-pressed to sell out Berg's early modernist masterpiece -- or maybe not, considering the gratifying reception Berg's Lulu got in the spring.

Die Walküre (new Robert Lepage production)
Voigt, Terfel, Westbroek, Kaufmann, Blythe, König / Levine (April-May)
Again, an event no matter what.

Orfeo ed Euridice
Daniels, Royal, Oropesa / Walker (April-May)
Australian conductor Antony Walker debuts in the pit. Kate Royal debuts as Euridice. Countertenor David Daniels, though not lacking for fans, is vocally all wrong for the lead part.

Ariadne auf Naxos
Urmana, Kim, DiDonato, Smith, Allen / Luisi (May)
This season's revival was surprisingly good (Stemme was better than Urmana is likely to be), but Luisi in the pit adds another dimension.

Appetizer

For those who can't wait two weeks for Met-affiliated singing, three Lindemann singers are giving a recital at Bryant Park this Wednesday at 6.

A revised season preview post will be up soon.

As it happened

8am

8:48am

9:03am

9:59am

*     *     *
If the raw truth of even modest and non-fatal events (e.g. the performances that are the usual subject of this blog) demands domestication to the polite but stupid half-truths of civilized life, so much more the shattering truth of nine years ago. There's something to be said for that (though not for those encouraging such domestication and forgetting), but not by me.

A subset of a subset, part 2

Am I the only person unhappy that there doesn't seem to be an Android music player app that supports the Composer field?

UPDATE (9/3): This one seems to do it.

For those who saw the Mostly Mozart opener(s)

How was Louis Langree's "Haffner" so much more alive and spirited than his work with the Met?

(Yes, I've seen some summer operas. No, they didn't seem to require posts -- not even of the "Before I Forget" sort.)

If it's July...

Then summer opera season must be here. Although there were some interesting local offerings in June, the meat of the reasonably-local schedule seems to arrive this month.

The Castleton Festival's Il Trittico (July 2-24), Turn of the Screw (July 3-11), and Beggar's Opera (July 15-17) (all in Castleton, VA)
Puccini invades the formerly all-Britten opera fest.

Lake George Opera's Carmen (July 8-18) and Viva la Mamma (July 9-17) (both in Saratoga Springs, NY)

Wolf Trap's Turk in Italy (July 9-13) and Midsummer Night's Dream (August 13-17) (all in Vienna, VA)

Glimmerglass Opera's Tosca (July 9-August 24), The Tender Land (July 10-August 21), Figaro (July 17-August 22), and Tolomeo (July 18-August 23) (all in Cooperstown, NY)
Lise Lindstrom looks to be promising Tosca, if you can bear another one.

Caramoor's Norma (July 10-16) and Maria di Rohan (July 24) (both in Katonah, NY)
Angela Meade as Norma.

Opera New Jersey's Don Giovanni (July 11-August 1), Don Pasquale (July 17-August 1), and Faust (July 18-31) (all in Princeton, NJ)

The Metropolitan Opera's summer recital series (July 12-29 in NYC parks)
Mostly young singers again including documentary star Michael Fabiano.

Lincoln Center Festival's La porta della legge (July 20-22)
Need more Italian contemporary opera in your life?

Tanglewood's concert Abduction from the Seraglio (July 23) and staged Ariadne auf Naxos (August 1, 2, and 4) (both in Lenox, MA)
All were supposed to be conducted by Levine, but his recovery from the latest back issue continues. Abduction, starring last summer's revelatory Lucia Lisette Oropesa, will be conducted by the Canadian Opera Company's Johannes Debus, while the first two Ariadnes gets a star replacement in Christoph von Dohnányi (the last will be led by a conducting fellow of the festival).

Bard SummerScape's Der ferne Klang (July 31-August 6) and The Chocolate Soldier (both in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY)

The substitute

As a followup to the last off-topic post, please note that Veronika Part is dancing another (unscheduled) Swan Lake tonight with David Hallberg.

The awakening

(Another year, another post on this blog's official off-topic diversion.)

Tchaikovsky, Vsevolozhsky, and Petipa's Sleeping Beauty is, among other things, a girl's coming-of-age story: the trouble starts when she draws blood, and it's not until true love takes its step that shadows are banished and the couple can be grandly seen off into marriage by the (other) story-characters of childhood. The many young New Yorkers who took in ABT's performances (in a production much improved by editing) last week may or may not have been particularly receptive to the specifics, but I at least (since, as I've noted, I don't actually know anything about ballet) got to thinking on what characters these onstage princesses -- visions of future, past, or ideal youth and maturation, perhaps -- actually were revealing.

Monday's Princess Aurora: Gillian Murphy. She was the most teen-like of the bunch -- a happy and energetic youth, wonderfully decorative in her spirited elaborations, and remaining essentially such through trial and glory. The gravity in this particular show was offered by the Lilac Fairy, Veronika Part. If Aurora shows who a girl is and becomes, the Lilac Fairy -- who deflects and transforms Carabosse's curse and guides the Prince safely to the rescue -- shows what world we live in, by what arts happiness might be conjured. With Part's Lilac Fairy both grandeur and a certain grave wisdom make the joyful ending on which she insists all the more valuable.

On Wednesday night Part was Aurora, one full to overflowing with life and reverence: for the occasion(s), for the other participants, and most of all for the mystery and glory of the young womanhood newly shining from her in Act I, developed and deepened in the dream of Act II, and fulfilled to all promise in Act III. If the girls and boys who attended this show (even the ones who nearly wrecked later acts with poorly-timed whining) find encouragement to grow into such vivid spirits, the city will be a more interesting place.

Friday's Aurora was Paloma Herrera, another energetic youth of a princess -- perhaps (to be unsubtle) more the jock to Murphy's cheerleader/prom queen -- who again held to her basic underlying character in ups and downs. The lyrical but precise authority of Maria Riccetto's Lilac Fairy meanwhile suggested a more elegant salvation.

If Murphy and Herrera were noticeably-teenaged Auroras, Alina Cojocaru's Saturday matinee princess was very nearly a child. The poise and sweet delicacy of Cojocaru's dancing makes the first-act Rose Adagio a wonder, but after that there's nowhere else to go: her persona is not only wholesome but unblemishable and thoroughly virginal (even the offending spindle barely makes contact -- it wouldn't dare, would it?), and in the adult territory of the later acts she's got nothing to work with.

This was, in a sense, a fitting match to Stella Abrera's matinee Lilac Fairy: her victory via niceness and gently pretty dancing came perilously close to reducing the story to its Disney popularization. Abrera's earlier Lilac Fairy -- for Part on Wednesday night -- was a less happy match, with her character receding in the face of Part's huge personality.

Finally, Saturday evening brought Bolshoi star Natalia Osipova (yes, the one who got mugged earlier last week) for her first Aurora anywhere -- and despite the debut (and last-season's somewhat one-note Giselle), a more clear sense of Aurora's path than usual. This princess was the born, radiant belle of the ball -- and the town, and the kingdom -- who learned the wonder of desire in Act II before being overcome by its directed fulfillment in Act III. (Osipova here put her own personal star power to very fine use, taking it as the starting point for the character.) Her happiness was guided by the firm, minimal-nonsense wand of Michele Wiles, whose Lilac Fairy even Carabosse should have known better than to cross.

With two great and memorable danced characterizations by Part and Osipova, it was a better week than most at the Met.

One reason to leave the Met by the plaza side...

Osipova mugged last night after Sleeping Beauty

Surprised it happened, but not surprised that it was on the Amsterdam side (the back). She must have stayed a few hours after the performance, though, since it ended before 10:30PM and not "early Tuesday morning".

The big fish

The Philadelphia Orchestra finally got a young charismatic conductor to say "yes": Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who made such a great impression here leading Carmen, is its new Music Director as of 2012. Great for Philly -- if he enjoys the meat-and-potatoes programming the locals there want. As for us, it should keep him nearby for more stints at the Met...

Before I forget (guest edition): La Scala's Rheingold

Not too far in time but rather more distant than usual in place, a reader sent this guest review from Milan on last month's La Scala Rheingold.

As this appears to have been a trial run for Pape in Wotan, perhaps his vocal success in the part means we'll see him do it here in the not-too-distant future.

*     *     *
Das Rheingold, Teatro alla Scala, May 26, 2010

One good decision in Guy Cassiers' production of Das Rheingold at La Scala was to have Alberich just be an unkempt, ordinary middle aged guy. Without the usual troll costume, this Alberich, especially as well sung and as dynamically acted by Johannes Martin Kraenzle, was the most sympathetic and interesting depiction of that character I have seen and heard. He was buffo enough to get laughs from the audience and the Rhinemaidens, but not a cartoon-ish character. Renounce love for riches? Sure, if those are the kind of bitches one runs into at the Rheinhessen, why not?!

There were other nice touches such as a cynical and dandy-ish Loge dancing in the water as everyone ascends to Valhalla at the opera's end, but Cassiers is such a literal director that he ruins the night by having ballet dancers on-stage for most of the opera miming and gyrating next to the singers, even during Wagner's evocative subterranean music for the descent to the Nibelheim. It's like Cassiers and his choreographer, Sidi Libi Cherkaoui, read a bunch of opera books which say that Rheingold is the gloomiest and least lyrical chapter of the Ring, and they believed it and needed to overcompensate by treating it like an overwrought ballet.

The worst was Cassiers' concept of Wotan as a self-effacing dead-beat which only made me wish that Rene Pape's first outing in this role was at the Met's now retired Otto Schenk production, which has the rare virtue of letting Wotan be a god. It is hard to imagine Pape getting upstaged throughout the night, but in this production, he is. His actions on stage were stiff and static, and a semi-naked hairy male dancer shadows his moves while he is arguing with Fricka. I was hoping he would kill many of the dancers with his spear, but alas, no.

Dressed in a dirty suit, this Wotan was too mortal to command any authority or awe, and perhaps too cognizant that stealing the Ring is a bad decision. It's unfortunate because Pape's Wotan is beautifully sung, and a most bel canto treatment of the part, but if he's not allowed to be a god or even threatening, he might as well be singing Rigoletto.

The bass that stole the show was Kwangchul Youn as Fasolt, who sang forcefully and with real menace. A much more dignified fellow than Wotan, his was a Fasolt of brute elegance and authority. Unfortunately, Timo Riihonen as Fafner was too light for the role.

The tenors in this production were all good, especially Stephan Ruegamer's lyrical and charismatic Loge who moved around the stage like a demented pixie. He was lucky to have no dancer assigned to him. Anna Larsson's Erda makes her entrance like a tree sprouting up from the stage, and although she was good, I wished for more authority and steeliness in her singing of this role. I had last heard Anna Samuil as Musetta at the Met in 2006 and she was an appealing and dynamic Freia worth fighting over.

Daniel Barenboim and the La Scala Orchestra gave a mostly skillful rendition and sounded great during the last the ten minutes which made one almost forget all the bad direction of the show so far. Only the opening music seemed rushed and unmagical, like Barenboim wanted to get those notes over with. Maybe waiting for the protesting stagehands (lecturing the audience) to get off the stage made him antsy.

Before I forget: The class of 2005

The Magic Flute -- Metropolitan Opera, 9/30/2009
Phillips, Klink, Maltman, Miklosa, Zeppenfeld / Labadie

The Marriage of Figaro -- Metropolitan Opera, 11/30/2009
Oropesa, Pisaroni, Dasch, Leonard, Tezier / Luisi

I suppose that after the movie more people know about the 2007 Met Council Finals than any other iteration of the event, but to my mind it was less memorable than 2005's version. Two of the 2005 winners starred in the Met's Mozart revivals this fall, with generally happy results.

*     *     *
No longer new, Julie Taymor's production of the Magic Flute has worked through its early issues to become a well-functioning Mozartean machine, quite capable of entertaining the Flute crowd without any notable stars. That September's revival had a reasonably good and interesting cast was almost incidental.

Sonically, the night took a while to get on track. Though 2007 winner Jamie Barton blended nicely with veteran First and Third Ladies Wendy Bryn Harmer and Tamara Mumford, the prince they were rescuing wasn't such a prize. Matthew Klink, who made his debut earlier in this run, was certainly audible and professional, but he lacked grace and control -- basically a drag as Tamino. English baritone Christopher Maltman, on the other hand, sang well enough but was a glummer and less comically commanding Papageno than one would have wanted. Even veteran Queen of the Night Erika Miklosa was off her usual high standard in her first-act aria.

Things improved, however, for the latter part of the show. The Sarastro -- Georg Zeppenfeld -- was the best of the male singers by far, impressing in his own debut run with the company. (He's not yet up to Pape, Moll, or the like, but certainly deserves a return engagement.) Miklosa eventually reappeared and nailed the Queen's second aria. Meanwhile, Kathleen Kim was luxury-cast as Papagena and Susanna Phillips brought some heart to the show as Pamina.

Phillips, who has since won the Met's own Beverly Sills Artist Award, made her post-Met Council debut the season before as Musetta, but of course Pamina is a much different part. There's very little showiness: a lot goes on inside her, but there's not much actual action. Phillips here not only sang beautifully but brought an appealing (neither delicate nor fire-eating) and ever-visible interiority to the character in her woe and happiness.

After last season's poor efforts in Don Giovanni, Bernard Labadie's direct and well-breathed conducting was a relief. He showed well in both the opera's expression and its gravity, not allowing Sarastro or the crowd scenes to get bogged down in over-solemnity. A good evening -- despite the Tamino.

*     *     *
As well as Labadie did, however, Fabio Luisi's Mozart conducting a few months later put it and other recent non-Levine efforts (in Mozart, at least) seem pedestrian. From the overture onward, the stick of the now-Principal Guest Conductor (a position he was announced for only after Levine's spring injury -- interview here) brought not only energy and clear textures but a rare vitality to every phrase. Though I still wish Pierre Boulez could have been convinced to do Lulu (the Boulez-conducted Carnegie Hall concert just after the last spring performance had the Met Orchestra playing better than I've heard since Levine took the Boston job), Luisi's four productions in '09-'10 were all carried off pretty admirably.

The cast was a mixed affair, with the servants doing well and the aristocrats not. The latter first. Ludovic Tezier has been a fine Marcello, but as the Count he lacked the charisma -- either vocal or personal -- to make the character's sordid lechery count for much. His wife this time was the debuting German soprano Annette Dasch, whose apparent European success I can't understand. Yes, she is attractive, has a substantial enough sound, and was certainly game and responsive in acting the Countess, but she simply could not sing the arias (or her part of the Letter Duet) in tune, coming to grief in every exposed slow part (and yes, that's most of the role). Perhaps she'll turn into a decent Wagnerian or something, but as a Mozart singer she was a flop.

Luca Pisaroni and Lisette Oropesa made a much more pleasing pair, he an earthy but musical force as Figaro, she perkily charming and able to project her personality much more strongly than in her surprise Met Susanna two years earlier. It wasn't the revelation of Oropesa's Lucia last summer in Princeton, but it was a promising indication of her delicious light lyric voice's ability to carry a lead in the big house. (If Dessay's vocal trouble continues, the Met may need a substitute Lucia...)

Also very good was Isabel Leonard, a gangly but ardent Cherubino who didn't quite eclipse recent memories of Kate Lindsey and Joyce DiDonato. Luisi and the cast made the ensembles seem effortless, making for pure pleasure outside of the Count and Countess' solo struggles.

Before I forget (a series)

There are many reasons why impressions from the season's performances don't get posted at the time, and may never go up. But -- however it happened -- this week I'll be attempting to clear out my backlog of notes, fragmentary posts, etc. by finishing and posting reviews from the just-concluded New York season before the details fall entirely out of mind. First up, tomorrow: a show from the Met's very first week.