Lucia di Lammermoor - Metropolitan Opera, 3/16/2011
Dessay, Calleja, Tezier, Youn / Summers
One more quick look at Lucia before the afternoon's run-ending moviecast (which I won't see until it's on television):
As usual, Wednesday's last pre-moviecast performance was marred by active cameras and monitors all over the house: if you sat near the front of Orchestra or in Side Parterre, the monitoring screens were particularly distracting -- no attempt at all to isolate the light from these screens to only the crew watching them. And moviecast lighting gave the pit much more prominence than usual in the orchestral introductions. Be careful you know what you're getting into when you buy a seat for one of these evenings.
Nevertheless, it was a fantastic performance. The supporting men seemed a shade off, perhaps adjusting and preparing themselves for the big show at week's end. The two principals, however, were undimmed, each going for it rather more than one might have expected. Natalie Dessay's new engagement with the part seems at last to be in full focus -- and it is, in fact, a different take than in the originial run three seasons ago. Her voice, shifted down in its center (the top is now the sticky part), seems with Wednesday's show finally to have filled out to its new shape, and is (by her standard) again full-bodied through its range: though the performance itself wasn't immaculate, the sound was note-for-note satisfying throughout, and the improvement from the run's shaky start quite remarkable. The interpretation has changed too, become a bit more conventional and conventionally Dessay: no longer stifled in all her relations, this Lucia is free and deeply happy within her relationship with Edgardo (the problem is that it has an end), and even shifts into Marie-style happy scurrying around on thinking of him in the first act. This provides a nice contrast with her still and inward misery in Lucia's second-act interactions (quite precisely felt and depicted at this point in the run), and though the never-quite-joyful-until-madness version of Dessay's 2007-08 take was a wonder, there's something to this setup too, where the joy-misery contrast is clear both before and after.
And heck, if you could hear Joseph Calleja sing as he does here every time you met him, who wouldn't be happy? On Wednesday he was perhaps more ardent and more generous with his sound than yet before in this magical run.
There were some minor sync issues, but Summers seems to be sharpening the show up on the phrase level too. We'll see what the afternoon brings.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Met Council Finals 2011
National Council Grand Finals Concert - Metropolitan Opera, 3/13/2011
Brownlee et al. / Summers
As noted a week ago, this was the first Council Finals in a while that I couldn't hear with my own two ears. I do have two correspondents, though, who complement each other: one a bit more measured (A), the other a bit more opinionated (B). So, on to their words, with only formatting and minor editorializing by me.
* * *
Philippe Sly (bass-baritone, 22)
"Sibilar gli angui d'Aletto" (Rinaldo)
"O du mein holder Abendstern" (Tannhäuser)
A: I sensed a bit of nerves in the Handel piece that led me to believe that as the youngest of the group, he could use a bit more seasoning, but the Wagner was an aurally stunning moment of feeling (excellent line and phrasing). The youngest of the lot.
B: Philippe Sly, the French Canadian bass baritone masquerading as a tenor won and it will be interesting to see where his voice settles. He was the first to sing, so there were some nerves in his first aria from Handel, and he was sometimes staring at the stage floor, but he improved with "O'mein holder Abendstern." His voice is too light for Wolfram; however he did a respectable job and it was a short-lived pleasure to hear the Met Orchestra accompany him; a bit like being in a Bentley just to cross Central Park.
Deanna Briewick (soprano, 24)
"En proie a la Tristesse" (Comte Ory)
"Sul fil d'un soffio etesio" (Falstaff)
A: Pleasant enough, but uninspiring. I wish I had more to say, but I don't really. The basic voice just did not appeal to me.
B: Voice was small, breathy, high coloratura top, but nothing beneath. Girly and colorless.
Joseph Lim (baritone, 28)
"Hai gia vinta la causa" (Figaro)
Igor's aria (Prince Igor)
A: A little too restrained in the Mozart (he didn't quite capture the frustration--the "foiled again" aspect--of the aria), but made up for it quite well in the Borodin; presenting as a singer who understood what he was singing and and the feeling behind it, I felt the Borodin was a daring choice for a competition and was wondering how well he'd do with it, and I was not disappointed.
B: A bit generic in the Mozart, kind of barky, but I liked him singing in Russian.
Ryan Speedo Green (bass-baritone, 24)
Banco's aria (Macbeth)
"La calunnia" (Barber)
A: Best name for an American opera singer, evah (or at least this century)! [I agree -ed.] Seriously, could potentially be a cross between Morris Robinson and Kurt Moll. Subtle/nuanced phrasing in the Verdi, personality personified in the Rossini. Problem w/loudness though (see below).
B: His career may be for slowly sung parts like Sarastro, Grand Inquisitor and Commendatore. He has a rich voice but is a bit generic, I wished for more agility in the Rossini.
Sasha Djihanian (soprano, 25)
"Non disperar" (Giulio Cesare)
"Signore, ascolta" (Turandot)
A: Of the remaining women (of whom I liked both), she was the one I liked marginally better (in terms of sound). She has a warm, full, and (importantly) distinct tone, and crisp diction displayed to really good effect in the Handel (though it may have worked against her in the Puccini).
B: An interesting, solid lyric soprano with a well developed voice and technique. Polished, non-histrionic stage presence. Of everyone in the competition, she is the one I'd be most interested in hearing again.
Nicholas Masters (bass, 26)
"Il lacerato spirito" (Boccanegra)
Bottom's Dream (Midsummer Night's Dream)
A: I liked him, but perhaps he was too polished, perhaps too uneven in the register, perhaps not daring enough in what he chose to sing (compared to Mr. Lim)? Who knows? I honestly can't say.
B: His Verdi aria was my favorite moment in the competition. Intelligently sung, and very nice legato. Hate to say this, but he perhaps could have won if he'd nixed the Britten aria, which went over the audience like a lead balloon.
Michelle Johnson (soprano, 28)
"Io son l'umile ancella" (Adriana Lecouvreur)
"Dove sono" (Figaro)
A: Absolutely hideous dress, but ample cleavage for those who want to know about such things. Seriously, she wowed the crowd, with rich, lovely, innate sound in both the Cilea and the Mozart, but I thought the Mozart was a bit sloppy/rushed/tense (pick one). The trills at the end didn't float enough to make my hair stand on end—one of those must have moments that make the aria for me.
B: All of soprano Michelle Johnson's family and fan club turned out for her this afternoon. Wish she could have told them not to clap and holler before her first aria, "Io son l'umile ancella" from Adriana Lecouvreur fully ended. Lovely, full, gigantic voice, but does not seem the type to disappear into her characters. There is of course room for singers like that. She went for the shock and awe treatment and it worked.
Joseph Barron (bass-baritone, 25)
"Vi ravviso" (Sonnambula)
"Vous qui faites l'endormie" (Faust)
A: Named after the last Morse villain? At first I felt he was too much toward the baritone end of the register, but eventually he did show a satisfactory bottom-end. As I was listening to him, the singer that came to mind was Cornell McNeil (particularly as Germont). Maybe someday?
B: Seems destined to sing parts like the Baron Ochs and the title role of Don Pasquale. Someone's got to do them, and this hammy bass did a nice job with his arias. Maybe the elegance will come later on.
[Sly, Lim, Green, Johnson, and Barron were the announced winners.]
A: I got to pontificating on how the judges were going to evaluate this year's finalists and choose winners among a very gifted and well-deserving bunch, and of course seeing if I could pick 'em (I got 60%).
From where I sat, most of the performers had difficulty consistently projecting/controlling their voices at some point. The quiet bits were too quiet (but not inaudible), and the loud bits were not quite loud enough. In contrast, former winner Lawrence Brownlee, who, pardon the expression, rocked the house with his guest arias, has certainly mastered the art of singing delicately, loudly. I guess that's something that will come later in their training, along with more intense work to build the complete opera singer. But it was an enlightening moment of potential and potential realized.
Based on what I've heard, and the actual results, I'm concluding that winning is determined not so much by who are "the best" singers on finals day in any given year, but on who has the most potential to be realized, and who the prize, along with the doors it opens, might help most.
The two I missed on were Mr. Sly and Mr. Lim, who didn't have spectacular opening arias, but impressed after intermission (feeling, understanding, and daring trumped the mugging).
[Sometimes it's potential over polish, sometimes the judges just screw up or have bizarre likes/dislikes. Just being in this concert will get all the finalists opportunities to prove themselves as they go along, though. -ed.]
B: The two singers I liked the most -- Sasha Djihanian, who's competing at Cardiff, and Nicholas Masters -- were shut out.
[This blog will have a Cardiff correspondent this year, so we'll see. -ed.]
* * *
Thanks to both correspondents!
Brownlee et al. / Summers
As noted a week ago, this was the first Council Finals in a while that I couldn't hear with my own two ears. I do have two correspondents, though, who complement each other: one a bit more measured (A), the other a bit more opinionated (B). So, on to their words, with only formatting and minor editorializing by me.
Philippe Sly (bass-baritone, 22)
"Sibilar gli angui d'Aletto" (Rinaldo)
"O du mein holder Abendstern" (Tannhäuser)
A: I sensed a bit of nerves in the Handel piece that led me to believe that as the youngest of the group, he could use a bit more seasoning, but the Wagner was an aurally stunning moment of feeling (excellent line and phrasing). The youngest of the lot.
B: Philippe Sly, the French Canadian bass baritone masquerading as a tenor won and it will be interesting to see where his voice settles. He was the first to sing, so there were some nerves in his first aria from Handel, and he was sometimes staring at the stage floor, but he improved with "O'mein holder Abendstern." His voice is too light for Wolfram; however he did a respectable job and it was a short-lived pleasure to hear the Met Orchestra accompany him; a bit like being in a Bentley just to cross Central Park.
Deanna Briewick (soprano, 24)
"En proie a la Tristesse" (Comte Ory)
"Sul fil d'un soffio etesio" (Falstaff)
A: Pleasant enough, but uninspiring. I wish I had more to say, but I don't really. The basic voice just did not appeal to me.
B: Voice was small, breathy, high coloratura top, but nothing beneath. Girly and colorless.
Joseph Lim (baritone, 28)
"Hai gia vinta la causa" (Figaro)
Igor's aria (Prince Igor)
A: A little too restrained in the Mozart (he didn't quite capture the frustration--the "foiled again" aspect--of the aria), but made up for it quite well in the Borodin; presenting as a singer who understood what he was singing and and the feeling behind it, I felt the Borodin was a daring choice for a competition and was wondering how well he'd do with it, and I was not disappointed.
B: A bit generic in the Mozart, kind of barky, but I liked him singing in Russian.
Ryan Speedo Green (bass-baritone, 24)
Banco's aria (Macbeth)
"La calunnia" (Barber)
A: Best name for an American opera singer, evah (or at least this century)! [I agree -ed.] Seriously, could potentially be a cross between Morris Robinson and Kurt Moll. Subtle/nuanced phrasing in the Verdi, personality personified in the Rossini. Problem w/loudness though (see below).
B: His career may be for slowly sung parts like Sarastro, Grand Inquisitor and Commendatore. He has a rich voice but is a bit generic, I wished for more agility in the Rossini.
Sasha Djihanian (soprano, 25)
"Non disperar" (Giulio Cesare)
"Signore, ascolta" (Turandot)
A: Of the remaining women (of whom I liked both), she was the one I liked marginally better (in terms of sound). She has a warm, full, and (importantly) distinct tone, and crisp diction displayed to really good effect in the Handel (though it may have worked against her in the Puccini).
B: An interesting, solid lyric soprano with a well developed voice and technique. Polished, non-histrionic stage presence. Of everyone in the competition, she is the one I'd be most interested in hearing again.
Nicholas Masters (bass, 26)
"Il lacerato spirito" (Boccanegra)
Bottom's Dream (Midsummer Night's Dream)
A: I liked him, but perhaps he was too polished, perhaps too uneven in the register, perhaps not daring enough in what he chose to sing (compared to Mr. Lim)? Who knows? I honestly can't say.
B: His Verdi aria was my favorite moment in the competition. Intelligently sung, and very nice legato. Hate to say this, but he perhaps could have won if he'd nixed the Britten aria, which went over the audience like a lead balloon.
Michelle Johnson (soprano, 28)
"Io son l'umile ancella" (Adriana Lecouvreur)
"Dove sono" (Figaro)
A: Absolutely hideous dress, but ample cleavage for those who want to know about such things. Seriously, she wowed the crowd, with rich, lovely, innate sound in both the Cilea and the Mozart, but I thought the Mozart was a bit sloppy/rushed/tense (pick one). The trills at the end didn't float enough to make my hair stand on end—one of those must have moments that make the aria for me.
B: All of soprano Michelle Johnson's family and fan club turned out for her this afternoon. Wish she could have told them not to clap and holler before her first aria, "Io son l'umile ancella" from Adriana Lecouvreur fully ended. Lovely, full, gigantic voice, but does not seem the type to disappear into her characters. There is of course room for singers like that. She went for the shock and awe treatment and it worked.
Joseph Barron (bass-baritone, 25)
"Vi ravviso" (Sonnambula)
"Vous qui faites l'endormie" (Faust)
A: Named after the last Morse villain? At first I felt he was too much toward the baritone end of the register, but eventually he did show a satisfactory bottom-end. As I was listening to him, the singer that came to mind was Cornell McNeil (particularly as Germont). Maybe someday?
B: Seems destined to sing parts like the Baron Ochs and the title role of Don Pasquale. Someone's got to do them, and this hammy bass did a nice job with his arias. Maybe the elegance will come later on.
[Sly, Lim, Green, Johnson, and Barron were the announced winners.]
A: I got to pontificating on how the judges were going to evaluate this year's finalists and choose winners among a very gifted and well-deserving bunch, and of course seeing if I could pick 'em (I got 60%).
From where I sat, most of the performers had difficulty consistently projecting/controlling their voices at some point. The quiet bits were too quiet (but not inaudible), and the loud bits were not quite loud enough. In contrast, former winner Lawrence Brownlee, who, pardon the expression, rocked the house with his guest arias, has certainly mastered the art of singing delicately, loudly. I guess that's something that will come later in their training, along with more intense work to build the complete opera singer. But it was an enlightening moment of potential and potential realized.
Based on what I've heard, and the actual results, I'm concluding that winning is determined not so much by who are "the best" singers on finals day in any given year, but on who has the most potential to be realized, and who the prize, along with the doors it opens, might help most.
The two I missed on were Mr. Sly and Mr. Lim, who didn't have spectacular opening arias, but impressed after intermission (feeling, understanding, and daring trumped the mugging).
[Sometimes it's potential over polish, sometimes the judges just screw up or have bizarre likes/dislikes. Just being in this concert will get all the finalists opportunities to prove themselves as they go along, though. -ed.]
B: The two singers I liked the most -- Sasha Djihanian, who's competing at Cardiff, and Nicholas Masters -- were shut out.
[This blog will have a Cardiff correspondent this year, so we'll see. -ed.]
Thanks to both correspondents!
Monday, March 14, 2011
The week in NY opera (March 14-20)
Doing these posts reminds me: it's disgraceful that all arts organizations don't already have obvious and accessible calendars that one can easily add (via CalDAV or the like) to one's personal electronic schedule. I can put every sports team schedule in the world onto my smartphone with a few simple clicks -- why not the Met, or Carnegie Hall? Not to mention the less prominent organizations whose dates might otherwise be forgotten.
Metropolitan Opera:
Romeo (M/SE), Queen of Spades (Tu/F), Lucia (W/SM), Boris (Th)
The Queen of Spades is a fantastic show nearly (that is, not quite) ruined by endless stage-change pauses between scenes. And what happened to the fog for Lisa's last scene? A long post will follow. Lucia -- in which Joseph Calleja continues to drop jaws, and Natalie Dessay seems to have kept her improved form since the premiere -- finishes with two more performances including Saturday's matinee moviecast. Boris is finishing too, still sans Gergiev.
Avery Fisher Hall:
New York Philharmonic Bluebeard's Castle (F/SE)
Salonen conducts Bartok's masterpiece of inviolable human loneliness after some Ligeti and Haydn. Michelle deYoung and Gabor Bretz are the leads for these concert performances.
Atlantic Stage 2 (330 W.16th St.):
Pocket Opera NY Alcina (Th/SaE/SuM)
The small company takes on a big Handel opera. Thursday night is a $75 opener; the other shows are $25.
OT:
No Levine, but the Boston Symphony's Carnegie Hall visit still has promising nights -- violinist Christian Tetzlaff plays concertante pieces by Mozart, Bartok, and Harrison Birtwistle on Tuesday, and Andris Nelsons takes a night off from the Met's Queen of Spades to conduct Mahler 9 on Thursday.
Metropolitan Opera:
Romeo (M/SE), Queen of Spades (Tu/F), Lucia (W/SM), Boris (Th)
The Queen of Spades is a fantastic show nearly (that is, not quite) ruined by endless stage-change pauses between scenes. And what happened to the fog for Lisa's last scene? A long post will follow. Lucia -- in which Joseph Calleja continues to drop jaws, and Natalie Dessay seems to have kept her improved form since the premiere -- finishes with two more performances including Saturday's matinee moviecast. Boris is finishing too, still sans Gergiev.
Avery Fisher Hall:
New York Philharmonic Bluebeard's Castle (F/SE)
Salonen conducts Bartok's masterpiece of inviolable human loneliness after some Ligeti and Haydn. Michelle deYoung and Gabor Bretz are the leads for these concert performances.
Atlantic Stage 2 (330 W.16th St.):
Pocket Opera NY Alcina (Th/SaE/SuM)
The small company takes on a big Handel opera. Thursday night is a $75 opener; the other shows are $25.
OT:
No Levine, but the Boston Symphony's Carnegie Hall visit still has promising nights -- violinist Christian Tetzlaff plays concertante pieces by Mozart, Bartok, and Harrison Birtwistle on Tuesday, and Andris Nelsons takes a night off from the Met's Queen of Spades to conduct Mahler 9 on Thursday.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
More changes
This week's main Met news was, of course, the announcement that Angela Gheorghiu's cancellation spree had extended to next season's new/imported Faust. On this and Peter Gelb's predictably unhappy response I'll have more here anon: closer changes first.
First is, again, the Met, for which Valery Gergiev never made it out of St. Petersburg to do his scheduled performances of Boris. Originally the cancellation was announced as Wednesday-only, but his backup Pavel Smelkov will conduct this afternoon's radio broadcast as well.
On the other side of the country, soprano Anja Harteros has canceled her San Diego run of Rosenkavalier (which was supposed to be her role debut as the Marschallin). I had actually planned on going for this -- she, with tenor Klaus Florian Vogt, is the least explicable ongoing star absence of the Gelb era. This cancellation on top of Furlanetto's -- he had been scheduled for Ochs -- has me thinking again about the pair of cross-country flights, but San Diego Opera did get a most interesting last-minute replacement: Twyla Robinson, whose naturally Strauss-flavored voice was one of the highlights of her 2002 Met Council Finals triumph.
First is, again, the Met, for which Valery Gergiev never made it out of St. Petersburg to do his scheduled performances of Boris. Originally the cancellation was announced as Wednesday-only, but his backup Pavel Smelkov will conduct this afternoon's radio broadcast as well.
On the other side of the country, soprano Anja Harteros has canceled her San Diego run of Rosenkavalier (which was supposed to be her role debut as the Marschallin). I had actually planned on going for this -- she, with tenor Klaus Florian Vogt, is the least explicable ongoing star absence of the Gelb era. This cancellation on top of Furlanetto's -- he had been scheduled for Ochs -- has me thinking again about the pair of cross-country flights, but San Diego Opera did get a most interesting last-minute replacement: Twyla Robinson, whose naturally Strauss-flavored voice was one of the highlights of her 2002 Met Council Finals triumph.
Wednesday, March 09, 2011
Vasco de Kirk
L'Africane - Opera Orchestra of New York, 3/2/2011
Giordani, Taigi, Dehn, Mvinjelwa, Mobbs / Queler
Meyerbeer and Scribe's L'Africane doesn't, in fact, seem to have any Africans in it: the exotic characters turn out to be Indians, though I'm not sure whether it's my understanding or the creators' that's more confused here. (Was it supposed to be a non-subcontinental kingdom founded by Indians who ended up closer to the Cape? That makes little sense, but not much in this concoction does.) Its central figure, Vasco de Gama, did in fact make it to India, though he's probably better known these days for having a Rio soccer team named after him. As you might guess, the piece is utter nonsense as history or geography -- it's slightly better as opera, though.
Hugh Macdonald's program note suggestion that this posthumous score is Meyerbeer's masterpiece seems reasonable enough. L'Africane doesn't, after all, ruin its best musical scene with a mind-bendingly preposterous wrapper (as Huguenots does), and in its last acts does assemble a number of musically rewarding scenes in reasonably close proximity ("O Paradis" and the Vasco/Selika duet in Act IV; the Selika/Inez duet and Selika death monologue in Act V). But it's still characteristic Meyerbeer and Scribe, for all that implies: wooden, predictable, and unimaginative construction on the scene level, and an overall story sense perfectly attuned to the humbug of their day. This latter quality served well to make Meyerbeer the 19th century James Cameron (or, um, Michael Bay?), but has not worn well to the present.
So while today we can still savor its sort of Orientalist exoticism in other French Romantic operas (Pearl Fishers, Lakme) and French-Russian ballets (the scenario would have been much better in the hands of Petipa), the Meyerbeer/Scribe peculiarity of L'Africane itself makes for a slog. Again (like Huguenots) we have the wish-fulfillment hero, who despite being a narcissistic boob is adored by all the ladies -- including, in the manner of Vasco's futuristic successor James T. Kirk, the lovely alien princess who sacrifices herself for him -- again we have the chorus used endlessly for background noise chants of "you suck!"/"you're great!", and so on.
The cast sang well enough though not exceptionally. Marcello Giordani (Vasco) had his high notes but didn't transcend his generally workmanlike musicianship, US-debuting soprano Chiara Taigi (Selika) sang with confidence but a not-quite-matching instrument (stronger on bottom than top), while the best supporting singers were two low-voiced men: Daniel Mobbs as the Portugese bad guy and Harold Wilson in the small part of the High Priest of Brahma.
There's enough nice music here for a good highlights CD (besides the above, there's also Selika's famous second-act showpiece), but again one regrets that Wagner couldn't find a better model of what big opera really was.
Giordani, Taigi, Dehn, Mvinjelwa, Mobbs / Queler
Meyerbeer and Scribe's L'Africane doesn't, in fact, seem to have any Africans in it: the exotic characters turn out to be Indians, though I'm not sure whether it's my understanding or the creators' that's more confused here. (Was it supposed to be a non-subcontinental kingdom founded by Indians who ended up closer to the Cape? That makes little sense, but not much in this concoction does.) Its central figure, Vasco de Gama, did in fact make it to India, though he's probably better known these days for having a Rio soccer team named after him. As you might guess, the piece is utter nonsense as history or geography -- it's slightly better as opera, though.
Hugh Macdonald's program note suggestion that this posthumous score is Meyerbeer's masterpiece seems reasonable enough. L'Africane doesn't, after all, ruin its best musical scene with a mind-bendingly preposterous wrapper (as Huguenots does), and in its last acts does assemble a number of musically rewarding scenes in reasonably close proximity ("O Paradis" and the Vasco/Selika duet in Act IV; the Selika/Inez duet and Selika death monologue in Act V). But it's still characteristic Meyerbeer and Scribe, for all that implies: wooden, predictable, and unimaginative construction on the scene level, and an overall story sense perfectly attuned to the humbug of their day. This latter quality served well to make Meyerbeer the 19th century James Cameron (or, um, Michael Bay?), but has not worn well to the present.
So while today we can still savor its sort of Orientalist exoticism in other French Romantic operas (Pearl Fishers, Lakme) and French-Russian ballets (the scenario would have been much better in the hands of Petipa), the Meyerbeer/Scribe peculiarity of L'Africane itself makes for a slog. Again (like Huguenots) we have the wish-fulfillment hero, who despite being a narcissistic boob is adored by all the ladies -- including, in the manner of Vasco's futuristic successor James T. Kirk, the lovely alien princess who sacrifices herself for him -- again we have the chorus used endlessly for background noise chants of "you suck!"/"you're great!", and so on.
The cast sang well enough though not exceptionally. Marcello Giordani (Vasco) had his high notes but didn't transcend his generally workmanlike musicianship, US-debuting soprano Chiara Taigi (Selika) sang with confidence but a not-quite-matching instrument (stronger on bottom than top), while the best supporting singers were two low-voiced men: Daniel Mobbs as the Portugese bad guy and Harold Wilson in the small part of the High Priest of Brahma.
There's enough nice music here for a good highlights CD (besides the above, there's also Selika's famous second-act showpiece), but again one regrets that Wagner couldn't find a better model of what big opera really was.
Monday, March 07, 2011
The week in NY opera (March 7-13)
Metropolitan Opera:
Romeo (M/Th), Lucia (Tu/SE), Boris (W/SM), Queen of Spades (Fr)
Met Council Finals (Sunday 3pm)
The Queen of Spades -- the season's only Karita Mattila show -- begins Friday. Rene Pape's Boris meanwhile returns for a radio broadcast after its initial fall run, during which I decided I can't stand the piece (as good as Pape himself is). And, again, don't miss Lucia.
Blog note: for the first time since this blog went live I'm going to miss the Council Finals. Some readers have promised impressions for a post, but I'd love to get more reports from the house (please email me if you're interested). For those outside the city, the event will actually be live on Sirius this year.
Alice Tully Hall:
Les Arts Florissants (F/SE)
Simon Keenlyside recital (Sunday 5pm)
William Christie leads his early music group in two Rameau works -- Anacréon and Pygmalion, while Keenlyside sings an all-Schubert lieder program (with a piano sonata thrown in, played by his accompanist Emanuel Ax).
Bruno Walter Auditorium (Amsterdam Ave. entrance of Lincoln Center's library):
New York Opera Forum Romeo & Juliette (Sunday 1:30pm)
Young singers, concert version.
Romeo (M/Th), Lucia (Tu/SE), Boris (W/SM), Queen of Spades (Fr)
Met Council Finals (Sunday 3pm)
The Queen of Spades -- the season's only Karita Mattila show -- begins Friday. Rene Pape's Boris meanwhile returns for a radio broadcast after its initial fall run, during which I decided I can't stand the piece (as good as Pape himself is). And, again, don't miss Lucia.
Blog note: for the first time since this blog went live I'm going to miss the Council Finals. Some readers have promised impressions for a post, but I'd love to get more reports from the house (please email me if you're interested). For those outside the city, the event will actually be live on Sirius this year.
Alice Tully Hall:
Les Arts Florissants (F/SE)
Simon Keenlyside recital (Sunday 5pm)
William Christie leads his early music group in two Rameau works -- Anacréon and Pygmalion, while Keenlyside sings an all-Schubert lieder program (with a piano sonata thrown in, played by his accompanist Emanuel Ax).
Bruno Walter Auditorium (Amsterdam Ave. entrance of Lincoln Center's library):
New York Opera Forum Romeo & Juliette (Sunday 1:30pm)
Young singers, concert version.
Friday, March 04, 2011
The week in NY opera (Feb 28-Mar 6) (updated)
UPDATE 3/4: Forgot Lepage's version of the Nightingale at BAM (see below)
(An experiment in schedule-watching begins today. Production review posts are linked when possible, company sites when not. Feedback/suggestions on the format welcome.)
Metropolitan Opera:
Lucia (M/F), Armida (T/SM), Iphigenie (W/SE), Romeo & Juliette (Th)
In, I think, descending order of interest. Romeo has an excellent cast that begs for an equally excellent conductor, but Domingo's name recognition trumps musical considerations. Actually, all the casts are pretty impressive.
Avery Fischer Hall:
OONY L'Africaine (Wednesday 7:30pm)
Russian opera concert (Sunday 5pm)
After Huguenots I don't expect the Meyerbeer to be actually good, but it should be interesting. I really have no idea what to expect from Sunday's event beyond the presence of a lot of Russians, but it does have a nice lineup of performers including (non-Russian, but in town for Boris) Rene Pape.
Carnegie Hall:
Joyce DiDonato recital (Sunday 2pm)
Sign of the times -- DiDonato's name has reached the point where she's now headlining Carnegie's big hall solo. But it'll be hard to top her 2009 show at Zankel.
Brooklyn Academy of Music, Howard Gilman Opera House:
The Nightingale and Other Short Fables (Fr/Su)
Opera by Stravinsky, production by Robert Lepage (the current Met Ring guy), show by the Canadian Opera Company. Two performances left, including one tonight.
Dicapo Opera:
The Saint of Bleeker Street (F/Su)
Never seen this one, actually.
OT:
Janine Jansen is playing French violin music at the somewhat overdone downtown hipster venue Le Poisson Rouge on Wednesday.
(An experiment in schedule-watching begins today. Production review posts are linked when possible, company sites when not. Feedback/suggestions on the format welcome.)
Metropolitan Opera:
Lucia (M/F), Armida (T/SM), Iphigenie (W/SE), Romeo & Juliette (Th)
In, I think, descending order of interest. Romeo has an excellent cast that begs for an equally excellent conductor, but Domingo's name recognition trumps musical considerations. Actually, all the casts are pretty impressive.
Avery Fischer Hall:
OONY L'Africaine (Wednesday 7:30pm)
Russian opera concert (Sunday 5pm)
After Huguenots I don't expect the Meyerbeer to be actually good, but it should be interesting. I really have no idea what to expect from Sunday's event beyond the presence of a lot of Russians, but it does have a nice lineup of performers including (non-Russian, but in town for Boris) Rene Pape.
Carnegie Hall:
Joyce DiDonato recital (Sunday 2pm)
Sign of the times -- DiDonato's name has reached the point where she's now headlining Carnegie's big hall solo. But it'll be hard to top her 2009 show at Zankel.
Brooklyn Academy of Music, Howard Gilman Opera House:
The Nightingale and Other Short Fables (Fr/Su)
Opera by Stravinsky, production by Robert Lepage (the current Met Ring guy), show by the Canadian Opera Company. Two performances left, including one tonight.
Dicapo Opera:
The Saint of Bleeker Street (F/Su)
Never seen this one, actually.
OT:
Janine Jansen is playing French violin music at the somewhat overdone downtown hipster venue Le Poisson Rouge on Wednesday.
Thursday, March 03, 2011
Changes
As you may or may not have heard elsewhere, soprano Angela Gheorghiu is out for the entire Met run of Romeo & Juliette (beginning tonight). Though her replacement Hei-Kyung Hong shone this season as Micaela, the switch isn't increasing the likelihood I make even the non-Domingo evening.
* * *
If you're wondering how Natalie Dessay did in the Lucia after the revival's season premiere: noticeably better. More air in the high notes and a firmer core to the sound, though the additional surface vibrato isn't going to disappear. It won't convince those who didn't like Dessay in the first place, but Monday she had enough vocal freedom to provide the Mad Scene its essential contrast, this time floating the cadenza's delicious reprise of the Act I love duet. She seemed to be more confidently focused for the rest, as well.
The second listen has me more appreciating conductor Patrick Summers' essential contribution to this show's success. There's no nonsense and no great attempt to make the numbers opera what it's not: just life and rhythmic joy in every selection. I can't overemphasize to what excellent spirits these Lucias are bringing the audience. (Calleja is a huge factor, of course.)
If you're wondering how Natalie Dessay did in the Lucia after the revival's season premiere: noticeably better. More air in the high notes and a firmer core to the sound, though the additional surface vibrato isn't going to disappear. It won't convince those who didn't like Dessay in the first place, but Monday she had enough vocal freedom to provide the Mad Scene its essential contrast, this time floating the cadenza's delicious reprise of the Act I love duet. She seemed to be more confidently focused for the rest, as well.
The second listen has me more appreciating conductor Patrick Summers' essential contribution to this show's success. There's no nonsense and no great attempt to make the numbers opera what it's not: just life and rhythmic joy in every selection. I can't overemphasize to what excellent spirits these Lucias are bringing the audience. (Calleja is a huge factor, of course.)
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Levine out... in Boston
After a press release earlier today about his withdrawal from the Boston Symphony's tour dates this month (including at Carnegie), the BSO press office just announced that James Levine will be out as music director there from this September.
When his back issues began to really be a problem again in recent years, it was clear that something had to give. As a New Yorker, I'm glad it's not the Met... Let's just hope he recovers in time for Valkyrie (his first priority, I'm sure) and Trovatore (fingers crossed).
When his back issues began to really be a problem again in recent years, it was clear that something had to give. As a New Yorker, I'm glad it's not the Met... Let's just hope he recovers in time for Valkyrie (his first priority, I'm sure) and Trovatore (fingers crossed).
Traviata X-Treme!!!1!
La Traviata -- 1/19/2011
Poplavskaya, Polenzani, Dobber / Noseda
Willy Decker's production of La Traviata, which finished its import run at the Met late in January, is perhaps most sympathetically understood as trolling, a conscious exploitation of a certain audience's boredom with opera and desire for more contemporarily gross sensations. Even its silliest feature -- the attempt to efface the piece's musical heart by gesturally talking over every key passage with distracting stage action -- can be seen as an attempt at the further provocational frisson, one long familiar to European directors and audiences. But let us take the show seriously for a moment.
Violetta, we are told in Decker's Playbill interview, is "the only person in the opera who truly loves" -- and this conceit drives the production's entire one-note character presentation.
Not, mind you, that we're shown Violetta herself doing much loving: she spends most of her time staring at an ominously-seated Dr. Grenvil (the angel of death, here costumed as an old-Franz-Liszt lookalike). It's in fact the rest of the cast that's adjusted. Because the schema says they do not love, Decker does his best to dehumanize them altogether -- beginning with Flora and the partygoers, stripped of individuality and even of their sex by short slicked haircuts and masculine black suits. These are the Soulless Bad Guys, and when Alfredo puts away his horrific floral bathrobe to put his suit back on (the production's attempt, pant-zipping and all, to bury "O mio rimorso"), we know Decker's written him off. His father doesn't even get that chance, typecast from the first as a mustache-twirling gangster thug who derisively laughs off (literally) Violetta's revelation of the financial truth. If Germont eventually is allowed some bare semblance of civility with her, it's only to set him up for an even sillier brutality, as he knocks his son down with a blow to the face just before launching into his beautiful paean to Provence and family. (I suppose we might be slightly grateful that Gelb didn't hire somebody who would've had Germont try to hump or defecate on his son at this point.)
But Decker's brutalizing vision aims larger, and returns to Flora and the chorus for the most striking invention of the production. Act II's party scene begins with the crowd having lost not only their individuality of body and dress but their very faces, having gone now to paper caricature masks. The visage, upon close inspection, is meant as a parody of Violetta's (the overt story is of one of the pack putting on a red dress and taunting Alfredo), but the effect -- the felt danger -- of the scene is quite independent of this semi-obscure particular: their attempt, at the end, to put the bull mask on Alfredo while redoubling their abuse enacts the ultimate stage of mindless mob frenzy -- full-out sacrificial slaughter, here both animal (primitive ceremony) and human (lynching).
* * *
It is striking, but doubly misguided. In the first place, this frenzied climax takes up only the scene's introduction -- the gypsy/bullfighter entertainment Flora offers her guests. Of course it has nothing to do with either the actual tone and action of that intro nor the charming music Verdi wrote for it (used, as Film Forum-goers may recently have noticed, to serenade Don Fabrizio on his entrance to his summer place in Visconti's film of The Leopard)... but the real offense is that the excitement and frenzy make an anticlimax of the actual climax of the second Act (and the opera itself): Alfredo's public insult in flinging Violetta's money back at her, and the trio (with chorus) that follows. Even ramped up to extreme levels with his pushing her down on the big clock/roulette wheel and stuffing the money into her mouth, this one-man offense barely even registers after the crowd explosion of the intro. Decker has written Violetta out of the climax of her own opera.
The second problem is more general: La Traviata isn't an opera about the power of force, of violence -- it's an opera about the power of gentility. Violetta's problem isn't that she's surrounded by a pack of anonymous and violent frat boys -- her urbane/demimonde set is a picturesque distraction, not a threat. No, her problem is that the part of the world that recognizes love and virtue is too decorous to readmit her after she sold them out (however it may have happened) to live the high life -- and that the claims of this decorous part of the world can be held hand-in-hand with the utmost courtesy and sympathy towards Violetta personally. For she and Germont do have a meeting of minds and hearts -- as all Verdi fathers and daughters do -- but there's nothing the two can alter for themselves. Alfredo's sister still depends for her happiness on the all-too-fastidious opinion of others, people quietly ready to ruin her life with no uncouth blow-up scene of the sort Alfredo himself later delivers (to -- as one may notice -- universal disapproval) but by a simple and socially appropriate withdrawal of approval. And so Violetta takes up unhappiness, though at her death she finally (in the otherwise incomprehensible locket business) gains a sort of readmittance to the decorously ordered world...
Decker's absurd reduction gives no hint of this essential dimension. Like too many modernizing directors, he's in love with at least the theatrical effect of brutality and violence and rewrites things to that end. Why? If -- to return to the beginning -- I believed he were serious in presenting this view of existence, I'd just prefer he stick to more appropriate fare, modernist or proto-modernist operas actually about the force of force (e.g. Wozzeck or Tosca). But his colors are too black: he paints his brutal world and its denizens as grossly bad and empty (he contrives to stage Act III without any of the characters actually talking to each other) without shading, without the irony or even self-lacerating joy we see from true practitioners like Berg. (Germont cartoonishly abusing his son before singing his aria is risible, but unintentionally -- and deliberately self-ignorantly -- so.) Conversely Decker's presentation of love is pure bathos: a disgracefully ugly floral pattern covering bathrobes, ceiling, and sofas in Act II's first scene. So he contrives to knock the thing he spends all effort presenting and to exalt some vague opposite... This makes him, I think, either a troll of those too thrilled by the violent excitement to notice the contradictory subtext, or a panderer to those who see suit-wearing Wall Street yobs as appropriate catch-all villains -- that is, to the current version of the genteel class that Verdi was actually skewering in his opera. I don't know which possibility is more depressing as an explanation for Decker's positive critical reception.
* * *
Largely hidden by the production elements -- but accessible whenever one closed one's eyes -- was the extraordinary musical thread. Perhaps it was the absence/perversion of the alternate paths of expression, or perhaps just weeks of concentrated performance before sellout audiences, but by this point in the run Noseda, his three leads, and the wonderful Met Orchestra had reached a unity and sustained focus equal to any Verdi here in memory. It was a truly excellent and moving Traviata... for the ear.
So all kudos to these musicians, but Decker's nonsense is capable of ruining even their best work and that of Luisi, Dessay, Polenzani, and Hvorostovsky next season. I never thought I'd miss the inane dancing cows of Zeffirelli's version, but I do. Give the opera wide berth until a new staging arrives.
Poplavskaya, Polenzani, Dobber / Noseda
Willy Decker's production of La Traviata, which finished its import run at the Met late in January, is perhaps most sympathetically understood as trolling, a conscious exploitation of a certain audience's boredom with opera and desire for more contemporarily gross sensations. Even its silliest feature -- the attempt to efface the piece's musical heart by gesturally talking over every key passage with distracting stage action -- can be seen as an attempt at the further provocational frisson, one long familiar to European directors and audiences. But let us take the show seriously for a moment.
Violetta, we are told in Decker's Playbill interview, is "the only person in the opera who truly loves" -- and this conceit drives the production's entire one-note character presentation.
Not, mind you, that we're shown Violetta herself doing much loving: she spends most of her time staring at an ominously-seated Dr. Grenvil (the angel of death, here costumed as an old-Franz-Liszt lookalike). It's in fact the rest of the cast that's adjusted. Because the schema says they do not love, Decker does his best to dehumanize them altogether -- beginning with Flora and the partygoers, stripped of individuality and even of their sex by short slicked haircuts and masculine black suits. These are the Soulless Bad Guys, and when Alfredo puts away his horrific floral bathrobe to put his suit back on (the production's attempt, pant-zipping and all, to bury "O mio rimorso"), we know Decker's written him off. His father doesn't even get that chance, typecast from the first as a mustache-twirling gangster thug who derisively laughs off (literally) Violetta's revelation of the financial truth. If Germont eventually is allowed some bare semblance of civility with her, it's only to set him up for an even sillier brutality, as he knocks his son down with a blow to the face just before launching into his beautiful paean to Provence and family. (I suppose we might be slightly grateful that Gelb didn't hire somebody who would've had Germont try to hump or defecate on his son at this point.)But Decker's brutalizing vision aims larger, and returns to Flora and the chorus for the most striking invention of the production. Act II's party scene begins with the crowd having lost not only their individuality of body and dress but their very faces, having gone now to paper caricature masks. The visage, upon close inspection, is meant as a parody of Violetta's (the overt story is of one of the pack putting on a red dress and taunting Alfredo), but the effect -- the felt danger -- of the scene is quite independent of this semi-obscure particular: their attempt, at the end, to put the bull mask on Alfredo while redoubling their abuse enacts the ultimate stage of mindless mob frenzy -- full-out sacrificial slaughter, here both animal (primitive ceremony) and human (lynching).
It is striking, but doubly misguided. In the first place, this frenzied climax takes up only the scene's introduction -- the gypsy/bullfighter entertainment Flora offers her guests. Of course it has nothing to do with either the actual tone and action of that intro nor the charming music Verdi wrote for it (used, as Film Forum-goers may recently have noticed, to serenade Don Fabrizio on his entrance to his summer place in Visconti's film of The Leopard)... but the real offense is that the excitement and frenzy make an anticlimax of the actual climax of the second Act (and the opera itself): Alfredo's public insult in flinging Violetta's money back at her, and the trio (with chorus) that follows. Even ramped up to extreme levels with his pushing her down on the big clock/roulette wheel and stuffing the money into her mouth, this one-man offense barely even registers after the crowd explosion of the intro. Decker has written Violetta out of the climax of her own opera.
The second problem is more general: La Traviata isn't an opera about the power of force, of violence -- it's an opera about the power of gentility. Violetta's problem isn't that she's surrounded by a pack of anonymous and violent frat boys -- her urbane/demimonde set is a picturesque distraction, not a threat. No, her problem is that the part of the world that recognizes love and virtue is too decorous to readmit her after she sold them out (however it may have happened) to live the high life -- and that the claims of this decorous part of the world can be held hand-in-hand with the utmost courtesy and sympathy towards Violetta personally. For she and Germont do have a meeting of minds and hearts -- as all Verdi fathers and daughters do -- but there's nothing the two can alter for themselves. Alfredo's sister still depends for her happiness on the all-too-fastidious opinion of others, people quietly ready to ruin her life with no uncouth blow-up scene of the sort Alfredo himself later delivers (to -- as one may notice -- universal disapproval) but by a simple and socially appropriate withdrawal of approval. And so Violetta takes up unhappiness, though at her death she finally (in the otherwise incomprehensible locket business) gains a sort of readmittance to the decorously ordered world...
Decker's absurd reduction gives no hint of this essential dimension. Like too many modernizing directors, he's in love with at least the theatrical effect of brutality and violence and rewrites things to that end. Why? If -- to return to the beginning -- I believed he were serious in presenting this view of existence, I'd just prefer he stick to more appropriate fare, modernist or proto-modernist operas actually about the force of force (e.g. Wozzeck or Tosca). But his colors are too black: he paints his brutal world and its denizens as grossly bad and empty (he contrives to stage Act III without any of the characters actually talking to each other) without shading, without the irony or even self-lacerating joy we see from true practitioners like Berg. (Germont cartoonishly abusing his son before singing his aria is risible, but unintentionally -- and deliberately self-ignorantly -- so.) Conversely Decker's presentation of love is pure bathos: a disgracefully ugly floral pattern covering bathrobes, ceiling, and sofas in Act II's first scene. So he contrives to knock the thing he spends all effort presenting and to exalt some vague opposite... This makes him, I think, either a troll of those too thrilled by the violent excitement to notice the contradictory subtext, or a panderer to those who see suit-wearing Wall Street yobs as appropriate catch-all villains -- that is, to the current version of the genteel class that Verdi was actually skewering in his opera. I don't know which possibility is more depressing as an explanation for Decker's positive critical reception.
Largely hidden by the production elements -- but accessible whenever one closed one's eyes -- was the extraordinary musical thread. Perhaps it was the absence/perversion of the alternate paths of expression, or perhaps just weeks of concentrated performance before sellout audiences, but by this point in the run Noseda, his three leads, and the wonderful Met Orchestra had reached a unity and sustained focus equal to any Verdi here in memory. It was a truly excellent and moving Traviata... for the ear.
So all kudos to these musicians, but Decker's nonsense is capable of ruining even their best work and that of Luisi, Dessay, Polenzani, and Hvorostovsky next season. I never thought I'd miss the inane dancing cows of Zeffirelli's version, but I do. Give the opera wide berth until a new staging arrives.
Friday, February 25, 2011
The gift
Lucia di Lammermoor - Metropolitan Opera, 2/24/2011
Dessay, Calleja, Tezier, Youn / Summers
To be present when a person does anything as well as tenor Joseph Calleja sings Edgardo in the Met's revival of Lucia is one of the great joys of life -- and not least of the reasons we bother with opera. For over time, as the tale finishes unfolding, opera is largely about man's limits and fragility... but in time, for the duration of any particular moment or breath or aria or even evening, it can become the space of the opposite: man's magnificence, his mastery, his spirit that doesn't need more than the brief span it's given.
Calleja sounds great -- the characteristic quick vibrato is currently less forward, more the ground of his voice, aiding his sound's depth and fullness in a fascinatingly still-buoyant way -- but he basically always sounds great. No, it's the particular lines and phrases of Donizetti's greatest hit that demand and reward the bel canto mastery with which the tenor once made much of a single aria in Macbeth. Here, Calleja makes Edgardo's difficult music seem utterly simple. The wonder isn't that he nimbly passes the purely vocal hurdles that smashed Rolando Villazon's career just two years back, but how thoroughly Calleja's senses of proportion and detail (well-assisted -- as didn't happen in Boheme -- by the conductor, here Patrick Summers) make a profoundly simple whole (or a series thereof) of his evening's sing.
* * *
Just three seasons ago at its premiere, it was of course Calleja's current costar -- French soprano Natalie Dessay -- who illuminated and justified this production, giving explosive humanity to the show's modern-flavored taxonomizing of Lucia's disintegration. That was a triumphant return after vocal distress and then surgery, but her troubles returned after a time, costing Dessay basically all of 2010. That she's again returned to headline this show is much, but over time, as I've said... The original success, in any case, is not yet again hers.
Make no mistake: it's no slackening in spirit or understanding, and those who haven't before heard Dessay's vision of the role will find much to appreciate. But though she can -- a single balky high note in the middle notwithstanding -- again basically sing the part, the marginal erosions of firmness and ease since her last good run just put her sound on the wrong side of beauty. (The Mad Scene now seems to sit as uneasily in her voice as the first two acts always have.) More importantly, they've correspondingly eroded the range of her vocal expression, so that this time she couldn't again stretch Lucia's psyche as excruciatingly, unprecedentedly far as she did that first opening night.
If Dessay's voice firms up, the will is still there for a magnificent success. If if stays in the same shape, it's still an account worth seeing. And if it markedly declines... Well, I'd hope for an interesting replacement (Lindemann grad Lisette Oropesa was stunning in a smaller theater), but fear Gelb would turn to one of the chilly Euro-sopranos who've already failed here as Lucia.
* * *
Patrick Summers, as mentioned, does a nice job in the pit, providing his usual fleet and firm accompaniment with a fair amount of inflection. Korean bass Kwangchul Youn is true luxury casting as Raimondo, giving the part far more gravity and pleasing vocal heft than usual. And French baritone Ludovic Tezier, who's been up-and-down here (Marcello quite good, Figaro Count quite bad), is a nice fit both in voice and temperament; he plays more of a haughty Enrico, not as prone to rage as Mariusz Kwiecien's production original.
There are six more shows, culminating in the March 19 moviecast. See as many as you can.
Dessay, Calleja, Tezier, Youn / Summers
To be present when a person does anything as well as tenor Joseph Calleja sings Edgardo in the Met's revival of Lucia is one of the great joys of life -- and not least of the reasons we bother with opera. For over time, as the tale finishes unfolding, opera is largely about man's limits and fragility... but in time, for the duration of any particular moment or breath or aria or even evening, it can become the space of the opposite: man's magnificence, his mastery, his spirit that doesn't need more than the brief span it's given.
Calleja sounds great -- the characteristic quick vibrato is currently less forward, more the ground of his voice, aiding his sound's depth and fullness in a fascinatingly still-buoyant way -- but he basically always sounds great. No, it's the particular lines and phrases of Donizetti's greatest hit that demand and reward the bel canto mastery with which the tenor once made much of a single aria in Macbeth. Here, Calleja makes Edgardo's difficult music seem utterly simple. The wonder isn't that he nimbly passes the purely vocal hurdles that smashed Rolando Villazon's career just two years back, but how thoroughly Calleja's senses of proportion and detail (well-assisted -- as didn't happen in Boheme -- by the conductor, here Patrick Summers) make a profoundly simple whole (or a series thereof) of his evening's sing.
Just three seasons ago at its premiere, it was of course Calleja's current costar -- French soprano Natalie Dessay -- who illuminated and justified this production, giving explosive humanity to the show's modern-flavored taxonomizing of Lucia's disintegration. That was a triumphant return after vocal distress and then surgery, but her troubles returned after a time, costing Dessay basically all of 2010. That she's again returned to headline this show is much, but over time, as I've said... The original success, in any case, is not yet again hers.
Make no mistake: it's no slackening in spirit or understanding, and those who haven't before heard Dessay's vision of the role will find much to appreciate. But though she can -- a single balky high note in the middle notwithstanding -- again basically sing the part, the marginal erosions of firmness and ease since her last good run just put her sound on the wrong side of beauty. (The Mad Scene now seems to sit as uneasily in her voice as the first two acts always have.) More importantly, they've correspondingly eroded the range of her vocal expression, so that this time she couldn't again stretch Lucia's psyche as excruciatingly, unprecedentedly far as she did that first opening night.
If Dessay's voice firms up, the will is still there for a magnificent success. If if stays in the same shape, it's still an account worth seeing. And if it markedly declines... Well, I'd hope for an interesting replacement (Lindemann grad Lisette Oropesa was stunning in a smaller theater), but fear Gelb would turn to one of the chilly Euro-sopranos who've already failed here as Lucia.
Patrick Summers, as mentioned, does a nice job in the pit, providing his usual fleet and firm accompaniment with a fair amount of inflection. Korean bass Kwangchul Youn is true luxury casting as Raimondo, giving the part far more gravity and pleasing vocal heft than usual. And French baritone Ludovic Tezier, who's been up-and-down here (Marcello quite good, Figaro Count quite bad), is a nice fit both in voice and temperament; he plays more of a haughty Enrico, not as prone to rage as Mariusz Kwiecien's production original.
There are six more shows, culminating in the March 19 moviecast. See as many as you can.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
The 2011-2012 Met season announcement, annotated
This is getting to be a habit. Ring cycles are at the end; other operas are listed in the order of their first appearance. Some one-off cast combinations are omitted.
Anna Bolena (new David McVicar production)
Netrebko, Garanca, Mumford, Costello, Abdrazakov / Armiliato (opening night through October, February)
Meade, Garanca, Mumford, Costello, Abdrazakov / Armiliato (October)
Not thrilled with the performers (Netrebko's bel canto days are long past), but McVicar should make even a non-Levine opening interesting.
Nabucco
Lucic, Guleghina, Lee, Colombara / Carignani (September through early November)
Lucic, Cornetti, Diegel, Belosselskiy / Carignani (November)
Many, many more chances to see Korean tenor Yonghoon Lee. Russian bass Dimitry Belosselskiy debuts in the November performances.
Il Barbiere di Siviglia
Mattei, Leonard, Camarena, Muraro, Burchuladze / Benini (October)
Pogossov, Leonard, Kudrya, Muraro, Ramey / Benini (late October)
Pogossov, Damrau, Lee, Del Carlo, Furlanetto / Benini (February)
Mezzo Isabel Leonard plays opposite two debuting tenors -- Javier Camarena and Alexey Kudrya -- in the fall; soprano Diana Damrau takes over as Rosina in February with a non-Korean tenor named Lee (Colin, in this case).
Don Giovanni (new Michael Grandage production)
Kwiecien, Pisaroni, Rebeka, Frittoli, Erdmann, Vargas, Bloom, Kocán / Levine (October-November)
Kwiecien, Pisaroni, Rebeka, Frittoli, Erdmann, Vargas/Sledge, Bloom, Kocán / TBA (November)
Finley, Relyea, Rebeka, Dasch, Leonard, Polenzani, Shenyang, Morris / Davis (February-March)
Rumor had Maija Kovalevska as Anna, but fellow Latvian soprano Marina Rebeka sings all performances in this debut run. Elvira is less promising, with Barbara Frittoli hit-and-miss and Annette Dasch inexplicably back after being utterly unable to sing Mozart in tune in her debut. And no Peter Mattei? At least the tenors (including Bruce Sledge, officially scheduled for a show after filling in admirably this season in Cosi) should be good -- and James Levine, whose Mozart has been missed.
Siegfried (new Robert LePage production)
Voigt, Bardon, Lehman, Siegel, Terfel, Owens / Levine (October-November)
Gary Lehman made his Met debut subbing for Ben Heppner three years ago, and he gets his first headlining Wagner run here in Heppner's place (though switched in rather further in advance). In fact, Lehman's the only tenor scheduled to sing Siegfried (the opera) at all next season, with the alternate Siegfried (the character) -- Stephen Gould -- only doing some Götterdämmerung performances.
Satyagraha
Croft, Durkin, Josephson, Walker / Anzolini (November-December)
For those now hooked on minimalism, the Phelim McDermott/Julian Crouch production of Glass' opera returns.
Rodelinda
Fleming, Blythe, Scholl, Davies, van Rensburg, Shenyang / Bicket (November-December)
The last Stephen Wadsworth production I actually liked, back at the start of this blog, though again the Met will miss a chance to showcase a star mezzo as Bertarido. Not sure what Fleming's vocal glamor quotient will be this fall in this elaborate part. Met Council winner Anthony Roth Costanzo has one scheduled debut performance in December replacing debuting countertenor Iestyn Davies.
La Boheme
Hong, Pittas, Phillips, Markov / Langree (November)
Gerzmava, Pittas, Phillips, Markov / Langree (November-December)
Mostly Mozart director Louis Langree is about the last person I would have pegged as a Puccinian, but I'm sure he'll show better than Roberto Rizzi Brignoli did this season... Hibla Gerzmava made a big debut impression as Antonia in this season's Hoffmann revival.
Faust (new Des McAnuff production)
Gheorghiu, Kaufmann, Braun, Pape / Nézet-Séguin (end November-December)
Byström, Alagna, Mulligan/Braun, Pape / Nézet-Séguin (December)
Poplavskaya, Calleja, Petean, Furlanetto / Altinoglu (January)
Another semi-new production by way of ENO, but the casts promise much. The Gheorgiu/Alagna avoidance contortions allow Swedish soprano Malin Byström to make her debut beside the big names.
Madama Butterfly
Zhang, Smith, Salsi / Domingo (December)
Zhang, Smith, Salsi / Abel (December)
Racette, Giordani, Naouri / Domingo (February-March)
Just a reminder: Domingo can't conduct. If you must see Racette, go February 25 when Marco Armiliato leads things. French baritone Laurent Naouri (Dessay's husband) makes his debut in February as Sharpless.
La Fille du Regiment
Machaidze, Brownlee, Muraro, Te Kanawa / Abel (December-January)
Can the Met really sell this with only one big name (and in a non-singing part!)? We'll see. Meanwhile, this isn't exactly the meatier role I wanted for the interesting newcomer Machaidze.
Hansel and Gretel
Kurzak, Lindsey, Brubaker, Martens / Ticciati (December)
Kurzak, Coote, Brubaker, Martens / Ticciati (end December-January)
The season's childrens' presentation features several casts and the debut of British conductor Robin Ticciati. I'm guessing that the one performance in which soprano Aleksandra Kurzak is listed as conducting herself is a database glitch.
The Enchanted Island (new McDermott & Crouch production)
de Niese, Oropesa, DiDonato, Daniels, Costanzo, Domingo, Pisaroni / Christie (NYE through January)
Another New Year's Eve gala premiere, but this one looks hard to dislike in any case. Jeremy Sams wrote the Shakespeare-flavored libretto for this baroque mash-up -- amazingly, it's the first presentation of Joyce DiDonato in baroque music at the Met.
Tosca
Racette, Alagna, Gagnidze / Franck (January)
Racette, Antonenko, Morris / Franck (January)
Young Finnish conductor Mikko Franck debuts.
Götterdämmerung (new Robert LaPage production)
Voigt, Harmer, Meier, Lehman, Paterson, Owens, König / Levine (January-February)
Voigt/Dalayman, Harmer, Meier, Gould, Paterson, Owens, König / Levine (end January-early February)
The last installment of LePage's Ring cycle. Katarina Dalayman (magnificent in this piece two years ago) has one performance and Stephen Gould two.
Ernani
Meade, Licitra, Hvorostovsky, Furlanetto / Armiliato (February)
Angela Meade gets her own run (except February 10, which is TBA) of the early Verdi cabaletta classic. Not sure how Licitra's going to manage the ferociously difficult title tenor part.
Aida
Urmana, Blythe, Álvarez, Ataneli, Morris, Bisch / Armiliato (February-March)
A solid lineup for the old war-horse. February seems to be Armiliato month at the Met.
Khovanshchina
Borodina, Didyk, Galouzine, Gagnidze, Kotscherga, Abdrazakov / Petrenko (February-March)
Borodina and her husband headline the all-former-Soviet cast for this gloomy exploration of a puritanical old-Russian death cult.
L'elisir d'amore
Damrau, Flórez, Kwiecien, Corbelli / Renzetti (March)
Well-sung, I'm sure, though I'm not sure how convincingly a Damrau-played Adina will fall for the dope. Conductor Donato Renzetti hasn't been at the Met since his debut over 20 years ago.
Macbeth
Michael, Pittas, Hampson, Groissböck / Noseda
Having done really difficult mezzo/soprano roles all over Europe, Nadja Michael debuts in another one here (Lady Macbeth). Thomas Hampson as Macbeth himself? Huh. Maybe, though I wouldn't have thought of it.
Manon (new Laurent Pelly production)
Netrebko, Beczala, Szot, Pittsinger / Luisi
The second semi-new-from-London show of the season, this one from Covent Garden. The last (Massenet) Manon I remember here had Renee Fleming and Marcelo Alvarez in their very best form, maybe ever. I'm not terribly enamored with either of this new couple, but it may add up to something, particularly led by Luisi.
Das Rheingold
Terfel, Owens, Margita, Siegel, Blythe / Levine (April)
One non-cycle night in revival before the sequential Rings begin.
La Traviata
Dessay, Polenzani, Hvorostovsky / Luisi (April-May)
Though it may be interesting to see what Dessay and Hvorostovsky do with the brutalism of the show, and though the musical side is well-covered, don't go. A review of last month's run will be posted here soon.
The Makropulos Case
Mattila, Streit, Reuter, Fox / Bělohlávek (April-May)
Judging by the ecstatic reviews of Mattila and Bělohlávek in San Francisco's production a few months back, this should be the highlight of the season (as their collaboration in Janacek's Jenufa was in 2007).
Billy Budd
Gunn, Daszak, Morris / Robertson (May)
John Daszak debuts as Captain Vere in this infrequent Britten revival.
* * *
The Ring (complete cycles)
Voigt, Lehman/Gould, Terfel, König, Westbroek, Skelton, et al. / Levine (April 7-24)
Dalayman, Lehman, Terfel, König, Westbroek, Kaufmann, et al. / Levine (April 26-May 3)
Voigt, Lehman/Gould, Terfel, König, Westbroek, Kaufmann, et al. / Levine (May 5-May 12)
Dalayman makes Cycle 2 the best choice.
Anna Bolena (new David McVicar production)
Netrebko, Garanca, Mumford, Costello, Abdrazakov / Armiliato (opening night through October, February)
Meade, Garanca, Mumford, Costello, Abdrazakov / Armiliato (October)
Not thrilled with the performers (Netrebko's bel canto days are long past), but McVicar should make even a non-Levine opening interesting.
Nabucco
Lucic, Guleghina, Lee, Colombara / Carignani (September through early November)
Lucic, Cornetti, Diegel, Belosselskiy / Carignani (November)
Many, many more chances to see Korean tenor Yonghoon Lee. Russian bass Dimitry Belosselskiy debuts in the November performances.
Il Barbiere di Siviglia
Mattei, Leonard, Camarena, Muraro, Burchuladze / Benini (October)
Pogossov, Leonard, Kudrya, Muraro, Ramey / Benini (late October)
Pogossov, Damrau, Lee, Del Carlo, Furlanetto / Benini (February)
Mezzo Isabel Leonard plays opposite two debuting tenors -- Javier Camarena and Alexey Kudrya -- in the fall; soprano Diana Damrau takes over as Rosina in February with a non-Korean tenor named Lee (Colin, in this case).
Don Giovanni (new Michael Grandage production)
Kwiecien, Pisaroni, Rebeka, Frittoli, Erdmann, Vargas, Bloom, Kocán / Levine (October-November)
Kwiecien, Pisaroni, Rebeka, Frittoli, Erdmann, Vargas/Sledge, Bloom, Kocán / TBA (November)
Finley, Relyea, Rebeka, Dasch, Leonard, Polenzani, Shenyang, Morris / Davis (February-March)
Rumor had Maija Kovalevska as Anna, but fellow Latvian soprano Marina Rebeka sings all performances in this debut run. Elvira is less promising, with Barbara Frittoli hit-and-miss and Annette Dasch inexplicably back after being utterly unable to sing Mozart in tune in her debut. And no Peter Mattei? At least the tenors (including Bruce Sledge, officially scheduled for a show after filling in admirably this season in Cosi) should be good -- and James Levine, whose Mozart has been missed.
Siegfried (new Robert LePage production)
Voigt, Bardon, Lehman, Siegel, Terfel, Owens / Levine (October-November)
Gary Lehman made his Met debut subbing for Ben Heppner three years ago, and he gets his first headlining Wagner run here in Heppner's place (though switched in rather further in advance). In fact, Lehman's the only tenor scheduled to sing Siegfried (the opera) at all next season, with the alternate Siegfried (the character) -- Stephen Gould -- only doing some Götterdämmerung performances.
Satyagraha
Croft, Durkin, Josephson, Walker / Anzolini (November-December)
For those now hooked on minimalism, the Phelim McDermott/Julian Crouch production of Glass' opera returns.
Rodelinda
Fleming, Blythe, Scholl, Davies, van Rensburg, Shenyang / Bicket (November-December)
The last Stephen Wadsworth production I actually liked, back at the start of this blog, though again the Met will miss a chance to showcase a star mezzo as Bertarido. Not sure what Fleming's vocal glamor quotient will be this fall in this elaborate part. Met Council winner Anthony Roth Costanzo has one scheduled debut performance in December replacing debuting countertenor Iestyn Davies.
La Boheme
Hong, Pittas, Phillips, Markov / Langree (November)
Gerzmava, Pittas, Phillips, Markov / Langree (November-December)
Mostly Mozart director Louis Langree is about the last person I would have pegged as a Puccinian, but I'm sure he'll show better than Roberto Rizzi Brignoli did this season... Hibla Gerzmava made a big debut impression as Antonia in this season's Hoffmann revival.
Faust (new Des McAnuff production)
Gheorghiu, Kaufmann, Braun, Pape / Nézet-Séguin (end November-December)
Byström, Alagna, Mulligan/Braun, Pape / Nézet-Séguin (December)
Poplavskaya, Calleja, Petean, Furlanetto / Altinoglu (January)
Another semi-new production by way of ENO, but the casts promise much. The Gheorgiu/Alagna avoidance contortions allow Swedish soprano Malin Byström to make her debut beside the big names.
Madama Butterfly
Zhang, Smith, Salsi / Domingo (December)
Zhang, Smith, Salsi / Abel (December)
Racette, Giordani, Naouri / Domingo (February-March)
Just a reminder: Domingo can't conduct. If you must see Racette, go February 25 when Marco Armiliato leads things. French baritone Laurent Naouri (Dessay's husband) makes his debut in February as Sharpless.
La Fille du Regiment
Machaidze, Brownlee, Muraro, Te Kanawa / Abel (December-January)
Can the Met really sell this with only one big name (and in a non-singing part!)? We'll see. Meanwhile, this isn't exactly the meatier role I wanted for the interesting newcomer Machaidze.
Hansel and Gretel
Kurzak, Lindsey, Brubaker, Martens / Ticciati (December)
Kurzak, Coote, Brubaker, Martens / Ticciati (end December-January)
The season's childrens' presentation features several casts and the debut of British conductor Robin Ticciati. I'm guessing that the one performance in which soprano Aleksandra Kurzak is listed as conducting herself is a database glitch.
The Enchanted Island (new McDermott & Crouch production)
de Niese, Oropesa, DiDonato, Daniels, Costanzo, Domingo, Pisaroni / Christie (NYE through January)
Another New Year's Eve gala premiere, but this one looks hard to dislike in any case. Jeremy Sams wrote the Shakespeare-flavored libretto for this baroque mash-up -- amazingly, it's the first presentation of Joyce DiDonato in baroque music at the Met.
Tosca
Racette, Alagna, Gagnidze / Franck (January)
Racette, Antonenko, Morris / Franck (January)
Young Finnish conductor Mikko Franck debuts.
Götterdämmerung (new Robert LaPage production)
Voigt, Harmer, Meier, Lehman, Paterson, Owens, König / Levine (January-February)
Voigt/Dalayman, Harmer, Meier, Gould, Paterson, Owens, König / Levine (end January-early February)
The last installment of LePage's Ring cycle. Katarina Dalayman (magnificent in this piece two years ago) has one performance and Stephen Gould two.
Ernani
Meade, Licitra, Hvorostovsky, Furlanetto / Armiliato (February)
Angela Meade gets her own run (except February 10, which is TBA) of the early Verdi cabaletta classic. Not sure how Licitra's going to manage the ferociously difficult title tenor part.
Aida
Urmana, Blythe, Álvarez, Ataneli, Morris, Bisch / Armiliato (February-March)
A solid lineup for the old war-horse. February seems to be Armiliato month at the Met.
Khovanshchina
Borodina, Didyk, Galouzine, Gagnidze, Kotscherga, Abdrazakov / Petrenko (February-March)
Borodina and her husband headline the all-former-Soviet cast for this gloomy exploration of a puritanical old-Russian death cult.
L'elisir d'amore
Damrau, Flórez, Kwiecien, Corbelli / Renzetti (March)
Well-sung, I'm sure, though I'm not sure how convincingly a Damrau-played Adina will fall for the dope. Conductor Donato Renzetti hasn't been at the Met since his debut over 20 years ago.
Macbeth
Michael, Pittas, Hampson, Groissböck / Noseda
Having done really difficult mezzo/soprano roles all over Europe, Nadja Michael debuts in another one here (Lady Macbeth). Thomas Hampson as Macbeth himself? Huh. Maybe, though I wouldn't have thought of it.
Manon (new Laurent Pelly production)
Netrebko, Beczala, Szot, Pittsinger / Luisi
The second semi-new-from-London show of the season, this one from Covent Garden. The last (Massenet) Manon I remember here had Renee Fleming and Marcelo Alvarez in their very best form, maybe ever. I'm not terribly enamored with either of this new couple, but it may add up to something, particularly led by Luisi.
Das Rheingold
Terfel, Owens, Margita, Siegel, Blythe / Levine (April)
One non-cycle night in revival before the sequential Rings begin.
La Traviata
Dessay, Polenzani, Hvorostovsky / Luisi (April-May)
Though it may be interesting to see what Dessay and Hvorostovsky do with the brutalism of the show, and though the musical side is well-covered, don't go. A review of last month's run will be posted here soon.
The Makropulos Case
Mattila, Streit, Reuter, Fox / Bělohlávek (April-May)
Judging by the ecstatic reviews of Mattila and Bělohlávek in San Francisco's production a few months back, this should be the highlight of the season (as their collaboration in Janacek's Jenufa was in 2007).
Billy Budd
Gunn, Daszak, Morris / Robertson (May)
John Daszak debuts as Captain Vere in this infrequent Britten revival.
The Ring (complete cycles)
Voigt, Lehman/Gould, Terfel, König, Westbroek, Skelton, et al. / Levine (April 7-24)
Dalayman, Lehman, Terfel, König, Westbroek, Kaufmann, et al. / Levine (April 26-May 3)
Voigt, Lehman/Gould, Terfel, König, Westbroek, Kaufmann, et al. / Levine (May 5-May 12)
Dalayman makes Cycle 2 the best choice.
Rearrangements
A bit of illness is holding up a full post here on yesterday's 2011-2012 Met season announcement (here in print or here in Flash pictures), but two non-production matters caught my eye:
First, to quote the press release,
Second, next season's three Ring cycles are all equally spaced out. No single-week runs or matinee sequences as has been standard in rerun years. So beware, if you're planning to travel for a cycle.
On the whole, not much seems to happen before April, but Katarina Dalayman's return in a full set of Brünnhildes is great news.
First, to quote the press release,
In response to customer requests for an earlier start time, the curtain time for most weekday performances this season will be 7:30 p.mA lot of people seem to have wanted this switch from 8pm -- I wasn't one of them. An impossibly early supper or stuffing oneself hurriedly at intermission (and for those who work New York hours, the move makes the latter more likely) makes operagoing a drag.
Second, next season's three Ring cycles are all equally spaced out. No single-week runs or matinee sequences as has been standard in rerun years. So beware, if you're planning to travel for a cycle.
On the whole, not much seems to happen before April, but Katarina Dalayman's return in a full set of Brünnhildes is great news.
The dance
The Bartered Bride -- Juilliard Opera, 2/15/2011
Claire, Appleby, Bisch, Lewis / Levine
It wasn't for nothing that Juilliard Opera included choreographer, City Ballet alum, and celebrity beau Benjamin Millepied in its starry production lineup for Smetana's best-known opera. The show -- the first flower of Juilliard's collaboration with the Met's Lindemann program, announced three years ago this month -- owes its unity and its best production moment to his dances. That's not the worst sort of show, but it's not quite the best either.
The Bartered Bride, like most comedies, is about belonging -- or, rather, integration: the reconciling, not utter effacing, of one's finite and infinite hopes to the complex and not-quite-immovable demands of civilized human necessity and vice versa. (A story of reconciling with the rather more immovable demands of natural necessity -- like, say, Věc Makropulos -- usually ends in death and isn't a comedy.) Here that civilizational process is given the physical metaphor of dance. The first two acts' scenes are set with character dances -- the organized, intricate whirl of society's body around the central couple -- and the lovers themselves follow up in similar manner. Jenik, after vowing to win Marenka's hand, works on his dance steps in the "outdoor" space behind where her parents try to set her fate; Marenka herself does a more frustrated solo bit later on as she's beset by opposition. The start of Act Two shows the place of both Marenka's suitors at once: Jenik -- who hasn't yet found his winning course -- sits glum in his central chair as the general dance goes on around him, while Vasek, a bumpkin fresh from the country, cannot help but jostle and trip as he moves in that hectic space. And when Vasek is won in the next act by another life and woman than what had been set for him, it's not by her looks so much as by his unexpected ability to join fluently with her and her circus company in their show-off number (and the subsequent offer to join her act as, well, the dancing bear). Until that point, none of the leads had been able to find their place in the general motion -- no wonder Vasek's sudden triumph (and its clever realization by Millepied and the cast) brought down the house.
Using Millepied's choreography in this way is, I think, to director Stephen Wadsworth's credit, and Wadsworth himself deftly handles the non-dance choreography of the town locals. But while also drawing excellent individual performances from the comic leads -- tenors Alexander Lewis (who steals the show as Vasek) and Noah Baetge (the Ringmaster) and bass Jordan Bisch (an amusingly self-satisfied Kecal) -- Wadsworth critically fails at the heart of the piece. Layla Claire as Marenka and Paul Appleby as Jenik do well with others, but their central romance seems -- bizarrely -- an afterthought in this show. The pair's given no physical language for their rocky relationship and not even a loving, relieved embrace at their final triumph -- only an all-too-clever reveal of them necking under a table at curtain call. Perhaps there's some performer-based explanation, but with this young and seemingly game and responsive cast it's hard not to give blame as well as credit to the director.
* * *
The biggest name, of course, was James Levine, who despite his bad back (he couldn't leave the pit for curtain calls) is conducting the run of this Juilliard show. This was the greatest pleasure of the evening, as his presence energized the young orchestra to spirited life in the motion of Smetana's opera.
The young singers -- mostly members or recent alums of the Met's Lindemann program -- also accounted well for themselves. If Appleby and Claire weren't able to play mutual passion, they each sang well enough, with Claire's live top notes proving the most expressively interesting instrument of the night. (She also has an attractive face & figure not evident as the Don Carlo page.) The comic leads, as above noted, did well all around... except they, like the lovers, had to fight the English-language text. Doing the translated version may be traditional here, but in J.D. McClatchy's new translation it just seems dated. That the patter-rhythms of the music don't match well to our speech may be unavoidable, but McClatchy provides little verbal spark or originality to justify his own rhymed rendition. Perhaps the original Czech is similar doggerel, but if so I'd prefer the privilege of not having to hear and understand (the cast has unfortunately good diction all around) every empty word, particularly in the sublime music of Marenka's famous Act Three aria of despair.
* * *
As an official Met show this would be worthy, but I hope that if/when, as rumor has it, the production actually makes its way (enlarged) to the big stage across 65th Street, the star tenor and soprano take the romance part into their own hands... and, if possible, insist on Czech. Until then, this particular run continues tonight (Thursday) and on Sunday afternoon -- officially sold out, but there were some empty seats so returns may be available.
Claire, Appleby, Bisch, Lewis / Levine
It wasn't for nothing that Juilliard Opera included choreographer, City Ballet alum, and celebrity beau Benjamin Millepied in its starry production lineup for Smetana's best-known opera. The show -- the first flower of Juilliard's collaboration with the Met's Lindemann program, announced three years ago this month -- owes its unity and its best production moment to his dances. That's not the worst sort of show, but it's not quite the best either.
The Bartered Bride, like most comedies, is about belonging -- or, rather, integration: the reconciling, not utter effacing, of one's finite and infinite hopes to the complex and not-quite-immovable demands of civilized human necessity and vice versa. (A story of reconciling with the rather more immovable demands of natural necessity -- like, say, Věc Makropulos -- usually ends in death and isn't a comedy.) Here that civilizational process is given the physical metaphor of dance. The first two acts' scenes are set with character dances -- the organized, intricate whirl of society's body around the central couple -- and the lovers themselves follow up in similar manner. Jenik, after vowing to win Marenka's hand, works on his dance steps in the "outdoor" space behind where her parents try to set her fate; Marenka herself does a more frustrated solo bit later on as she's beset by opposition. The start of Act Two shows the place of both Marenka's suitors at once: Jenik -- who hasn't yet found his winning course -- sits glum in his central chair as the general dance goes on around him, while Vasek, a bumpkin fresh from the country, cannot help but jostle and trip as he moves in that hectic space. And when Vasek is won in the next act by another life and woman than what had been set for him, it's not by her looks so much as by his unexpected ability to join fluently with her and her circus company in their show-off number (and the subsequent offer to join her act as, well, the dancing bear). Until that point, none of the leads had been able to find their place in the general motion -- no wonder Vasek's sudden triumph (and its clever realization by Millepied and the cast) brought down the house.
Using Millepied's choreography in this way is, I think, to director Stephen Wadsworth's credit, and Wadsworth himself deftly handles the non-dance choreography of the town locals. But while also drawing excellent individual performances from the comic leads -- tenors Alexander Lewis (who steals the show as Vasek) and Noah Baetge (the Ringmaster) and bass Jordan Bisch (an amusingly self-satisfied Kecal) -- Wadsworth critically fails at the heart of the piece. Layla Claire as Marenka and Paul Appleby as Jenik do well with others, but their central romance seems -- bizarrely -- an afterthought in this show. The pair's given no physical language for their rocky relationship and not even a loving, relieved embrace at their final triumph -- only an all-too-clever reveal of them necking under a table at curtain call. Perhaps there's some performer-based explanation, but with this young and seemingly game and responsive cast it's hard not to give blame as well as credit to the director.
The biggest name, of course, was James Levine, who despite his bad back (he couldn't leave the pit for curtain calls) is conducting the run of this Juilliard show. This was the greatest pleasure of the evening, as his presence energized the young orchestra to spirited life in the motion of Smetana's opera.
The young singers -- mostly members or recent alums of the Met's Lindemann program -- also accounted well for themselves. If Appleby and Claire weren't able to play mutual passion, they each sang well enough, with Claire's live top notes proving the most expressively interesting instrument of the night. (She also has an attractive face & figure not evident as the Don Carlo page.) The comic leads, as above noted, did well all around... except they, like the lovers, had to fight the English-language text. Doing the translated version may be traditional here, but in J.D. McClatchy's new translation it just seems dated. That the patter-rhythms of the music don't match well to our speech may be unavoidable, but McClatchy provides little verbal spark or originality to justify his own rhymed rendition. Perhaps the original Czech is similar doggerel, but if so I'd prefer the privilege of not having to hear and understand (the cast has unfortunately good diction all around) every empty word, particularly in the sublime music of Marenka's famous Act Three aria of despair.
As an official Met show this would be worthy, but I hope that if/when, as rumor has it, the production actually makes its way (enlarged) to the big stage across 65th Street, the star tenor and soprano take the romance part into their own hands... and, if possible, insist on Czech. Until then, this particular run continues tonight (Thursday) and on Sunday afternoon -- officially sold out, but there were some empty seats so returns may be available.
Thursday, February 03, 2011
Twice briefly (without Vargas)
Simon Boccanegra -- Metropolitan Opera, 1/20/2011
Hvorostovsky, Frittoli, De Biasio, Alaimo, Furlanetto / Levine
Half the success of this show was made in advance when the cast was assembled. But while Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Ferruccio Furlanetto, and James Levine were predictable successes, the other leads weren't. Scheduled tenor Ramon Vargas was ill, and replaced by Met debutant Roberto de Biasio. And soprano Barbara Frittoli, after an auspicious start in the house in the '90s, has never really satisfied since.
That an emergency replacement tenor can be as good as de Biasio is a happy sign of the times. The Sicilian tenor not only has a strong and pleasant voice but showed a fairly well-developed musical sense despite the likely lack of rehearsal. I did miss Vargas' recently unerring sense of character (again, no knock of de Biasio, who had little chance to develop a rapport with the rest of the cast), but most of the crowd seemed to be buzzing about the need to see the new guy again. I agree, though the field these days is strong.
Frittoli, meanwhile, sounded much refreshed after her poor vocal showing a year ago as Micaela -- which, at the time, seemed to be part of a larger and more disturbing vocal trend. I'm not sure where her voice will go from here (and reports since this revival debut seem to be mixed), but her clearly produced and phrased performance here was a most welcome surprise.
Dmitri Hvorostovsky sang the eponymous former corsair beautifully, but I'm not convinced that Boccanegra plays to his real strengths. For all his exquisite shape of phrase, Hvorostovsky is most compelling when some dangerously strong emotion (usually rage) explodes from his usual civilized surface -- witness his Onegin, or di Luna, or Renato. Boccanegra, for all his pride and checkered past, spends most of his onstage time conciliating passions, not indulging them, and only his reminiscence of the sea near the end seems to engage Hvorostovsky in full.
An excellent night for Verdi singing and playing.
* * *
La Boheme -- Metropolitan Opera, 1/31/2011
Kovalevska, Phillips, Beczala, Mattei, Scheunemann, Shenyang / Armiliato
What a relief to be in the reliable hands of Marco Armiliato after Roberto Rizzi Brignoli's misguided overconducting! Not to say that Puccini is obvious or easy or does not reward refined conductorial touches: Nicola Luisotti's runs of Boheme and Fanciulla showed the power of a great baton. But though the ever-solid Armiliato doesn't make the show (as Luisotti did), he doesn't ruin it either (as Rizzi Brignoli was coming all too close to doing). The change in the pit is for all remaining performances, so perhaps Gelb (or the musicians) had had enough.
Piotr Beczala's Rodolfo is new to me. He lacks refinement here but sings with the familiar middle-European tenorial ardor that makes for a fairly appealing character . Like remarkable debutant Yonghoon Lee (in Don Carlo), Beczala is strong in shaping the full span of a phrase to where it should go -- though he doesn't, of course, have the Korean's overpowering spinto ring.
Peter Mattei is as excellent a Marcello as one would expect, mellifluous and personable but with flashes of his Don Giovanni darkness. Sopranos Maija Kovalevska and Susanna Phillips are (also expectedly) good, though without yet finding the complete magic of their last Bohemes together.
I may end up catching another of Beczala's performances, but I expect the Vargas shows at the end will be the more interesting -- if he stays healthy.
Hvorostovsky, Frittoli, De Biasio, Alaimo, Furlanetto / Levine
Half the success of this show was made in advance when the cast was assembled. But while Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Ferruccio Furlanetto, and James Levine were predictable successes, the other leads weren't. Scheduled tenor Ramon Vargas was ill, and replaced by Met debutant Roberto de Biasio. And soprano Barbara Frittoli, after an auspicious start in the house in the '90s, has never really satisfied since.
That an emergency replacement tenor can be as good as de Biasio is a happy sign of the times. The Sicilian tenor not only has a strong and pleasant voice but showed a fairly well-developed musical sense despite the likely lack of rehearsal. I did miss Vargas' recently unerring sense of character (again, no knock of de Biasio, who had little chance to develop a rapport with the rest of the cast), but most of the crowd seemed to be buzzing about the need to see the new guy again. I agree, though the field these days is strong.
Frittoli, meanwhile, sounded much refreshed after her poor vocal showing a year ago as Micaela -- which, at the time, seemed to be part of a larger and more disturbing vocal trend. I'm not sure where her voice will go from here (and reports since this revival debut seem to be mixed), but her clearly produced and phrased performance here was a most welcome surprise.
Dmitri Hvorostovsky sang the eponymous former corsair beautifully, but I'm not convinced that Boccanegra plays to his real strengths. For all his exquisite shape of phrase, Hvorostovsky is most compelling when some dangerously strong emotion (usually rage) explodes from his usual civilized surface -- witness his Onegin, or di Luna, or Renato. Boccanegra, for all his pride and checkered past, spends most of his onstage time conciliating passions, not indulging them, and only his reminiscence of the sea near the end seems to engage Hvorostovsky in full.
An excellent night for Verdi singing and playing.
La Boheme -- Metropolitan Opera, 1/31/2011
Kovalevska, Phillips, Beczala, Mattei, Scheunemann, Shenyang / Armiliato
What a relief to be in the reliable hands of Marco Armiliato after Roberto Rizzi Brignoli's misguided overconducting! Not to say that Puccini is obvious or easy or does not reward refined conductorial touches: Nicola Luisotti's runs of Boheme and Fanciulla showed the power of a great baton. But though the ever-solid Armiliato doesn't make the show (as Luisotti did), he doesn't ruin it either (as Rizzi Brignoli was coming all too close to doing). The change in the pit is for all remaining performances, so perhaps Gelb (or the musicians) had had enough.
Piotr Beczala's Rodolfo is new to me. He lacks refinement here but sings with the familiar middle-European tenorial ardor that makes for a fairly appealing character . Like remarkable debutant Yonghoon Lee (in Don Carlo), Beczala is strong in shaping the full span of a phrase to where it should go -- though he doesn't, of course, have the Korean's overpowering spinto ring.
Peter Mattei is as excellent a Marcello as one would expect, mellifluous and personable but with flashes of his Don Giovanni darkness. Sopranos Maija Kovalevska and Susanna Phillips are (also expectedly) good, though without yet finding the complete magic of their last Bohemes together.
I may end up catching another of Beczala's performances, but I expect the Vargas shows at the end will be the more interesting -- if he stays healthy.
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