Night of the second bananas

Jack O'Brien's mediocre new version of Il Trittico is not, at least, the worst new production of the season. With solidly handsome sets and design, it is a servicable thing that may, in some future year, be the basis for a memorable account. But that account was not last night's, and though blame should be split with the vagaries of casting, health, and performance that produced the opening night lineup, the evening's dramatic inertness doesn't do him credit.

The premiere had its moments; unfortunately, none were created by the characters who were supposed to carry the drama. That Luigi, the tenor in Tabarro (Salvatore Licitra, again remarkable in verisimo) and the Frugola/Principessa/Zita trio (the characters, one per opera, played by Stephanie Blythe) were spellbinding is fantastic, but doesn't exactly make up for the fact that Giorgetta and Michele in Tabarro, Angelica in her eponymous piece, and Schicchi in his didn't make much impression.

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The program notes put this production of Il Tabarro on the waterfront of 1927 Paris, though it looks rather like Brooklyn circa 2007. The details are rendered realistically, though the water is frozen in its half-churned state. Most noticable in the staging is the lighting effect contrived by Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer: the sun sets over the course of the opera, turning the scene from late-afternoon clarity to red sunset to evening. But this bit of high-tech literalism seems to be the only aspect of the action that has been imagined. The more important flow of time -- the subjective ebb and flow as the characters interact, lurk, and give in to fatal passion -- isn't much cultivated.

This calls for star turns among the leads, and in a sense there is one. As the other man, Licitra energizes the stage -- and one's ears -- whenever he appears. In another Puccini opera this might be enough, but here the baritone and soprano are the focus. Maria Guleghina does a decent enough job, but her sullen Giorgetta seems short on sexual energy. (Frugola should not be able to steal the female side of the show.) Meanwhile it's poor form to knock Frederick Burchinal, who after all filled in for the ill Juan Pons on short notice, but while commendable in character parts, neither baritone has the presence or vocal distinction to carry a new production. Still, all parts were well-sung -- not least debuting blogger-soprano Anne-Carolyn Bird (as the female Young Lover), whose sound in the house is rather more liquid than I'd been expecting. I was impressed, and wouldn't be surprised to see her again in bigger and better things.

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Suor Angelica contains the evening's one big directoral miscalculation: the vision of Angelica's dead child is made as schlocky-looking as one can imagine, with him here coming through an actual set of doors all in white to take her into Heaven. This does Puccini no favors, but its literalness is characteristic. This staging, too, uses the day-to-night lighting effect; there is also an actual donkey.

Barbara Frittoli sounds sadly diminished in the title part. Neither voice nor -- more shockingly -- phrasing and character showed much of the focus that once made her a commanding performer. The contrast with Stephanie Blythe's electric Principessa could not have been more pronounced.

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Finally, Gianni Schicchi was a directorial success. The farcial timing and manner, though perhaps overstated a bit, were coordinated very well among the cast. Here James Levine, too, seemed most energized. Again, all involved sang well, particularly Stephanie Blythe and the tenor -- here Massimo Giordano.

And still, the main character seemed a problem. Alessandro Corbelli has been an excellent character singer at the Met, and he remains one as Schicchi. But this persona is too small for Schicchi, who should have the vigor and spirit that the Florentine aristos lack. Here Schicchi has more of Dudley Moore than arriviste businessman in him, and it lessens the piece. It is fun, though, despite the chorus of alarm watches at midnight (the show runs until about 12:20).

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For those who remember the last City Opera production, with Mark Delavan terrific as Michele and Schicchi, this Trittico doesn't come close. The final bows told the tale: Stephanie Blythe pre-emptively waved off the storms of appreciation that had greeted her at prior curtains, perhaps to avoid showing up the actual leads, while Jack O'Brien and his team took a cowards' bow with James Levine. No one is going to boo Levine, but perhaps next time someone ought to boo O'Brien for not facing the music himself. His production wasn't even that bad: it just lacked... theatricality.

Wag the dog

In a certain sense, the most distressing thing about next season's Met lineup (on the content of which I'll post soon) is the growing importance of the theatercasts. According to the press release,

“Metropolitan Opera: Live in HD” expands from six to eight opera transmissions: Roméo et Juliette (December 15), featuring Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón; Hansel and Gretel (January 1); Macbeth (January 12); Manon Lescaut (February 16), starring Karita Mattila and Marcello Giordani and conducted by James Levine; Peter Grimes (March 15); Tristan und Isolde (March 22), featuring Deborah Voigt and Ben Heppner and conducted by Levine; La Bohème (April 5), starring Angela Gheorghiu and Ramón Vargas; and La Fille du Régiment (April 26).

All well and good, except for the sneaking suspicion that with every major production eventually being theater- and telecast, principal casting for them will soon -- if it is not already -- be more dependent on how singers appear in transmitted close-ups than how they, well, sing.

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As Sieglinde rightly notes, Peter Gelb has consistently invoked "theatrical" values to justify his production and casting innovations. What of these developments?

At first glance, the moviecasts would appear to be a de-theatricalized version of the art. With viewers isolated from performers in a sterile theater where one munches away on popcorn, there seems to be no room for the audience-performer charge that makes the theatrical experience. (Among the audience itself there is a dynamic, yes, but that's different -- and much less powerful. For some quantification, simply compare the urge to applaud, yell, and scream live versus at a movie.) Theater is not, as cinema, about the appearance of reality but the appearance of the real. There is no substitute for actual, sensed human proximity.

But actually seeing a broadcast was still a surprise. Because of the emphasis on close-ups and two-shots, it turns out that these Met moviecasts actually de-theatricalize not only the operagoing experience but the operas themselves. Characters rarely -- and only briefly -- appear in the context of the stage, as individuals before the stage population (chorus, extras, character parts, etc.) who, from Greek days, represent the audience in the action. The action seems to be experienced from inside the skin of each character -- successively, as the camera jumps around, as if in some dreamlike series of self-transformations. The characters' relation to each other and the whole -- always clear in theater -- is far out of reach.

Of course this helps certain performers while handicapping others. Renee Fleming, for example, performs in this dreamy, undramatic trance anyway, but in the house it's a liability. On the big screen, her Tatyana's muddy physical relation to the stage and world is invisible, and her comfort in performing in close-up (or with one partner) doubles her success. Similarly, I can believe reports of Anna Netrebko's inadequate Elvira being magnetic onscreen. That touch of narcissism that makes her act more snake-charmer than theater is perfect for the camera. (And perhaps both of these ladies have been so raised on the close-up culture that they don't realize that opera isn't cinema?)

But this, then, is the problem: the advent of these moviecasts favors not just looks over voice (more on this anon), but anti-theatrical performers over theatrical ones. So far this still means people who have become famous in live performance (though one could argue about Netrebko), but it may not always be so. Theatricality? Fat people aren't the problem -- non-theatrical presentations are.

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That said, the Onegin performance was terrific, despite the stray leaf on Ramon Vargas' head; whether it bodes ill or no, Fleming and Dmitri Hvorostovsky did remarkably well with cinema-scale touches in their scenes (though the perfection of Vargas' physical assumption was, unfortunately, one of the things veiled by the paucity of long-shots). As a document, these things are valuable -- I'd buy a Blu-Ray version if such existed. It is their effect on the Met's core business that is the worry.

Return of the revenge of the off-topic diva

I meant to say something about next season, but first, the official off-topic diversion of this blog.

Although she's been a critical and cognoscenti favorite for years, American Ballet Theatre hasn't much shown off the talent of Veronika Part. Though her art has grown, she has the same "soloist" title at which she came to the company from the Mariinsky (where she was also a soloist), and in recent Met seasons has danced the lead in just single matinees of Swan Lake.

This year, however -- perhaps due to the influence of former ABT legend Gelsey Kirkland, who is helping choreograph the piece -- Part will premiere the company's new production of Sleeping Beauty, as well as dancing leads in La Bayadere, Balanchine's Symphonie Concertante, and that single matinee of Swan Lake. Could a promotion to principal be far behind?

The other ABT event is, of course, the retirement and farewell performances of Alessandra Ferri, but if the name rings a bell you've probably already bought tickets.

Homage to Ruth Ann

There are a lot of things one could say about this article on Ruth Ann Swenson, and most of the more obvious ones have already been aired. Some red herrings aside, Swenson's own take seems essentially true: as an unaloof, technically sound, American (!) stimmdiva, she's pretty much the opposite of what Gelb has promoted as the house's future. So -- and surely this is the bitterest part -- it doesn't matter that this year at the Met may have been her best in a decade or more. (Or in some twist, was it this uncharacteristic bitterness and discomfort that, despite cancer, made the success? Life, and art, are funny.)

Of course, there are other perspectives. As her voice lowered and deepened over the years, she's moved from the natural repetoire of her milky-soubrette temperament (she's the finest Adina I ever expect to see) to parts calling for more emotional and dramatic command. These -- and her ease in her new voice -- have been slow in coming, and if Marguerite was a worthy harvest, previous runs of Manon, Violetta, and the like failed to inspire. The marketing stuff has, in a sense, just given her less leeway for that sort of thing.

Next season's Violettas are primed to be different, but that is circumstance. Were she again the comfortable vocalist, what roles then? I do hope I get to find out. Her unmistakable sound, when freed to do its thing, makes me very happy.

(Incidentally, I've long thought she'd be the ideal Adalgisa, but houses have truly bizarre ideas about that part.)

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Mind you, the part of the Times in this isn't pretty. How bizarre that it's taken this turn for them to notice a singer -- any singer -- not actively pushed by Met administration!


UPDATE (4/7): I've heard quite an interesting rumor (somewhat far from most speculation) as to the context of this story. Even if true, however, everything above still goes.

Met Council Finals 2007

Maury did a positive impressions post of this event, so I offer a rundown this time. To my ears there were two clear standouts -- Amber Wagner and Michael Fabiano -- with the other winner's circle spots being up for grabs among pretty much everyone in a very good field. (It was the opposite of last year's mostly uninspiring parity.)

The singers sang two arias at a time on the Act I set of Traviata, in this order:

Keira Duffy, soprano (27)
"Tornami a vegheggiar" (Alcina)
"Caro nome" (Rigoletto)

Matthew Plenk, tenor (24)
"Quanto e bella" (Elisir)
"Here I stand" (Rake's Progress)

Amber L. Wagner, soprano (26)
"Do not utter a word, Anatol" (Vanessa)
"Dich, teure Halle" (Tannhäuser)

Nicholas Pallesen, baritone (28)
"Avant de quitter ces lieux" (Faust)
Largo al factotum (Barber)

Jamie Barton, mezzo (25)
"Priva son d'ogni conforto" (Giulio Cesare)
"Hurr hopp hopp hopp" (Hänsel und Gretel)

Michael Fabiano, tenor (22)
"Torna ai felici di" (Le Villi)
"Kuda, kuda" (Onegin)

Disella Larusdottir, soprano (30)
"Oh! quando volte" (Capuleti)
"Chacun le sait" (Fille du Regiment)

(Intermission)

Ryan Smith, tenor (30)
"E la solita storia" (L'Arlesiana)
"Che gelida manina" (Boheme)

Ryan McKinny, baritone (26)
"O du mein holder Abendstern" (Tannhäuser)
"E sogno? o realta?" (Falstaff)

Angela Meade, soprano (29)
"Ach, ich liebte" (Abduction)
"Casta Diva" and cabaletta (Norma)

Alek Shrader, tenor (25)
"Il mio tesoro" (Don Giovanni)
"Ah! mes amis" (Fille du Regiment)

Wagner, Barton, Fabiano, Smith, Meade and Shrader were picked as winners.

Keira Duffy apparently sang from Lulu at the semifinals, but today picked a more traditional pair of arias. The Alcina piece was well-articulated but showed the weakness of her voice below the top. Gilda suited her better, her high notes quite strong and well-integrated though somewhat shout-y at times.

Plenk, the only tenor finalist not to win today, had an instrument at least as appealing as knocked-em-dead Fabiano, with whom he shares a certain sonic coloring. He didn't, however, do anything memorable with it.

In fact the finalists more or less across-the-board offered professional-quality vocal sound. But only the well-named Amber Wagner could become a star on voice alone. Hers is a dark, electric, tangibly broad sound that gave me goosebumps from the first bar. That she also seems to be an enthusiastic and energetic interpreter (particularly of the Vanessa bit, which she's actually sung in full) is just icing. The only quibble I have is that the top doesn't seem as consistently solid as the rest of her voice; it was under control today, but I hope it's an actual strength in the future.

Nicholas Pallesen sang his selections well, and gave quite a lively physical show as Figaro besides. There were some slight technical issues, and he seemed to lag behind the beat from time to time (probably the fault of short rehearsal time), but I wouldn't have been too surprised if he'd been picked as a winner.

Jamie Barton's win, on the other hand, was a surprise. She moved around the stage comfortably, but the voice sounded recessed and made very little impression.

Fabiano, at the ripe old age of 22, is a thoroughly communicative singer in the Italian style. Phrasing, emotional commitment and connection, solid technique -- he has "star" written all over him despite a somewhat ordinary quality to his high notes. (Then again: Domingo, Villazon...)

Larusdottir, who has a starring role in Anne Midgette's Times article, provided an interesting contrast to Keira Duffy. Where Duffy was weak below the top, the Icelander had a lovely bell-like peal in the middle of her voice but petered out unimpressively on high. She was charming enough and is a late starter, but the voice (particularly without an evidenced trill) doesn't seem well set up to sing high coloratura roles. Still, much of the sound was impressive.

Ryan Smith is a work in progress. The L'Arlesiana aria showed off his powerful instrument well, but he nearly came apart in the Puccini, eventually picking his way through without much grace or legato. The Met staff loves this sort of big-voiced project, though, so we may see him in the Lindemann program sooner rather than later.

The other Ryan -- McKinny -- is a Cardiff Singer of the World finalist, but didn't distinguish himself from the pack here. In fact I thought his sound, though pleasant, a bit unnatural.

Angela Meade did better with "Casta Diva" than its cabaletta or the Abduction aria, both of which highlighted the lack of integration of her sometimes-squeally highest notes. Still she has a nice basic sound, good breath, and a trill. As with Larusdottir, I'm not sure what she's going to sing: her voice (for now, at least) lacks the impact of a real dramatic coloratura, and lyric sopranos of her body type are at a big disadvantage these days.

Finally, Alek Shrader did well in the lyric aspects of Ottavio's aria. "Ah! mes amis" was OK -- all those Cs were narrow, though dead on solid, and the style less impressive than in the Mozart. A deserving winner who may amount to much, but I'm afraid I don't share Maury's big enthusiasm.

All in all, a very impressive year. I only wish I'd heard some semifinalists as well.

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I hate to be the jerk who comes out and says it, but Jamie Barton's out-of-left-field win today (after Katherine Jolly's win last year) should push the Met to ensure that no finals judge is affiliated with a company with which any finalist has strong connection. Is there some other explanation for the result than home cooking by judge Diane Zola (of HGO) for HGO-YAPper-to-be Barton? I absolutely hope so. Maybe she showed a lot more in the semis and rehearsal, or the judges were sitting really close (which, incidentally, is another bad idea), or something else. But frankly, we shouldn't even have to wonder about this. The fact that people even discuss the possibility (and they are, without my help) is bad news for the Met, especially as they're trying to leverage the competition into positive PR. Get some foreigners if necessary!

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To end on a slightly happier note, where the heck is Twyla Robinson? I can't forget how she brought down the house with "To This We've Come" five years back. Now she has fancy management and a huge concert career but no opera here, and only a little across the plaza. This has to change: perhaps her SFO summer engagements will get the ball rolling.


UPDATE (4/2): Another judge, Brian Dickie of Chicago Opera Theater, blogged his experience of the event.

UPDATE 2 (3/8/09): Please see the followup post on Ryan Smith.

UPDATE 3 (4/28/09): A post on the documentary of this event is here.

I did what?

Digging through some old papers, I came across the libretto from the last New York presentation of Egyptian Helen, which I'd completely forgotten I'd attended. Deborah Voigt was, then as now, Helena, with Carl Tanner as Menelaus and Celena Schafer (who stole the show) as Aithra. What did I get from this American Symphony concert performance? Mostly that Die Liebe der Danae -- the previous American Symphony concert opera -- despite a certain lack of dramatic authenticity (and Joseph Gregor's cardboard characterizations), is a lot easier to put over than Helen. Pedestrian conducting? Mostly overmatched cast? Lack of sets? All one needs is a hint of charisma in Danae and a touch of musicality in Jupiter and the last act works wonders.

I wish I'd made it over to Dresden for the Strauss event this year (which included Danae).

Can he forgive her?

If Hugo von Hofmannsthal erred in Die Ägyptische Helena -- and he's been accused of much -- it was to make Menelaus (a tenor!) the main character of the piece. For surely he knew Strauss' treatment of tenors.* And perhaps it was this that made him go ballistic at the substitution of the correct, accomplished but somewhat dull Elisabeth Rethberg -- the Deborah Voigt of her day -- for glitzy stage animal Maria Jeritza at the piece's premiere. For a star like Jeritza can command the audience's attention when neither singing nor advancing the plot, and convince all that this story -- like the Trojan War's -- is absolutely all about her, and that the Strauss soprano bits she gets are, in fact, the evening's point.

To be fair, of course, Deborah Voigt may not be the Deborah Voigt of her day any more. The voice has shed the last of its fat and become something new (even since last season): from top to bottom there's now an edge to the sound that's interesting but sometimes acidic. And yet she still excels where she excelled -- the vocalism. With the rest she's no longer uncomfortable, as her older self on occasion was, but it's still not where energy and danger are. None will mistake her presence for Karita Mattila's.

But the crisis of the piece is Menelaus'; Helena, as written, remains static. Like Wozzeck, all value in his world disintegrates as he faces his beloved's infidelity, and... Well, things work out better for the Greek King. And why not? Poor Wozzeck loves a woman, and a hard-pressed one at that, while Menelaus is attached to Helena, the embodiment of man's universal (as he uncomfortably discovers in the desert) and unlimited valuation of woman, without which he would have had neither Trojan War nor child (which is to say, no human race).

So Helena is, while Menelaus must carry the drama. But this clashes with the musical aspects of the piece. Strauss' characteristic cruelty to tenors is almost absurd here -- and as most companies will cast this for and around the soprano anyway, even a tolerable assumption requires some luck. Further, Strauss -- again characteristically -- makes much of the opera's lyric set pieces, while the in-between sounds pretty much like loud filler. (I would have liked to see the contemplated singspiel version actually happen.) Unfortunately "the rest" includes much of what makes Menelaus sympathetic or even comprehensible.

And yet there's enough beauty in score and text to make an absorbing, worthwhile night at the opera, despite a useless, cheap-looking production (the ridiculous final curtain should've been sufficient grounds for booing) and individual performances that, while pretty good, don't demand huge praise. (Diana Damrau's deepwater Despina of an Aithra was of most interest.) My thanks to the Met for doing it, but could they cast someone more congenial for Jeritza parts (Ariadne, the Empress, Helena, and even Tosca) at some point?


[* My copy of the Strauss-Hofmannsthal correspondence is elsewhere, so I've forgotten how much discussion of voice types actually came up for this opera.]

UPDATE (4/1): Straussmonster has offered detailed thoughts on the production.

Snowbound

Outside my window here, it doesn't look like I've been snowed out of New York and Monday's second Helena, but that's what seems to have happened.

Of course, from others' early returns this may be a reprieve of sorts.


UPDATE (3/22): Back in the city, and it looks like I'll be at Helena tomorrow. Review to follow.

In brief

Nietzsche's praise of Wagner as "our greatest miniaturist in music" was not, of course, entirely a compliment. But there's something to it. Meistersinger, for example, begins to climax at its finest, most intimate point, as all private strands between the principals harmonize in the quintet "Selig, wie die Sonne". And it's this singular private kernel of perfection that makes the following public scene the greatest in opera: the rightness of the world quietly achieved doesn't break or slip, but radiates out -- methodically, over orchestra, stage, scene, and public until, with the most ecstatic trill in the canon (at which Hei-Kyung Hong makes a decent stab), Eva crowns Walther and all in creation is well...

Almost. Hans-Joachim Ketelson's effectively cartoonish Beckmesser may be true to Wagner's intended caricature of a critic, but the piece was much richer with Thomas Allen (the 2001 Beckmesser, seen on the DVD of that revival). Allen's character felt as understandably and deeply as his young rival -- if in a prickly, ineloquent, inappropriate way -- and his spite was full of an old man's fear. Beckmesser's loss, here a bit of derision, becomes with Allen a sad (and funny) necessity. (In fact I'd have liked even more humaneness: at San Francisco's last Meistersinger, director Hans-Peter Lehmann had Beckmesser and Sachs -- Allen and Morris, in fact -- actually together at the end. This sort of thing is often a cheap and horrible idea -- Ariadne is worst abused by such license -- but I think it improves Wagner's comedy.)

But never mind that caveat: there is no substitute for seeing Act III well-sung and well-conducted in the house. Go.

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Simon Boccanegra is, like Oedipus, the story of a usurper. (Simon does get into office through the process, it's true, but it's quite clearly tainted.) This explains -- or rather stands for -- why the story ends with his undoing, but it also made me more receptive to Thomas Hampson in the title part. He's far from the classic "Verdi baritone", but the Hampsonisms for which he's taken much stick over the decades have, with the accretion of grit and a hint of hoarseness, aged into interesting versions of themselves. It sounds both right and a bit out of place -- much as an old pirate might seem, even after twenty-five years as Doge.

This was a terrifically effective show all around, not least Fabio Luisi in the pit. Many seemed moved to tears. I have no idea how Maury could have walked out on it, unless it was post-Jenufa hangover.

Met news

Am I supposed to blog the new season announcement? We've known most of it for a while.

I've been under the weather of late, so maybe later.

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More pressingly, the local Goethe Institute is again hosting a recital series by the young talent in the Met's Lindemann program. Interestingly, unless there are a bunch of John Moores singing baritone, the house seems to be making up for its inexplicable decision not to recognize John Michael Moore at last spring's Met Council Finals.

Curtain-raiser

Vilaine Fille (who unfortunately hasn't operablogged in ages) has posted an interview with Giuseppe Filianoti. L'Arlesiana -- the opera in which he'll sing tonight for Opera Orchestra of New York -- is among the topics mentioned.

Wrap-up

I feel blog coverage of Jenufa should close with Maury at the stage door hailing the cast, but one quick note.

Whether she's now 66 or 71, I wouldn't be surprised to see Anja Silja return to the Met stage. But if Saturday's matinee was her last bow here, it was a fine close: in her best, most vocally powerful performance of the last weeks, Silja sang and acted with a young woman's energy. The amount communicated by her simply bending over or stretching herself up was remarkable.

Meanwhile matinee audiences continued their habit of being the loudest and worst-behaved: from nonstop coughing to a cell-phone ring in the space before the final duet, the relatively full house did their best to derail the performance. Maybe we were lucky -- in the immediate sense, anyway -- to have smaller, dedicated audiences for most of the revival.

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The latest casting rumors, incidentally, confirm my guess about next season's Manon Lescaut. And there's also something that the Jenufa/Onegin juxtaposition brought to mind... Actually, all the new details seem promising (except for a Norma almost as disastrous as the last), including Sondra Radvanovsky in the new Trovatore. Hey, didn't someone claim she'd been fired? Fortunately not.

Jenůfa, Jenůfa, Jenůfa

The Met run of Jenufa has been well and thoroughly blogged, by familiar

Alex Ross
Maury (and again and again)
Alex of Wellsung
Sieglinde (and a good explanation of matters box office)

and unfamiliar (to me, anyway)

Show Showdown
Moths and Anvils (with a cameo by someone I hope isn't Alex Ross)
Opera, knitting, and all is well
sirpupnyc
Theater Snobbery at its Finest
Felix Salmon
arts & other

(plus others of which I've lost track). Even Tommasini has gotten around to getting a Jenufa-related profile in the NYT. So yet another post on it here? I beg your indulgence.

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The performances since the first two have had three different casts: one per night. As before mentioned, Kim Begley showed signs of indisposition last Tuesday and was unable to repeat his powerful Laca-assumption of four years back. On Saturday, Judith Forst took a one-off turn as the Kostelnička, while another cast member (Diane Elias, as the Old Shepherdess) succumbed to indisposition and was replaced by Ellen Rabiner. Two nights ago (Valentine's Day), Rabiner was again the Old Shepherdess, while fill-in Števa Raymond Very left to allow Jay Hunter Morris his Met debut.

Forst first. She was everything Anja Silja isn't, and as much as Silja's first performance made me wish for someone like Forst, Forst's performance made me wish for Silja again. Silja's Kostelnicka is a tall, upright, far-seeing alien, standing strictly apart from locals with whom she has little to nothing in common. (Only Karita Mattila's Jenufa may be akin.) This means some of the things the libretto puts into her mouth seem downright odd -- the trousseau, for example, seems only to make sense as a bizarre form of penance she took upon herself. Forst, on the other hand, is neither tall nor strikingly thin, but has a noticably richer, lower-centered (she is a mezzo) voice. Her Kostelnicka looks, sounds, and in fact acts quite at home among the rustic population of the piece. Vocally, every note sounds -- which is not the case for Silja: the bottom is merely a hint over orchestra -- but cries and top notes induce no chills.

On balance, while Forst's conception may be more correct, I find that Silja's expands the scope and meaning of the opera. Forst's character is not her stepdaughter's equal; Silja's is, and the visible transfer of guilt and anxiety from one to the other at the crux is a huge touch.

Morris, I thought, nailed the physical character of Steva -- this time as a big, good-natured but unfortunately cowardly lug. That his sound was a bit constricted may have been debut nerves; at any rate the overall effect wasn't unpleasant. (He was, incidentally, included in Mattila's curtain-call kiss lineup.) Rabiner has done fine in her small part.

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As for the carryover cast, Silja and Jorma Silvasti -- and, indeed, Barbara Dever as the Grandmother -- seem stronger and more authoritative now than when the production began. In the center of the revival meanwhile, as the only cast member who hasn't gotten any sort of break, Mattila is ever terrific, but Wednesday found her for the first time audibly working around vocal unease. (In an odd counterbalance, she showed more physical abandon than ever.) I hope it was a night-specific thing, or conserving resources for tomorrow's broadcast: with (finally) the same cast twice again, things are -- if she's healthy -- set for a great event.

Ha!

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

Onegin

scene-by-scene synopsis with production photos

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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