Stop and start

The 2007-2008 season, like most at the Met, ended uneventfully: a series of good performances, yes, but no climactic closing event. But after last Saturday evening's Macbeth -- the end of the season at the house -- were two Met Orchestra concerts at Carnegie Hall. It was hard to feel the season over with these after-events remaining.

Both -- an all-Mussorgsky concert with Gergiev and Rene Pape and last night's mix of Carter, Schumann, and Tchaikovsky with Levine and Jonathan Biss -- turned out to be successes, though neither soloist entirely satisfied. Pape has, of course, an Important Voice, but doesn't always deliver much more: in this case, his reliance on prompters in the house turned into a rather homogenizing outing-with-a-music-stand at Carnegie. I've seen Matthias Goerne interpret brilliantly while staring at reference material, but the Songs & Dances of Death were fairly heavy going here. The Boris Godunov monologue fared better, but I was surprised to see Pape singing from a score to a part he's already done complete.

Biss, too, is a terrific pianist of his type, but I've always found him too much Eusebius and not enough Florestan -- even (rare) violence comes out tasteful and refined.

At any rate, the orchestra responded quite well to Gergiev (in his last outing as Principal Guest Conductor) and Levine, though I haven't entirely warmed up to new oboist Nathan Hughes, and Elaine Douvas -- for whatever reason -- hasn't been the same since about two seasons ago. It was a good -- if non-operatic -- close to to a successful season.

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I've contemplated moving from New York (both more and less seriously) several times over this blog's history. Each time I wondered what I would do with the blog, which from the first has focused on the actual experience of opera in the flesh. There's actually much to say about the (mediated) experience of opera far from its performance centers, and it's occurred to me that, without actually leaving New York (and -- to be clear -- I don't currently intend to move), I might mine this vein during summers, when the city is as operatically provincial and distant as any other you might name.

So expect in this space an inaugural "offseason edition" of An Unamplified Voice, different in flavor and content. It's a first try, though, so please bear with me.

The renouncers

The last Met performance this season of Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio -- almost two weeks ago now, I'm afraid -- was, as reports had suggested, a modest but real success. I was pleasantly surprised by the second couple: Aleksandra Kurzak finessed the high notes a bit but played Blonde with a winningly earthy womanliness, and Steve Davislim showed a light but charming tenor, just the thing for Pedrillo. Kristinn Sigmundsson has neither huge round sound nor the trick low notes but I could listen to his ease and fluency as Osmin all day. (I'd love to hear him as Ochs.) Polenzani was pure pleasure to hear as usual.

If there was any disappointment it was in fact Diana Damrau, who despite her comic affinity is even worse of a serious actress than I'd feared. Worse than the expectedly cool and less-than-traurig "Traurigkeit" was the exaggerated bobbing (with, unfortunately, accompanying heavy sonic accent) of her body that was supposed to stand in elsewhere for strong feeling. That said, she can sing "Marten aller Arten", which counts for a lot.

David Robertson conducted with emphasis on clean light textures, but used a light hand outside of the well-coordinated ensembles that were the evening's highlight. Another modernist approach, but much more effective than Bicket's for this month's Clemenzas.

Polenzani, Kurzak, and Davislim reunite in Chicago next March for another Abduction, with Erin Wall as Konstanze. Looks promising.

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I did see another performance of La Clemenza di Tito -- the last this season. The singing was again notable, but what most stuck me was how strongly -- between Tamar Iveri's Vitellia and Susan Graham's Sesto -- the mixed and unclean feelings of a poisonous relationship were made tangible. Iveri can't sing her part as strongly as her predecessor Melanie Diener, but Diener was no schemer and the relationships in that last revival never came into such focus.

Also, I've never seen an audience made so enthusiastic by Mozartean opera seria.

Calleja, mediated

Just a quick note upon hearing Joseph Calleja's Macduff over Sirius.

In the house the overpowering first impression -- to my ears, at any rate -- of his sound is its spaciousness. It's within this heroic-scale frame that his distinctive throwback vibrato fits and works, bringing character and life to his lyric sound. The close-miked broadcast squashes any sense of space and size on top of making the vibrato more prominent in an absolute sense. As is so often the case, a very different impression.

His most recent solo CD ("The Golden Voice"), on the other hand, seems engineered to hide the distinctive timbre his vibrato imparts, and a lot of less detailed speakers will effectively erase it. But its main problem is something else: specifically, that the disc was recorded almost exactly three years ago, when he was just 27. Every year for a young singer is crucial, and the difference between the struggling-with-pitch tenor of promise on the disc and the remarkable singer of even a year-and-a-half later was huge. And the show-stopper we're hearing this month is nowhere near captured on disc.


UPDATE (5/14): From his teacher's liner notes for this disc, it appears that Calleja's professional debut was as Macduff -- in Malta, 11 years ago.

Fabrication, the conclusion?

Perhaps it's just coincidence (and, given the paper's chronic financial woes of late, not a surprising one) but the New York Times has bought out the reviewer (Bernard Holland) who couldn't be bothered to attend the OONY Gala he reviewed.

Holland never showed signs of actually enjoying opera -- and in fact seemed to resent much of the standard rep -- so perhaps this is a relief for him as well.

Seeing stars

It's a glorious indulgence of luxury casting that brings us this month's return (beginning last night) of Verdi's Macbeth at the Met. Where else could you find -- for one aria each! -- Rene Pape pressed into service as Banquo and Joseph Calleja as Macduff? Pape, as ever, makes the most of his short turn (actually, I admit I've never found any of his longer parts as effective as his Marke, Escamillo, or Pogner). Meanwhile, it's been a very good year for tenors, but if the next Björling or Pavarotti is already out there, it can be no one but the 30-year-old Calleja. As he did in last season's Rigoletto, Calleja put on a display of old-school (pre-veristic) singing that brought the house down -- and, amazingly for the short part of Macduff, earned him the biggest ovation at curtain-calls. Lyric beauty plus natural unforced power plus stage ease equals stardom, but add bel canto mastery and an instantly-recognizable throwback timbre to the mix and you have a truly sui generis tenor whose potential equals the greatest. (Let's hope he's not prone to overdoing either food or drink...)

The danger of superstar bit players, though, is that they might unbalance the show. It actually happens here: nominal leads Carlos Alvarez and Hasmik Papian are commendable but workmanlike, so their fates fail to dominate the proceedings as they should. The fall-winter casts, despite flaws, seemed to sell the piece better. The January night I saw them, Guleghina (as ever) chewed scenery like no tomorrow and was in pretty good if unsubtle voice, while Lado Ataneli sang well and seemed more decisively engaged in the events than Alvarez. Banquo and Macduff were John Relyea and Dimitri Pittas: two young singers who sang strongly, but not so overpoweringly as to throw off ensemble balance. Even Levine seemed more comfortable back then (but then, he hadn't just returned from a weeks-long Boston run of Troyens).

I'm not sure why so many seemed to dislike this production. Adrian Noble is a British Shakespeare director, so what's the surprise when it looks like a British Shakespeare production? There was no great revelation, but the simple color/light-dark contrasts work, set elements and costumes are handsome and uncluttered (the cut-out space above was nice), and I found the walking-on-chairs bit appropriately eerie.

Its present incarnation is less than the sum of its parts, perhaps, but Calleja's not to be missed.


UPDATE (10:30PM): A little bird tells me that this cast didn't have stage and orchestra rehearsals until the day of the performance. So no wonder those who were called upon to do more than stand and sing one aria came off less well... Expect better, perhaps, in future shows as the principals become familiar with the thing.

Star turn

After the male-centeredness of Stephen Wadsworth's kitschy, over-the-top direction of Iphigenie earlier this season made Susan Graham's character a bit player and third wheel in her own eponymous opera, Graham now finds herself better-highlighted by the revival of Ponnelle's classic "La Clemenza di Tito" production. Her Sesto here is one of the peak assumptions that make operagoing worth it. It would be worth seeing even in a lesser cast, and makes even the superficial sheen and relentlessly airless regularity of Harry Bicket's conducting bearable.

Bicket was terrific in Rodelinda but is the main liability here, playing up only the public side of Mozart's writing and burying the private (ideally, as heard in, say, Levine's most recent Cosi, the two intertwine and inseparably interpenetrate) to the point of straitjacketing the wind solos (here, by Anthony McGill and James Ognibene). But the singers make it work. Tamar Iveri -- though, like most singers, she has issues at one end of Vitellia's great range (here, it's the bottom that's recessed, particularly noticeable in her Act II scena) -- makes excellent dramatic sense. Anke Vondung I found unexciting as Cherubino earlier, but the more serious Annio suits her better and she did well in his aria. (I noted last time that though she's German, Vondung's even-tempered, evenly-produced singing reminds me of an American mezzo's, and she naturally fits alongside Graham.) Ramon Vargas took a bit to warm up but offers a voice of real authority in the title role.

Of course, we know how good Vargas is. Graham I've always liked, but the control and naked feeling she shows in Sesto's "Deh, per questo istante solo" is actually revelatory. Her parts here have been so straightforward that to see her visibly and audibly drowning in Sesto's self-loathing is a shock -- of the best sort.


UPDATE (8PM): The AP wire brings a rave review. Another refined and positive perspective is offered at I Hear Voices, where it seems Rodrigo Maffei Libonati has finally put up a blog.

Raising the curtain

Three years ago, I posted some thoughts on La Clemenza di Tito -- Mozart's masterpiece of 1791 -- and the Met's now-revived (as of this coming Saturday) production thereof.

Given Susan Graham's successes (elsewhere) as Sesto and how terrific Ramon Vargas has been of late, it's a shame this run seems so poorly sold. Of course, that Gelb and the press only seem to promote revivals for sopranos doesn't help...

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Meanwhile, if you're considering seeing The First Emperor, do yourself a favor and don't.

Is this a prank?

It's not who's doing it, it's what he's doing:

When the commission came through from New York's Metropolitan Opera, [Rufus] Wainwright became inspired by the most obvious of tales: a day in the life of an opera singer. Prima Donna will explore "the construct of the diva, from Maria Callas to Norma Desmond, and the Jean-Jacques Beineix movie Diva, from the 80s. And God darn it, there's a bit of me in that too".

Wainwright will be composing the opera as well as writing its libretto - in French.

Eh!?

Possibilities: leg-pulling; not-for-the-main-stage; improbable success; disaster.

Addenda

The author of that much-discussed WSJ piece last week blogs her reaction to the big Fille aria:

I’m not an opera expert, but I’ve been paying a lot of attention to it lately, as I reported an article about the Metropolitan Opera for the Wall Street Journal. So when The New York Times posted a recording of the "Ah! Mes Amis” aria sung by Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez during the performance of “La Fille du Regiment” at the Met on April 21, I clicked on the link. In it, Florez hits high C, which is about as high as men can reach, nine times. You hear the crowd roar, and you hear Florez do it all over again. I felt a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye.

The correspondent who sent this link notes that Florez encored the piece again last night.

The general manager's drama

A few notes on yesterday's long WSJ article on the Peter Gelb administration:
*It may be the first piece to break the spell of positive press that's attended the beginning of his Met tenure. Being a financials-focused piece in the Journal, it probably won't break the Gelb cheerleading at the Times and elsewhere, but who can tell?
*It was written a while back -- most obviously the interview with Gelb himself -- and not updated. Note this, about La Rondine (in the same traveling production for Gheorghiu to be presented by the Met next season):

"If the SFO does transmit it" -- which has been announced -- "we might think twice about it. Angela is starring in 'Elixir of Love' next year and we might go with that."

Except San Francisco already did moviecast it (no one went), and Rondine is already confirmed for next season's Met HD list.
*Is it coincidence that the two years of rising box office receipts discussed in the piece occurs with a historic rise in the Euro relative to the dollar? (Previously discussed here.) Of course, Gelb's promotional efforts perhaps helped the Met take advantage of the revitalization of foreign tourism (which took a big drop after 9/11), but exchange rates will not be so favorable to the house forever.

It's too bad the author didn't think to ask about this.
*Finally, a word on the moviecasts. A year ago, I lamented the possibility of their cinematic values replacing the sonic and theatrical ones on which live opera thrive. This still seems to me an essential concern, but in another sense the whole enterprise is an important and perhaps inevitable raising of stakes in the Met's competition with other opera houses.

The San Francisco and La Scala offerings barely seem to have registered -- though there are interesting claims that they don't really need to -- while the Met versions continue their wild success. The difference is obvious: the Met is able to leverage its existing brand and -- thanks to its decades-long series of worldwide radio broadcasts -- association with the Saturday matinee timeslot (Saturday evening in Europe) in a way other houses can't.

This brings two things besides ticket sales. First, it helps Gelb's star-focused casting policy, giving the Met -- as radio broadcasts did, in their day -- the largest possible stage to offer sought-after singers. Second, the moviecasts, the subsequent DVD (and, inevitably, Blu-Ray) releases, and the press attending these, improve the prominence of the house among those who consume opera products (recordings, news, etc.) all over the world (but also including New York). And from that: not just more ticket-buyers from abroad, but perhaps more donors too.
*Of course, very little of this has to do with the art itself. Pardon the detour.

The winner

To surprisingly little fanfare, tenor Matthew Polenzani was recently named as this year's winner of the recently-created Beverly Sills award. (His predecessors: Nathan Gunn and Joyce DiDonato.) Teenage operablogger "CaroNome" describes an "awww" moment from a recent broadcast interview (which I heard, too):

After blowing me away in last years "Magic Flute", he captured my heart during a Sirius broadcast during which he was asked what opera character he was most like. To this question he replied, "I am most like Romeo because I have loved like that. Every day my love for my wife grows stronger." Or something to that effect, and he went on for a few minutes in that fashion. Margaret Juntwait hit the nail on the head when she said, "Every woman listening just went 'aaaahh.'"

Though it seems like he's been doing big parts at the Met for ages -- his David here was tirelessly beautiful -- I suppose he's only recently begun making a splash in the standard romantic leads.

Wasn't it not too long ago that people complained there were no tenors? It seems ridiculous now.

Gelb's star strategy hits Brooklyn

So does this replace the entire Met-in-the-Parks series?

Two of opera's biggest stars, soprano Angela Gheorghiu and tenor Roberto Alagna, will perform together in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park on June 20 at 8pm, together with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus, in what is anticipated will be one of the Metropolitan Opera’s largest outdoor concerts in company history.

Looks like it. Not a great loss: any way you slice it, the concerts are amplified, and the lazy atmosphere of the parks series wasn't great for the brand. Adding a touch of event-ness can't hurt.

The surprise ball

Not too long ago, Maury wrote me that Ramon Vargas "[i]s the new Bergonzi". Now he tried to take back the sentiment later upon hearing another Bergonzi record, but there's something to it. Vargas (though always now audible) will never have the loud-louder-loudest physical impact of certain tenorial rivals, but -- at least in the seemingly reborn form we've seen since last year's Onegin -- his command of everything else is amazing. Word, sentiment, volume and above all phrase: he shapes, caresses, expands, and connects his phrases in simultaneously grand and refined style.

So he was last night in Un Ballo in Maschera. But the vocal outpouring may have been the least impressive thing: though a late substitution for this last performance in Ballo's run (he's in town rehearsing next month's Clemenza), Vargas inhabited the part (Gustavo/Riccardo) and production as if its originator, more physically energized, comfortable, and active than I've ever seen him. What's more, the ensembles -- particularly the tricky Act I parts featuring the tenor -- actually went more crisply than I've yet heard in this production. Yes, Vargas has sung Ballo this season in Houston, Florence, and Munich, but to step in here with such ease and panache is stunning.

(Actually, other unscheduled star substitutions this season -- Giordani in Romeo and Alagna in Aida -- have also been successes. Maybe the Met should throw these in more often...)

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Of course, Ballo is in some sense a conductor's opera, inviting a benevolent dictator to impose his spirit on the proceedings as King Gustavo does on his court. (Toscanini's recording of the piece is still the greatest among a pretty commendable bunch.) Gergiev protege Gianandrea Noseda is not exactly the man for this. He commands every discrete expressive element in the opera -- urgent intensity, springy (and sinister) jauntiness, and lighter shades, lilting or lyrical -- along with its finer-grained demands. But the overall spirit's sort of blank, for which Noseda's tendency to overdo the urgent onrush doesn't quite compensate.

That said, Noseda did very well indeed last night in the tricky ensembles, including the love duet. I thought that on Saturday and in the fall he was taking them too gingerly, but with Vargas in place of Licitra he blasted the company through them with all the fearless elan one could want. What a difference a flexible-voiced, musically sophisticated tenor makes? Or perhaps the fact of Noseda's birthday -- for which he was serenaded by last night's cast at the end of curtain calls -- helped.

Soprano Angela Brown seems to have improved enormously since the November Aida that was my first live hearing of her. Then, her instrument sounded like some scattered good notes in search of a voice; now it's strong and pretty even from top to bottom, with a nice warmth in the middle. And even sounding a bit congested as she did last night (did she get a touch of what knocked Licitra out?), Brown showed lovely soft singing, dynamic contrast, and long breath in her arias. My only sonic gripe is that the top notes cut but don't really ring out -- others seem to like this sound, however.

Brown has improved on stage, too. The casually contemporary mannerisms that stuck out like a sore thumb in Aida have been replaced by stock operatic poses of nobility, but this is a significant advance. She seems willing to do more, but first things first.

Ofelia Sala was a bit livelier in these last two performances, but remains an essentially earthbound Oscar. At least she could be heard, however: you'd be surprised how many Oscars here couldn't.

After all these years, sadly, it seems the legendary Charles Anthony has at last lost it.

Finally: Dmitri Hvorostovsky. When people throw around the phrase "not really a Verdi baritone", I wonder: would they have said the same about, say, Giuseppe de Luca? Lots of people sounding nothing like Leonard Warren have excelled in the Verdi parts.

And yet, the phrase popped unbidden into my head for much of Hvorostovsky's Renato (Anckarström). Thomas Hampson, another baritone tagged with the same words, has of late (most recently in Ernani but no less in last season's Boccanegra) used the grit that has entered his voice to fashion an unconventional but convincing sort of aural Verdian persona, but Hvorostovsky's gone through no such change. Hvoro has his control and his beautiful voice, and much of the first two acts of Ballo seem to find him struggling with the wrong vocal tools, ploughing ahead in a way that sort of works but doesn't optimally flatter himself.

Yet when Renato breaks off from marmoreal declamation and sings the last act's agonized "Eri tu", Hvorostovsky's near-decadent command and breath (though the latter would be more impressive if his air-gulping were less amazingly loud) pay big dividends. Worth it? I think so, particularly paired with birds of a feather in Vargas and Brown.

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Ballo has arguably Verdi's greatest tenor ("Di' tu se fedele") and baritone ("Eri tu") pieces as well as his greatest love duet. All got their due last night: another highlight of what's been a great half-season.


UPDATE (4/25): A comment below reminds me that I forgot to mention Stephanie Blythe as Ulrica. She's been excellent through all the Ballos: in the winter she was almost the only reason to see it.

The hidden ball

Maybe it was the Pope. Salvatore Licitra spent last Saturday morning doing this


and returned to the Met that evening to headline a performance (of Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera) that was, on the whole, more satisfying than the glitzy Fille premiere two days later.

Licitra's biggest trouble may be his own potential. When everything works, his spacious, strong sound and naturally ardent phrases make him a terrific Italian tenor, deserving much of the hype with which he first arrived. But even when he's off, he occasionally manages some remarkable little thing -- a diminuendo, an eloquent phrase -- that recalls his better form. This has the paradoxical effect of ruining my enjoyment of the evening -- mediocrity is OK until one's reminded of what's missing.

What I heard of his winter performances in Ballo was in this latter vein -- just skilled enough to be unbearable. But Saturday he was really good. Perhaps -- unless it was just temporary Papal inspiration -- he'll do well in Trovatore after all.

Unfortunately, he won't get to repeat the performance tonight, having cancelled. Ramon Vargas is substituting, and I'll save the rest of this review until I see this evening's show -- which I do recommend to anyone considering it.

And now, Bellini

If Fille turned out to be less earth-shaking than one might have hoped, next season brings yet more Natalie Dessay:


La Sonnambula finale, from the 2006 Volpe Gala
Of course, expectations may again be a problem for those of us who were at this gala and have been anticipating the full thing ever since.