Out West Arts: Performance at the end of the world

Kate Royal and David Daniels Photo: Marty Sohl/Met Opera 2011

One would think that after Saturday’s matinee of Die Walküre at The Metropolitan Opera, there wouldn’t be much more to say for the season. But there was. And a mere three hours after one of the most thrilling performances of the Met season, I was back for the final show before the break, Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice. Gluck’s masterpiece couldn’t be any more different from the Wagner in terms of length or tenor, so it provided a nice contrast. The evening got off to a humorous start when celebratory cheers went up behind the curtain as the audience awaited the arrival of conductor Antony Walker to the pit. I couldn’t help but wonder if the cheer wasn’t from the stage crew as the 40 minute delay in the start time of that afternoon’s Die Walküre matinee had, in essence, erased the extra hour of time built into the day's schedule to allow for the set to be changed for the evening’s performance, which had been assigned a 9 PM start time. Orfeo got started a little late as well, and was permeated by the sense of relief by a company that had just gotten through a very big afternoon and a very challenging season.

The revival of Mark Morris’ 2007 production with its original star David Daniels is still a smart looking affair. The dance elements are very engaging and the chorus of dead historical figures is still a clever touch. The cast was completed this time by Lisette Oropesa as Amore and British mezzo Kate Royal as Euridice. Daniels gave one of his consistently enjoyable performances and he was well matched with Royal, who was more certain in tone than the last vocalist to take on the role here, Danielle de Niese. Royal has a bright pleasing voice and is more than a little attractive. Oddly enough the weakest part of the show was Walker’s haphazard guidance in the pit. While the vocalists always seemed coordinated, the orchestra was rushed at times and very scrappy sounding early on as if some of them were still feeling peevish from having performed earlier in the day. Orfeo ed Euridice is one of the most beautiful scores around and this was not a performance that luxuriated in those qualities as much as one that was intent on getting its business done. But it is also difficult to complain about a work that celebrates the triumph of love over everything, particularly as the concluding gesture of the Met Opera season.

And an interesting season it was. The company seemed cursed with artistic failures that grew in inverse proportion to the amount of effort the company put into them. While it wasn't Spider-Man: Turn on your Heart Light, the Robert Lepage imagined Ring operas seemed plagued with technical issues, while the company couldn't get the press to stop talking about James Levine's health. Angela Gheorghiu may have made her final appearance with the company for awhile after some last-minute cancellations and Marina Poplavskaya appears all too ready to fill those shoes with ease. John Adams got a second opera on the Met stage, and Simon Rattle made his company debut. Jonas Kaufmann dazzled everyone. I caught 14 of the company's productions this year not including two others I saw in the season's HD broadcast series. These are the five best things about The Metropolitan Opera's 2010/2011 season from my vantage point:

1) James Levine's conducting: With all the hand wringing about health-related cancellations, when Levine was in the pit this year, his conducting surpassed even his own high standard. The supremely exciting Die Walküre this past weekend and an incredible orchestral performance of Wozzeck stood out over everything even when the other elements of the performance were not always up to snuff.

2) Simon Rattle's debut with the company in Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande. A long overdue debut was worth the wait with the devastating beauty of this impressionistic masterpiece brought to life with an excellent cast.

3) Willy Decker's production of La Traviata: Although it was technically an import from somewhere else, this aggressively modern production was still a shocker even after being available on DVD from its Salzburg premiere. It made me rethink my views of Matthew Polenzani and Poplavskaya for the better given their total commitment to a staging that required some real work and physicality.

4) René Pape's performance as Boris Godunov.

5) Lucia di Lammermoor with Nathalie Dessay. Another artist who is overly derided as past her prime who showed up to prove what was what in the revival of Mary Zimmerman's production originally created for her. Probably the single most enjoyable performance all around I saw in New York last year. Yes, it surprises me too.

Labels: Met opera reviews 10/11

Act III of Die Walküre Photo: Ken Howard/Met Opera 2011

This Saturday's matinee of Die Walküre at The Metropolitan Opera was thrilling in the way opera always is. There are so many elements all unfolding simultaneously that disaster seems to lurk around every corner and moments of greatness stand right alongside those of mediocrity. How it all breaks down is part of the fun. The in house audience, held in the lobby, saw the noon start time come and go with little more than an announcement pointing out that the show was in fact delayed and that we'd all get in when they were ready for us. As it turns out, we got into our seats just before that, as stage crew were still working on Robert Lepage's giant mechanical rotating set trying to coax it back to life as we entered the auditorium. A few minutes later the curtain came down providing the stage surgeons some privacy. And some forty minutes after start time, things got underway as the machine lurched into motion even if the paper thin dramatic vision behind it would never materialize. But more on that "much ado about nothing" later.

The delay was soon put aside for most in the audience when it became clear this would be an afternoon where naysayers would get their comeuppance on a number of fronts. First and foremost of those achieving deserved props was Deborah Voigt. Bitching and moaning about her casting in this role has dogged her in many corners for over a year. Her recent appearances as Minnie did little to cool the flames among the chattering classes that this was not going to be pretty. But her Brünnhilde was nothing but a success. Powerful and steely, she never turned shrill and managed a youthful and very engaging performance. Granted it didn't have the clarity or beauty of say a Nina Stemme, but trust me, if Linda Watson gets invited back to Bayreuth year after year to sing this role, Voigt delivered world-class singing by standard contemporary measures.

Then there was the matter of Music Director James Levine. As I mentioned yesterday, he's been the focus of intense speculation regarding his health and his future in his current job at the Met. There's even been a bit of a counter-offensive going on in recent weeks as well with Levine sitting down with Terry Gross and on SiriusXM to clear the air about his health and other topics. I'm not terribly drawn to this hand-wringing over Levine in any direction. But I can tell you this - he and the orchestra were on fire Saturday. Rich and warm, then forceful and dug in, the orchestra gave twice as much as I remember in the last Die Walküre I heard here. Maybe it was the ongoing HD broadcast that created such urgency, who knows? But it sure sounded like one for the record books from where I sat. Levine stayed in the pit for the curtain calls. But you know what, it's time to give the man a break on this health business. As far as any public information goes, the man has back problems, people. Millions of people do, often missing days to months of work and sometimes with physical limitations that can take a long time to resolve. Get over it. If the U.S. can have a president in a wheelchair for decades, the Met can find a way to get James Levine in the pit to give performances like this one as long as he still cares to do so, I imagine.

If there was an artist who didn't receive any retribution Saturday, it was Robert Lepage. His Ring production and its massive technical wizardry has improved since Das Rheingold earlier this season. There is more creative use of the apparatus and a powerful final image of Brünnhilde hanging suspended from above surrounded by fiery projections on the moving set as if the audience is staring down from the sky. But these moments are still too few and far between in a show where the scene changes are typically the most attractive moments. There remains a major problem with the matter of actually guiding the bodies of human beings on stage. Lepage is a master of the spit-take equivalent. Throughout there are ham-handed gestures that border on the farcical as when Sieglinde drops her bundle of wood on first seeing Siegmund or Fricka's histrionic chair-clutching tears during her argument with Wotan. At times the whole production looks like little more than a Hollywood superhero movie knock off. The show desperately needs some adult feeling injected into it to break up the variation between the boring and the adolescent.

But Thor is not the only show in town with some big hot stars doing what they do best. The Met's Die Walküre boasts some of the finest vocal performances I've seen this year. Stephanie Blythe's Fricka and Jonas Kaufmann's Siegmund were unassailable. Both sang with such power, control and sheer muscularity that they eclipsed whatever nonsense was, or more often wasn't, going on around them. Eva-Maria Westbroek reportedly had a rough go at the start of this run, but she shone on Saturday with all the fear and anguish you could want. Even Bryn Terfel's Wotan came to life. After a rather detached turn in Das Rheingold he seemed more invested this time around. He could still get croony at times and the fabric exploding out of the backside of his costume did him no favors, although he was relieved of the Pete Burns comb over from the fall. But he had me believing what he had to sing more often than not, which is really what matters. And it was really the success of these performances paired with a superb musical performance from the pit that really made this show exciting throughout despite its many shortcomings. It certainly sounded that way in the audience by the time those curtain calls came around. And even if the least interesting element of the show was the one most responsible for the lengthy delay in the afternoon's start time, it still ended up being very much worth the wait.

Labels: Met opera reviews 10/11

Violeta Urmana and Kathleen Kim Photo: Cory Weaver/Met Opera 2011

It’s the end of the opera season in New York and I’ve headed east to see things wrap up at The Metropolitan Opera. I like being here at the tail end of the season when the pending absence of regular performances finally strikes home with the audience and there’s a tinge of melancholy, if only the mildest and most temporary kind, that sets in. This year is supposed to be particularly interesting in that the popular storyline repeated again and again among the chattering classes has revolved around the Met’s long-time Music Director James Levine, his health problems, his cancellations, and all the projected fantasies about his future with the company and what will come after. It’s a pastime that has spread into the more “legitimate” press with folks like Alex Ross and the New York Times throwing their hats into the chatter ring. It all seems rather silly to me, and I’ll probably have more to say on this tomorrow after seeing the last performance of the company’s new Die Walküre. But on Friday night, it was all about Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos.

Joyce DiDonato Photo: Cory Weaver/Met Opera 2011

There were a mere three performances of this revival, all in the last week and all conducted by Principal Guest Conductor, Fabio Luisi. He’s been the focus of much attention in the Levine health storyline, and several folks have been eager to cast him as the heir apparent, parsing out details of his conducting work here more and more as the seasons go by. And while I’m not sure how much I care about what future job titles he may hold with the Met Opera, I do know two things: you’ve got to love someone who loves pugs, and you’ve got to love someone who knows his way around German opera as well as Luisi does. His Lulu performances at the end of the last season were spectacular and his leadership tonight in Ariadne was first-rate. The playing was sensitive and light but he never backed down from the intensity of the score when it was called for. He isn’t overly indulgent with the singers, and everything seemed perfectly in place musically throughout. He is not a sloppy conductor, but avoids being fussy as well. I for one would happily hear him lead many more works based on what I’ve heard thus far, regardless of whether he's got keys to the executive washroom or not.

Luisi was given a world-class, if somewhat unusual cast. All well-loved vocalists, though admittedly not the ones that might spring to mind in Strauss. Violeta Urmana sang Ariadne with adequate power and good energy. Her voice is a bit darkly hued for the role and she didn’t really have the shimmering effortless upper range you’d want, though she did hit the notes she wanted. Joyce DiDonato meanwhile sang the composer in the prologue. She’s one of the hottest names in opera right now and has a warm approachable personality to boot. Love her as I do, though, this was not my favorite role of hers. Not unlike Urmana, she lacked a certain piercing quality in the most dramatic moments of the score, though I could always hear her above the orchestra. Kathleen Kim was the Zerbinetta. She’s had a banner couple of years here at the Met stealing hearts as Olympia in Les Contes d’Hoffmann and taking names as Madame Mao in Nixon in China. Her Zerbinetta was satisfying with the right balance of savvy and sweet. The men in the cast were a pleasure as well, including Sir Thomas Allen as the Music Master and Robert Dean Smith as Bacchus.

So what's not to love? The production from Elijah Moshinsky for one. It continues to be puzzling. In the prologue there is a fair amount of activity and it’s quite colorful and just off-kilter enough to still be intriguing. The "opera" part of the opera gets off to a good start as well. But the idea mill peters out somewhere around the conclusion of Zerbinetta’s aria when the pro forma commedia dell’arte stuff takes over. The final scene with Ariadne and Bacchus is almost entirely inert with blocking straight out of a soap opera. It’s too bad that the staging gives out just as the music hits its home stretch. But on the whole here was much more to like than dislike.

Labels: Met opera reviews 10/11

Joseph Kaiser and Renée Fleming in Capriccio Photo: Ken Howard/Met Opera 2011

I remain convinced that Richard Strauss’ Capriccio may be one of the most under appreciated operas in the standard repertoire. (Whether or not the opera is in the “standard repertoire” is probably a matter of debate in itself, but I would contend that it should be.) Perhaps one of the most musically inventive of Struass’ works, the opera is also blessed with perhaps the most “meta” of all opera plots this side of, … well, Ariadne auf Naxos. The one act “conversation piece” as Strauss called it is an extended debate about the relative importance of words vis-à-vis music in the arts and in what ways the two are subservient to theater as a whole. Each position in the argument is presented by a character, all of whom meet in the salon of a well-off young countess who acts as arbiter and eventually non-decider in the debate. She proposes that the warring sides compose an opera which becomes the very opera being performed, Capriccio. That the umpire in the discussion is one of Strauss' beloved soprano roles is to be expected, and it is a touchstone role for a certain class of performer. And one of them is Renée Fleming who is currently singing the role in a thoroughly enjoyable revival at The Metropolitan Opera in New York. I saw the performance on Monday, and you can too even if you aren’t in New York considering that the final performance in the run will be broadcast as part of the company’s “Live in HD” series to theaters around the world on April 23rd.

Strauss is one of Fleming’s strong suits, and she shines here. And while I wasn’t as taken with her individual performance last Monday as I was three years ago when she sang the part in Vienna, Fleming is still able to infuse the countess with the same kind of melancholy that makes Strauss’ Marschallin one of the great opera characters. Fleming seemed a hair less assured to me in the middle and lower part of her range on this particular evening compared to three years ago to my ear, but this feels like nit picking in a performance of this caliber. Of course singing the countess invites comparisons to some of the last century’s great voices. The only other time that The Met offered Capriccio was in 1998 with Kiri Te Kanawa in the lead role in the same production the house is currently reviving.

Sadly, much like this season’s revival of Debussy’s Pélleas et Mélisande at the Met, revivals of Capriccio are so infrequent that updating the previous already dated production may seem economically unwise. Fleming is placed in one of those trademark Met Opera dioramas like something from the Museum of Natural Opera History. The original production was directed by John Cox with sets from Mauro Pagano updating the action of the opera moved to the 1920s. This forces Fleming and Sarah Connolly, who plays the other major female role, the actress Clairon, into some mighty unattractive costumes. As has been documented elsewhere, Fleming did not wear the John Galliano designed gown she wore during the 2008 Met Opera season opening gala for the final scene of this opera. (Granted given Galliano’s fortunes this was probably wise.) But the matronly outfits she landed here are unfortunate at best. She spends most of the evening in a teal number dragging around what appear to be two dead gerbils attached to trains she repeatedly works not to stumble over. Then in the final scene she returns having raided Blanche's wardrobe from The Golden Girls.

Costumes aside, the most disappointing thing about Cox' staging is the real lack of sparkle and plain old stage magic in an opera that cries out for it. The cast is strong with Joseph Kaiser as an assured Flamand, the composer, and Russell Braun as the poet Olivier. Peter Rose makes a robust and persuasive La Roche, the impresario who reminds the two younger man exactly where they stand in things. Sir Andrew Davis, who conducted Te Kanawa in Capriccio’s first performances at the Met over a decade ago returned to the pit. I don’t feel he made the most out of some of the detail and rich texture in the work which builds from string quartets into full orchestral ensembles and then back again with deceptive ease. But the music is still very touching throughout.

It’s tempting to try and interpret Capriccio in anti-authoritarian ways. Not unlike Shostakovich during much of his career, Strauss wrote and premiered his final opera in Munich in 1942 during the Third Reich and WWII. Is the opera willfully ignorant of the times in which it was born? Is it a defiant testament to a world and art that Strauss saw disappearing as his own life was drawing to a close? Unanswered questions to be sure, but sometimes those are the most intriguing ones. In my mind the melancholy that pervades Act I of Der Rosenkavalier permeates all of Capriccio and I think that is why I find it so moving and lovely. And it is also an opera without a resolution. The countess expresses no answer to the debate and leaves the stage with a call to dinner. And maybe that is the best we can hope for in a very difficult world.

Labels: Met opera reviews 10/11

Alan Held and Waltraud Meier Photo: Cory Weaver/Met Opera 2011

Second Viennese School operas are getting a lot of play in New York this month with Alban Berg’s Wozzeck now onstage at The Metropolitan Opera and Schoenberg’s Erwartung having just completed a run across the Lincoln Center Plaza at New York City Opera as part of a trilogy program entitled “Monodramas.” Both evenings are successful ones if not necessarily for the same reasons. Of course, the big story since Wozzeck opened earlier this week is the return of maestro and Met Opera music director James Levine to the pit following a sequence of ongoing health issues and cancellations this winter that have led to his departure from the Boston Symphony Orchestra and fueled countless rumors about his future engagements. Here’s what’s curious to me, though. I’ve not followed Levine’s career for most of his 40 years at the Met in New York. Honestly, I’ve had little exposure to his live performances until the last five years or so and can honestly say I don’t have much appreciation for his long and storied history with the Met. And though I’d say I’ve always found his conducting in recent years respectable and of a high quality, I’ve never quite gotten all the fuss about his comings and goings. His Wagner conducting to me seems rather turgid and overwrought at this point, though not without perspective. But I’ll admit Saturday night’s Wozzeck is the first time I think I’ve really gotten what people are so worked up about. Levine led the orchestra in a performance that was on fire. The detail was amazing and dynamics and contrast at times overwhelming. It was one of the best performances I’ve heard from this world-class orchestra in one shocker of an opera to begin with.

Onstage was an excellent cast of vocalists as well. There aren’t many opera performers like Waltraud Meier, and her Marie was up to her own unique set of standards. Meier seems submerged in her characters almost to a point beyond recognition. The steel and power of her voice were immense and the torment in her relationships was palpable. Alan Held stars in the title role. The American bass-baritone took over the role in this production after Matthias Goerne dropped out earlier this year revisiting the role he last sang here in 2005. I’ve always enjoyed seeing him perform and here he was tragic and heartbreaking. He's a big man, and his towering size over many in the cast helped emphasize his character's increasing alienation from the world. There were numerous superlative performances in the supporting cast as well including the malicious doctor, Walter Fink, and the malevolent Drum Major, Stuart Skelton. Mark Lamos’s stark 1997 production is still effective despite its staccato rhythm given that the curtain must be dropped for each scene change - a total of 14 times in 90 minutes. Luckily there are two more performances left next week for those who haven't seen it yet.

Cyndia Sieden and ensemble Photo: Carol Rosegg/NYCO 2011

Meanwhile, New York City Opera closed up its run of “Monodramas” on Friday with an unusual staging of three 20th-century works, none of which are known for being easy to access. Each of the three segments in “Monodramas” featured a work for solo soprano. The first was La Machine de L’Etre byJohn Zorn, a 10 minute work without text referencing the work of Antonin Artaud. Anu Komsi worked the syllables in the piece to great effect amid a surreal design that fit perfectly into Artaud's world. Two disaffected young people, a man and woman, in suits enter a crowd of figures dressed in burkas. They disrobe a few of these figures to reveal a man in a red suit and Komsi among others. As the singing continues large word balloons arise from below postulating a visual language of cartoon drawings in the place of actual words for this work of abstracted sounds. Zorn's short piece directly segued into a staged version of Schoenberg’s Erwartung. Several of the burka clad figures are now disrobed to reveal young women in romantic white dresses including Kara Shay Thomson who sang the sole part in this work. She gave a solid, very listenable performance and maintained consistent tone throughout. She is surrounded by a torrent of falling red petals. In a smart bit of staging, director Michael Counts works the physical story on stage backwards. Initially, the protagonist seems oblivious to the dead male body on stage. However over the course of the monologue, he eventually comes back to life stands up and Thomson pulls the knife out of his chest re-enacting her murder of him in reverse order. It was good looking, but I felt Schoenberg’s music was missing a dark edge and some detail here under George Manahan's conducting.

The highpoint of this evening though was the concluding bizarre staging of Morton Feldman’s Neither. Soprano Cyndia Sieden handled Beckett’s obtuse text and Feldman’s monochromatic lines with clarity and ease in a floor length black gown. She was situated in a room covered with holographic-style wallpaper and a cadre of more young men and women in suits. Soon numerous mirrored cubes descend from the ceiling spinning at different rates to the fascination of all involved. I can’t tell you what it all meant, but it sure looked cool. And somehow it generated dramatic tension. There was enough foreboding in the activities of the black-suited ensemble, one of whom would periodically fly above the stage and hover for stretches, to imply some anxiety around unexplained past or future events. None of it looked outright silly, which is certainly a risk in these kinds of productions. And "Monodramas" in the end did achieve some sense of unity between its three female protagonists, all attempting to be understood with language that isn't quite sufficient for the task. Plus as a reminder of the legacy of Schoenberg and Berg, it couldn't have come at a more opportune time.

Labels: Met opera reviews 10/11, New York City Opera

Diana Damrau, Joyce DiDonato, and Juan Diego Flórez Photo: Marty Sohl/MEt 2011

It might seem impossible to render the combined acting and vocal talents of Juan Diego Flórez, Diana Damrau, and Joyce DiDonato inconsequential in an opera production. But Bartlett Sher has a particular talent for just that in the feckless and dull staging of Rossini's Le Comte Ory, which is currently running in repertory at The Metropolitan Opera and which I saw in the house on Saturday. Granted this frothy work, one of the composers last, is not a high point in one of the greatest careers of any opera composer. A comedy written for the Paris Opera in 1828, it used musical material from his earlier Il Viaggio a Reims in a new story about a count, Flórez, who attempts to seduce an innocent single countess, Damrau, by first disguising himself as a hermit and then a nun. The count has competition for the countess' affections with his page, Isolier, played by DiDonato. That's about it with much of the running time occupied with characters running about in shock as a response to the kind of mild groping that might startle a character in a Nickelodeon sitcom. Le Comte Ory makes Die Entführung aus dem Serail look like Götterdämmerung in its gravity.

Still there are plenty of operatic examples of slight material making for great opera performances, so what went wrong here? First was Sher's very tired play-within-a-play conceit which is neither especially informative nor funny in its own right other than to provide an excuse for the 19th-century costumes for a story set around 1200. (As if one was needed.) This is Sher's third production for the Met and it felt familiar in a bad way. The chorus runs about back and forth to little end in a manner that is more agitated than funny. There are the bits that should seem clever, like the tilting bed the three principle characters cavort on during the penultimate scene, but come off as forced and mildly confusing. Now this is not to say that Damrau, DiDonato, and Flórez don't display some fine acting and vocal chops. Flórez, who became a first time father just before Saturday's curtain, made the most of his hermit and nun costumes. The chemistry between all three was warm and affectionate.

And vocally all three were impressive. Every time I see DiDonato she amazes me a little more and the depth of her involvement in this portrayal was admirable. Damrau's coloratura is in fine shape and she sounded bright and lovely. I should also mention three supporting vocalists Michele Petrusi, Stéphane Degout, and Susanne Resmark who all made the most of their contributions to the performance. But musically, they weren't receiving all the support they needed from the pit. Conductor Maurizio Benini kept things dragging along and under-paced all along the way, never rising much above tepid. Sadly, Le Comte Ory, one of the Met's few completely original productions this year, turns out to be a bit of a fizzle. There is some lovely singing, though, so you can still catch the show in New York through April 21.

Labels: Met opera reviews 10/11

Joseph Calleja and Natalie Dessay Photo: Ken Howard/MetOpera 2011

On Saturday, I attended the matinee performance of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor at The Metropolitan Opera in New York. I found it to be an excellent and very enjoyable performance, which admittedly came as somewhat of a surprise to me. It was my first, in-the-flesh exposure to this Mary Zimmerman-directed staging now in its second revival. The production also had a prior appearance in the company’s Live in HD broadcast series when in starred Piotr Beczala and Anna Netrebko in the title role in 2009 and was again broadcast on Saturday with the production’s original star Natalie Dessay returning as Lucia. There has been plenty of not too happy ink and pixels spent on Zimmerman’s production and Dessay since the show's premiere in 2007. And all the talk probably lowered my expectations somewhat leading to a very pleasant surprise when I discovered that the show actually was quite well done all around.

Earlier this year I listened to both personal acquaintances and their cyber-equivalents speculate wildly about who would “actually” be singing Lucia when the run opened in New York given Dessay’s cancellations both at the Met last season and abroad more recently. And one can always check out the usual on-line locales for hectoring about Dessay and the status of her vocal career. She is loathed by some as an overly perky, hyperactive pixie past her prime. Then she arrives in this run of Lucia, as she has laid out in several recently aired interviews, to take a new low-key, less physically involved approach for which she is then rewarded in the New York Times with a review chastising her for being absent and emotionally uninvolved from the performance.

Well from where I was sitting in the house on Saturday, I’d say it’s all bull. She apparently didn't get any of the memos about the faltering of her career and gave one engrossing, excellent performance. Dessay sounded great for the most part. Her coloratura was more than functional and she was never shrill or screaming. Her mad scene was thrilling and she did, in fact, project the mental instability called for in the part. It may not be the best Lucia she’s ever performed and it may not be the best one anyone else will ever do, but it was world-class and very entertaining. She wasn’t the only one to impress. Joseph Calleja, Dessay’s Edgardo, was the best I’ve ever heard him. Romantic, impetuous and heart breaking, Calleja was vocally certain through the whole show even fleshing out some of the less intriguing passages in the opera like the opening of Act III. Ludovic Tézier sang Enrico with a dark villainous energy and Kwangchul Youn brought the part of Raimondo to a much higher level than one might typically associate with this opera. I even found conductor Patrick Summers engaged in a way that I don’t always expect with the always formidable Metropolitan Opera orchestra.

Now maybe I was lucky and this was somehow an unusual performance in the run. Perhaps things have solidified since the opening performance. Or maybe given that today’s show was also an HD broadcast, everyone involved was on their A-game. From my prior experiences sitting in the live audiences for these broadcasts, I’d say there does seem to be some benefit in being in the house for the performances that are part of the live transmission series. And while some have bemoaned that the Met's productions are increasingly directed for the camera, I'd argue that at least on the days of the broadcast, the live in-theater performances tend to stand out for their quality.

I was also rather taken with Zimmerman’s late-Victorian transposition of the storyline. The presence of ghosts solves many problems in the libretto including the absence of Lucia in the final scene and the lack of a final duet. It is both creepy and simultaneously lays the groundwork for the protagonists encroaching madness. I also loved the group photograph at the close of Act II, which provides a logical and convincing framing device for the out-of-time sextet that, beautiful as it may be, kills the action for the benefit of musical structure. The audience seemed pleased with all of this as well with a huge ovation for the cast and a clearly pleased Calleja and Dessay. Once again it is worth remembering to not believe the hype.

Labels: Met opera reviews 10/11

Karita Mattila Photo: Marty Sohl/MetOpera 2011

I arrived in New York on Friday for what turned out to be a somewhat unusual evening at the opera. It was the third performance of Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades this season at the Metropolitan Opera with an excellent cast including tenor Vladimir Galouzine as Hermann and Karita Mattila as Lisa. The weather outside was warm – very warm for mid-March in New York and with the added recent change to Daylight Savings Time, it seemed that the city’s mind was on all things outdoors. The house wasn’t full and there wasn’t the usual crush of bodies getting into the theater when the doors opened. Even inside when the show started, it was one of the quietest and least effusive audiences I’ve heard here. Which seemed ill matched to the performance, which was quite reasonable despite its faults.

Dolora Zajick and Vladimir Galouzine Photo: Marty Sohl/MetOpera 2011

There were some spectacular performances. I’m a big fan of Galouzine and think he makes one of the most obsessed and driven Hermann’s around. I last saw him perform the role in Houston in Richard Jones’ striking production and felt he sounded strong here as well. Mattila can still make a good showing as Lisa at this stage in her career. I felt she did get a bit thready at the top of her range, but she commands attention and gives 100% as is her usual practice. While the pair has had a somewhat mixed reception in these parts, I found them a marked improvement over the last two performers to appear in this production at the Met, Ben Heppner and Maria Guleghina. The conductor in that last outing was Seji Ozawa and despite his reputation as a top drawer proponent of Tchaikovsky’s operas, I was more taken by Friday’s leadership, which was under the increasingly impressive Latvian Andris Nelsons who gave a fiery and lively turn throughout the score.

I still think the biggest problem with the Met’s Queen of Spades is the dreadful Elijah Moshinsky production with its overly dark, primarily black and white color palette. The production seems to be more about crowd control than anything else with the chorus often milling about the stage. Visually, the whole thing is so dark that rarely do the most distressing or dramatic moments stand out. It's the operatic equivalent of the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland. Just a lot less scary. There are some nice wigs I suppose. The supporting cast was a bit of a split decision. On the one hand Peter Mattei’s Prince Yeletsky was superb and probably the most emotionally resonant vocal performance of the whole evening. On the other had was Dolora Zajick in the bit part of the Countess. Zajick is no stranger to villains, which the countess is portrayed as in this particular vision. Her Russian is only slightly better than her German, but her rather broad approach to the stage action she has to maneuver through here bordered on camp at times especially in the requisite gowns and makeup. Still, Tchaikovsky's musical genius shines through and even the pastorale in Act II drew me in. So even if the rest of the world was happy to be outside, I was still glad to be in my seat at the opera.

Labels: Met opera reviews 10/11

Janis Kelly and James Maddalena
Photo: Ken Howard/Met 2011

The latest installment in The Metropolitan Opera's shoulda-woulda-coulda season arrived this month with the premiere of John Adam's Nixon in China. This much discussed premiere of Adams' 1987 signature work, which has been seen just about everywhere else by now follows a similar strategy to the company's recent, new production of La Traviata . Like Willy Decker's well-regarded 2005 Salzburg vision of Verdi, the Met elected to reproduce the landmark premiere production of Nixon wholesale including many of the key players from that auspicious run in Houston. Director Peter Sellars was on hand as was composer John Adams who is conducting this run including the performance I saw on Saturday. The original Nixon, James Maddalena, starred again in the title role.

But times have changed and there were many reminders of this all around. Maddalena's voice is not what it was and he struggled in some of the higher stretches of the part. The audience has changed as well. On Saturday, I saw Madeleine Albright in the audience and overheard her reflecting with a companion on the treatment of Kissinger in the work. That fact may be more evidence that Nixon in China has achieved some sort of canonical status than the work's appearance on the Met stage in and of itself. And yet all this reasoned debate and sanctioned approval couldn't get around that same ersatz feeling from the earlier La Traviata run. Nixon seemed like more of a wish about where this company should have been twenty years ago than an actual statement about where it's headed now.

Of course, not every new production needs to encapsulate the entirety of a company's or an individual's vision. Sometimes a Nixon is just a Nixon. And with the Met's resources, this one had many things to recommend it. Foremost among these was an orchestra and chorus the quality of which it hasn't likely seen before. No wonder Adams was keen to conduct this run. Who can blame him for wanting to be at the center of hearing this ensemble play his music first hand? And although he still did not convince me that he is the preeminent interpreter of his own work here anymore than he has elsewhere, it was lovely to hear. There's been a lot of grousing again about Adam's preference to mic and mildly amplify his singers, but I still don't get what the fuss is. I've heard worse "natural" sound, and I've heard better.

The rest of the cast had many excellent vocal performances from Robert Brubaker's Mao and Russell Braun's Chou En-lai to Janis Kelly's Pat Nixon. Kathleen Kim gave a magnificent turn as the fiery and authoritarian Madame Mao. Richard Paul Fink was a particularly unsavory Kissinger in another completely committed performance. The intentionally two dimensional set design looked good to me as well, despite there being some lack of punch to the closing numbers of the first two acts. But Nixon is equally about the hallucinatory as well, and Adams and Sellars clearly reveled in the off-kilter version of the world they generate in Act III. And crazy, in and of itself, can sometimes be enough to justify a work or performance and the Met's new/old Nixon in China is often satisfying if not overwhelmingly so. The question is, now what's next?

Labels: Met opera reviews 10/11

Susan Graham and Placido Domingo
Photo: Ken Howard/Met

Saturday brought Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride to The Metropolitan Opera in a revival of the company’s successful 2007 production. Almost everything from the prior run of the show has been left unchanged. All three stars in the cast are back including Susan Graham, Placido Domingo, and Paul Groves. Director Stephen Wadsworth was again on hand to guide his large, dark, and periodically goofy vision of the story. There was still a very naturalistic approach to reenactments of the numerous dream sequences in the plot. There were still rather ridiculous dance sequences from the Scythian troops in Act I, and celebrating Greeks in the opera’s finale. And there were still some extraneous plot additions including the all but risible emotional rollercoaster that Iphigénie pantomimes in the production’s closing scene where she first rejects and then accepts Oreste’s love given his evil deeds.

But if there is anything that prevents this revival from being a repeat success, it is the one significant change that’s been made. This time around the conductor is not Louis Langrée, but the American Patrick Summers. Summers is a respectable and dependable opera conductor. He’s well known to this house and the members of this cast. He’s game for just about anything and manages to provide satisfying and well-paced performances in an array of works. However, Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride is not one of them. Much as I recall from his outing with Graham in this opera in San Francisco in 2007, there is a particular lack of delicacy. He bounds through the score with a bit too much force and at times seemed indifferent to some of the vocal detail this cast can muster. Granted, some of this might be ascribed to a lack of adequate rehearsal time. There were a few moments where the timing between orchestra and cast seemed to get away from him, but the bigger issue was lack of nuance.

The title role still fits Graham like a glove. And while she seemed rushed at times, most notably in her big aria “Ô malheureuse Iphigénie,” she sounded warm and certain throughout. Paul Groves sounded comfortable as Pylade without any strain. As much as I love Placido Domingo, it feels like he’s slumming here in a bit of luxury casting as Oreste. And while all three vocalists displayed the kind of interaction that comes with having done these roles together on several occasions before, the production does seem to weigh them down a bit. Repeatedly, when things get going, there is some bit of dramatic business that seems to mar things. For example, Wadsworth seems unsure of what to do with the homosexual subtext of the work, barely keeping this most intense of platonic loves between Pylade and Oreste outside of parody. But all in all, this is Graham’s show. It’s a role she has made her own in the last several years and if you haven’t seen her in it, it's worth the visit. Iphigénie en Tauride runs through March 5.

Labels: Met opera reviews 10/11

Over the post-holiday blues yet? Well, if not, Sony Music and The Metropolitan Opera have the perfect after-Christmas gift for you or anyone who cares about music with four new DVD releases in the company’s live in HD broadcast series. Now, I have not typically written about these events here at Out West Arts, preferring to focus on flesh-and-blood performances I’m sitting in the audience for. But I’ve seen most of the HD broadcasts so far at some point and would say that the four performances that are reaching the public today on DVD are among the four best the house has broadcast in the series to date. The new releases include Strauss’ Salome, John Adams’ Doctor Atomic, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, and Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra with Placido Domingo in the title role.

Perhaps my favorite among all of these great releases is the searing Salome from the fall of 2008 starring Karita Mattila. Mattila reprised her original, highly lauded 2004 performance of Strauss’ titular baddest-of-all-bad-girls at the opening of the 08/09 season for The Metropolitan Opera, and the house was extremely wise to capture it on video the second time around. It’s simply amazing. Mattila’s power and beautiful lyricism rise above everything else in this production leaving one dumbfounded in its wake. Salome is a piece that turned music, and opera in particular, on its ear, and any production that can revive that feeling a century after the fact is a keeper. There are other great vocal performances here including Kim Begley’s Herod and Joseph Kaiser’s Narraboth. Jürgen Flimm’s contemporary and colorful production looks fantastic as filmed under the direction of Barbara Willis Sweete. Patrick Summers leads the always-excellent Met Opera Orchestra in a big, beautiful turn as well. But this show is undoubtedly dominated by Mattila’s voice and her incredible physical performance. The best of the best and not to be missed.


The 08/09 live HD broadcast season for The Metropolitan Opera also brought a revival of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, which, like Salome, was led by Patrick Summers. Now, I will be the first to admit, I am no fan of this opera generally. In fact, despite several opportunities to see this particular show while in New York, I had passed it by every time and only elected to see the broadcast after hearing so much about it. The production, conceived by director Anthony Minghella and choreographer Carolyn Choa originated at the English National Opera and originally opened the 06/07 season in New York as the introductory salvo in Peter Gelb’s new administration of the company. At the time it seemed like an underwhelming idea to me, but after seeing this broadcast, I quickly learned how misguided my judgment was. Minghella’s take on Butterfly is simply the most convincing one I’ve ever seen – even if only on video. It is cinematic in the best sense of the word, highly attractive and stylish at every turn. It can be richly romantic with flower petals falling from above and flocks of bird puppets. It can also be intensely dramatic as in the climactic scene of Butterfly’s death awash in red. The production stars American soprano Patricia Racette in the title role for what is undoubtedly a career high mark for her. Marcello Giordani is the able Pinkerton and Dwayne Croft and Maria Zifchak round out the rest of the principal cast. And, while not every moment of Gelb’s administration at the Met to date has reached this level of success, the importing of Minghella’s Butterfly continues to set a standard for what the house is striving to become. It’s also a DVD worth owning. Stay tuned for Doctor Atomic and Simon Boccanegra later on.

Labels: Met opera reviews 10/11

I am so excited about seeing John Adams' Nixon in China next month at The Metropolitan Opera in New York. You should be too, since it will be included in the company's HD live broadcasts to theaters everywhere on Sat Feb 12. Adams, who will conduct in New York, and director Peter Sellars recently appeared on The Greene Space on New York's WQXR along with several stars of the upcoming production to talk about the work's creation and offer some musical highlights. The show was filmed as well, and you can watch the great clip above for all the details. It promises to be the spring's must-see opera event.

Labels: Met opera reviews 10/11

Stéphane Degout and Magdalena Kozená Photo: Ken Howard/MET 2010

As New Year’s Eve demonstrated how The Metropolitan Opera is trying to catch up with the rest of the opera world in terms of ambition of its productions with its bracing import of a new La Traviata, my trip over to the house the following day provided examples of another change being made there for the better. Not only are there new creative faces behind the scenes, there are some in the pit as well, as the company makes efforts to draw in many of the world’s most renowned conductors (many for their first appearances here) to lead its world-class orchestra. Regardless of the quality of the productions they land with, virtually all of these debuts were universally heralded from Esa-Pekka Salonen to Riccardo Muti and Daniel Barenboim. This December, it’s been Sir Simon Rattle’s turn, and he too is providing one revelation after the next from the pit with Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, which I was very fortunate to see in the closing performance of its run.

This has long been a work Rattle has championed on different stages with various casts. In fact, my only other live exposure to the complete opera to date was a concert performance under Rattle with his usual house band, the Berlin Philharmonic and vocalists Simon Keenlyside, Angelika Kirchschlager, and Laurent Naori. Sunday’s performance in New York was even better than that one. Debussy’s colorful impressionism which can be done in by its own subtlety is more dramatic than any verismo score you can name in Rattle’s hands. He was matched with an excellent cast that went from strength to strength. Magdalena Kozená sang Melisande with clarity opposite a solid and capable Stéphane Degout. The increasingly impressive Gerald Finley sang Golaud and received a huge ovation from the audience. It is increasingly clear here and elsewhere that Finley’s time for operatic super-stardom has arrived. Willard White, long a favorite of Rattle's, made a superb Arkel.

But unfortunately, the musical quality of the performance wasn’t quite matched by the rather blah Jonathan Miller production being revived for the run. After Willy Decker’s brisk, modern La Traviata staging just hours before, Miller’s mid-90s-Met-Opera-bait of darkly lit Gothic walls and statuary came off as profoundly uninspired. Granted this is not an opera that gets a lot of play here in the U.S., and how often a new look is warranted for Pelléas is a legitimate question. But this unnecessarily naturalistic approach did manage to severely undercut the abstract and symbolist nature of the opera itself. Debussy’s sole opera is a fragile thing built around a female character with a past that is never revealed and with constantly obtuse motivations. The more human she seems, the odder her behavior comes off. Pelléas et Mélisande needs mystery and even if it didn’t get all of what it required on stage, this performance certainly delivered in all the musical aspects of the work. Here’s hoping I’ll hear other things this good in 2011.

Labels: Met opera reviews 10/11

Marina Poplavskaya and Matthew Polenzani Photo: Ken Howard/MET 2010

The last time I saw Verdi’s La Traviata at The Metropolitan Opera in New York was just last March for the Angela Gheorghiu/Leonard Slatkin tempest in a teapot. And although it was not my original plan, on New Year’s Eve, I returned to the house for the opening performance of their “new” La Traviata production directed by Willy Decker in a recreation of his well-received and wildly-popular 2005 Salzburg Festival staging. The two productions could not be farther apart in nearly every aspect. The former 1998 Franco Zeffirelli production is all Disneyesque Euro-fantasy with its ruffles and soft edges. This new arrival is razor sharp, gorgeously modern and broadly interpretative. (Some may argue Decker has simply exchanged one set of clichés for another, but at least his are of more recent vintage.) However, while the last Zeffirelli production may represent where The Metropolitan Opera has been over the last few decades, it’s not clear whether this new production actually represents where the house is going. It might be more accurate to say that the new production represents where the house, under General Manager Peter Gelb, wishes it had been. Decker's La Traviata is the kind of success Gelb's Met would like, even if in this particular case it is already after the fact.

The "new" production has been widely seen already in the wonderful DVD recording of the original Salzburg run. Decker has stripped away virtually everything to focus almost maniacally on the impending death of Violetta adrift in a world of men. All of the action takes place in a giant empty white rotunda with a single entrance to the side. There is a bench around the back wall and a giant clock spinning towards Violetta’s death. Dr. Grenvil is present onstage throughout the whole performance watching and reminding Violetta of her fate that she is in the process of alternately embracing and running from. The entire chorus is dressed as men and Violetta pops out from the black-suited crowd in a simple bright red dress and heels with her hair tied up with a white flower. Act I also features a large red couch that Violetta climbs and sits upon even as it is hoisted above the heads of the chorus. It’s all very visually striking, and I found myself struggling to glance down at the supertitles given how drawn I was to the action on stage. Liberties are taken with the storyline, but these are relatively minor. And some of these, like the taunting of Alfredo by the masked chorus in a mock bull-fight in Act II, I felt added a lot to the overall piece.

And yet despite this, there was something missing. The whole evening had a rather ersatz feel to it like the show was a facsimile. A very good one, but a facsimile nonetheless. This is in part due to the fact that the documented original run of the production in Salzburg was a bit of an operatic perfect storm. It featured the talents of Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon at the point where their own fame and talent were at a white hot moment of arrival, and the show, which is physically demanding, highlighted both their vocal prowess and their visual appeal. And while originally this evening many years later was meant to recapture that magic, those two individual singers have moved on in various directions, leaving the chores to a new set of principals. It should be said that all three of them this evening, Marina Poplavskaya, Matthew Polenzani, and Andrzej Dobber all acquitted themselves admirably. But excellent as they may be, none of them are in the particular position that the prior cast was at that particular time.

I was most taken with Poplavskaya. Vocally she sounded strong throughout as she had the last time I heard her sing the role in Los Angeles. The biggest surprise to me was her acting. I’ve always found her a bit cold and stiff on stage. But this is a show that totally depends on her movement and interaction with others, and she rose to the occasion being flirty, athletic, alluring and singing her heart out at all times. This Violetta is a new benchmark for her. Polenzani’s Alfredo also called for athletics both vocal and otherwise, and he, too, put out much more than what you might expect. By the time he rolled into Act II, he was warm and agile with a lovely tone. I continue to feel that Dobber is one of the most underrated baritones around, and he clearly won over many new fans on this evening as Giorgio Germont. This may not have been the cast the production was intended for, but this was undoubtedly world-class singing. Gianandrea Noseda conducted the orchestra in a lovely, detailed performance. It didn’t always sound completely stable to me, though, as if more time was needed with the chorus to get the overall coordination in some of the scenes. Noseda's role is critical in that this is a production heavily focused on the rapid passage of time. The Salzburg performances were conducted by Carlo Rizzi at an a breakneck pace to reinforce this point, and even here in New York, the show only contains one intermission. Noseda was not to be rushed, however, and the tempi could drag a bit even if they were never slow by any normal standard.

At the close of the evening the audience was certainly peppered with some boos as Willy Decker came onto the stage, but it was largely a positive reception from where I sat. Whether or not this meant that most of the audience had been won over or that the audience's familiarity with the design had weeded out dissenters in advance of the opening is anybody’s guess. But the Met’s new La Traviata does represent the type of operatic success Gelb and his company are looking for. This attempt to recreate opera magic may not have actually achieved that goal, but it’s undoubtedly a show worth seeing from a company that is still headed in the right direction, even if it hasn’t quite arrived there yet.

Labels: Met opera reviews 10/11

René Pape and Oleg Balashov in Boris Godunov Photo: Ken Howard/Met Opera 2010

Talk about déjà vu. Just about 48 hours after taking in the Metropolitan Opera’s large, but largely disappointing new Das Rheingold, I found myself in virtually the same situation with the opening performance of the company’s new production of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov. Outside of the fact that the latter was twice as long and in Russian, the strengths and weaknesses of the two shows were eerily similar. Perhaps the best news of the evening was the fantastic performance from René Pape in the title role. He was on his A-game this evening, steady and sure with a rich, booming tone and a nuanced, very physical performance overall. Undoubtedly a career defining moment for him, and the best I've heard him sing in a history of excellent performances. And this comes in the midst of an almost entirely Russian principal cast. Needless to say there were several other spectacular performances to marvel at including Mikhail Petrenko’s Pimen, Andrey Popov’s Holy Fool, and Ekaterina Semenchuk’s Marina. Grigory, the pretender to the throne, was sung by Aleksandrs Antonenko with vigor and plenty of volume if not a lot of subtlety and detail. But better than all this was the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra under Valery Gergiev. The typically great orchestra really outdid themselves on this evening with a performance as good as I’ve heard from the Mariinsky orchestra or any number of other ensembles. Gergiev knows Boris Godunov inside and out, and his acumen paid off here spectacularly. The Met Opera Chorus excelled in some of the most important choral music in all opera.

What more could you want? Probably a production to go with it. Despite all these wonderful musical qualities, the production, and the evening as a whole, was another great big non-starter. It’s hard to know where to begin with this mess. As was widely reported earlier this year, the production’s original director, Peter Stein, dropped out only a few weeks before final rehearsals began over a visa spat. The Met turned to American Stephen Wadsworth to step in and make a coherent production at this point, largely relying on the costume designs, sets, and score that the rest of the still intact design team had already been working on for years. So it is not entirely his fault that the resulting hybrid work, part Wadsworth’s but with Stein’s indelible stamp, is rambling, obvious, and throws away many of its best assets.

One of the most unusual choices made early on was to develop a hybrid score using just about everything from Mussogrsky’s original 1869 version of the work as well as most of the additional scenes written for the 1872 revision. This everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach creates a very long Boris Godunov that struggles for a sense of unity. I get the impression that the original goal here was to focus on Boris Godunov as an opera first and foremost about the sweep of Russian history. The giant history text Pimen is working on at the start of the first act appears as a gaint book that is placed on the floor of the stage and remains there throughout with characters wrapping themselves in it at times or mangling it's pages in riots. The minimal sets consist of little more than gold-painted walls that are periodically removed to reveal a blank blue sky in the enclosed space. This is in contrast to the chorus' colorful costumes, which creates an overall effect reminiscent of Russian icon paintings. At first it is attractive but is very tiring after about 20 minutes. The stage action is otherwise predictable with people lolly-gagging around on huge maps and such.

Worst of all, the bonus material of Mussorgsky's later score dilutes the dramatic tension. Act III, "the Polish Act" recounts the pretenders seduction by a Polish princess and gives Pape a nice hour long break in the middle of the show. But while Grigory's interest is just perking up in this scene, ours is starting to flag. Worse yet, after the climactic final scene with Boris, we're treated to a violent riot of the peasants quelled only by the pretender's arrival. Talk about staying too long at the fair. In the end, the biggest problem with the production (and arguably with the opera itself) is wanting to have it both ways - both filled with the historical sweep and packed with psychological insight. In an effort to do both, neither is particularly accomplished. There was no booing I could hear on Monday when Wadsworth and the design team took their curtain call. Nor was there an enthusiastic cheer, suggesting that this Boris was met with more ambivalence than feeling, never a good sign in any opera.

Labels: Met opera reviews 10/11

Bryn Terfel and Stephanie Blythe in Das Rheingold Photo: Ken Howard/Met Opera 2010

On Saturday, I was in New York for the fourth performance of the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Das Rheingold. The new vision, created by Canadian auteur Robert Lepage, replaced an over-two-decades old storybook version by the venerable Otto Schenk. Yet after millions of dollars, structural stage reinforcements, and immense amounts of hand wringing, the most notable thing about this new production is how remarkably similar it is to the one it replaced. Outside of a precious few special effects, perhaps the only real difference between the two is that disposal of the old sets raise concerns over formaldehyde and asbestos while ridding the world of Lepage and his team’s handiwork will bring up issues over mercury and other hazardous metals. The large 24-plank set piece undulates and repositions itself with relative ease and does produce some memorable images such as the first appearance of the Rheinmaidens floating high above the stage on wires in front of an interactive projection of an underwater world. But for all the trouble and money, the massive rotating set does surprisingly little.




But no amount of machinery can take the place of actually directing a cast of vocal artists. And onstage Lepage has surprisingly little to say, new or otherwise, about Das Rheingold or its action. The principals wander around downstage for hours gesturing with little to do in costumes that are at best unfortunate. From Bryn Terfel as someone’s special homage to Pete Burns (or perhaps Ratt's Stephen Pearcy circa 1984. See above), to Patricia Bardon’s Erda whom my friend Jim described as the Cindy Brady of Erdas, no one gets out of this show without either a mess to wear and/or having to slide down the large planks of the set at some point while doing so. The laughter produced by the dumping of Fasolt's body off the set seemed unintended but was just one of such moments.

l-r: James Levine with Stephanie Blythe, Adam Diegel, and Wendy Bryn Harmer Photo: mine 2010

On the plus side, the musical qualities of the performance were quite high. Maestro Levine may not be bounding on or off stage for bows with ease, but his conducting seems unhindered in any way. The orchestra was superb throughout. Vocally, the revelatory performance of the afternoon belonged to Eric Owens. This is a big and well–deserved success for this personable and very interesting artist, and gauging by the audience response, he’s arrived here in New York. Oddly he was not evenly matched in the triad at the center of this opera. Bryn Terfel’s Wotan had a beautiful tone but was strangely removed and uninvolved. Richard Croft’s Loge was underpowered and neither particularly mischievous nor scary. He seemed like he stepped out of some buddy movie or video game. On the women's side, I was fairly impressed with Stephanie Blythe’s Fricka, who was never shrill, though I never got any real sense of the relationship between her and her husband in the staging.

Of course, I don’t want to go so far as to say that this design is so flawed that there is no hope for the many hours of Ring operas planned to follow in Das Rheingold’s wake. Lepage’s large set could be used more actively and provides many interesting possibilities that have yet to be explored. And furthermore, given that the Met is finally letting go of an older production that had more than overstayed its welcome is an important step. But Lepage’s new Das Rheingold is undoubtedly a half-measure. It needs to go much farther in terms of its ambition and scope to deliver something worthwhile and that doesn't mean just delivering more technological wizardry. But unlike Wotan and the gods of Valhalla, there is still some time to change this production’s eventual destiny, and hopefully Lepage and his team are thinking more creatively about their next steps.

Labels: Met opera reviews 10/11

I know this is old news from last weeks Gala premiere of the Metropolitan Opera's new production of Das Rheingold, but I still think it's fairly cool and worth repeating here. Maybe next year Renée Fleming can interview Iggy Pop. Enjoy.

Labels: Met opera reviews 10/11