The Defiant and the Profane — Getting a Grip on Handel’s ‘Agrippina’ at the Met

David McVicar’s staging for Handel’s ‘Agrippina’ (Photo: Marry Sohl / Met Opera)

If It Ain’t Baroque, Don’t’ Fix It: Part Two

Baroque opera has little appeal for me. I know, I know. I need to get with the times. And, yes, I am fully aware that those longwinded works from the early 18^th century have been back in vogue for nearly half a century. But I can’t help it. I find their laborious plots and over-complicated story lines a chore, the set pieces painful to listen to (well, not all of them), and especially the samey-samey quality of the music and solo numbers (called aria da capo). And those annoyingly drawn-out recitatives are especially egregious.

Yet, I keep saying to myself, Get a grip on it already! Give yourself a break. Now, with all the above said and done (and off my chest), I would much rather watch a live or pre-recorded performance of a Baroque piece than listen to one on the radio or compact disk.

Speaking of which, the Metropolitan Opera’s premiere of Handel’s 1709 Agrippina was touted as the oldest work in the company’s active repertoire. That claim may very well hold up for the opera house itself at Lincoln Center. However, I seem to recall some mid-1970 performances at the mini-Met of Sir Henry Purcell’s one-act Dido and Aeneas from 1689, which would place that opus a good two decades ahead of Agrippina.

Historically, George Frideric Handel’s first opera seria for Italy was Rodrigo, written for a Florentine academy sometime around 1707. Agrippina appeared two years later, for Venice, and became his first big stage success. It certainly proved its worth at the Met this past season, having received a rousing reception at its debut. I heard and saw Agrippina this weekend as part of the Live in HD transmission, available for free on the Met Opera on Demand online streaming service. The original broadcast date was February 29, 2020.

Sir David McVicar’s production set the work in modern times. In actuality, this was a 20-year-old production, created by the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, Belgium, and adapted for the stage by the Metropolitan. John Macfarlane was credited with the set and costume designs, Paule Constable with the lighting, Gareth Morrell, harpsichordist Bradley Brookshire, and Dimitri Dover with musical preparation, and Hemdi Kfir with the Italian diction.

Handel’s opera concerns the machinations of the wickedly Machiavellian Empress Agrippina, married to Roman Emperor Claudius (called Claudio in the opera). It’s historically inaccurate, irreverent and funny, but the guffaws and chuckles begin to stick in one’s throat when we relate the characters’ machinations to actual real-life events. Politics, so the saying goes, makes for strange bedfellows, as they most assuredly do here.

Agrippina (Joyce DiDonato) greets her husband, Emperor Claudius (Matthew Rose)

And as he did with the earlier Giulio Cesare from 2013, Sir David, by way of composer Handel and his librettist Cardinal Vincenzo Grimani, has brought poet Tacitus to life (in fact, one of the minor characters, Lesbo, appears early on holding a copy of the Roman historian’s book). Given these sets of parameters, modern-day audiences will have no trouble following the meandering plotline.

Into the Roman Woods

In this all-but contemporary staging, evil runs rampant and corruption is a way of life. As with most such Baroque products, the plot moves slowly and fitfully through prolonged dry recitatives (or recitativo secco), while highly embellished da capo arias tend to express, by turns, lofty sentiments or banal syllogisms (more like clichés, if you get my drift). These are repeated in A-B-A sequence, which in practice are a perfect forum for displaying an individual artist’s technical and vocal abilities by means of fast runs, roulades, fioriture, cadenzas, and so forth — a veritable feast for the ears if not the eyes.

Agrippina (Joyce DiDonato) has a one-on-one with her son Nerone (Kate Lindsey)

To director McVicar’s credit, he kept things moving. The action never stops for a second, which wins praise from yours truly for sheer inventiveness. And a most feisty and accommodating cast brought the onstage shenanigans smoothly and seamlessly to fruition, if not always coherently. Each individual character was allotted sufficient time and space to establish his or her presence and, most importantly, a certifiable personality type (uh, “dysfunctional” would be a better term).

In the title role, mezzo Joyce DiDonato was in her element, relishing the opportunity to play as devious and twisted a figure as she possibly could. This Agrippina would make even Lady Macbeth blush. Her sly, crooked smile, copious winks and double-entendres were priceless. Vocally, DiDonato was above reproach, although her coloratura was a shade off its usual mark. She compensated by using her innate language skills in enunciating the Italian text with bite, rrrrolling her r’s trippingly off her tongue till there was nothing left to roll. This verbal affectation, to my mind, was indicative of a disturbed, one-track mind.

Along those same lines, mezzo Kate Lindsey took the acting laurels, as it were, for her bravura take on the man-child Nero, or Nerone as he’s known. Lindsey played the emperor-to-be as a butch version of rapper Eminem, with tattoos across her arms and chest, and on the back of her neck, crossed with Jared Kushner in a slim suit and narrow tie. A punkish hairdo and saucy snarl on her lips, along with a take-no-crap-attitude completed the picture.

Nerone (Kate Lindsey) hands out alms for the poor in ‘Agrippina’ (Photo: Marty Sohl / Met Opera)

One clever sequence involved Nerone’s handing out of Care packages to the vagrants assembled at the palace gate. That look of utter disdain on Ms. Lindsey’s face said it all. Slippery as an eel and twice as unstable, this Nero had his hands full with both wooing the lovely Poppaea (debuting soprano Brenda Rae) and keeping her suitor Ottone (countertenor Iestyn Davies) at bay.

Together, Agrippina and Nerone shared what might have been an incestuous relationship. This falls neatly into line with the basic premise for this work, in which Agrippina schemes to bring her debauched, mentally challenged offspring to the throne as Rome’s next emperor. Complications temporarily disrupt her little plans when, after having planted the false rumor of Emperor Claudius’ death (via poisoned pen letter), Claudius reappears to assert his position.

Sung and acted by British bass Matthew Rose, his amusing personification of Claudio reminded one of England’s Edward VII (“Bertie” to his friends), all hot and bothered and itching to get into his lover Poppaea’s pantyhose. With his large frame and booming voice, Rose hit the right note in depicting the emperor as a libidinous lout, full of macho posturing and empty-headed pronouncements. His scales needed a bit of work, though, and his low notes lacked a solid bottom.

The throne room set for Handel’s ‘Agrippina’ (Photo: Marty Sohl / Met Opera)

He did, however, display a flare for comedy, as did Brenda Rae, in a penetrating characterization of the sexpot Poppaea. Their relationship was played strictly for laughs — and, indeed, it should be. Both Rose and Rae had a field day, with the bass practicing his golf swing and Rae fighting off the emperor’s (and practically everyone else’s) advances.

In fact, this entire enterprise smacked of a vaudeville free-for-all. For example, the angst-ridden Nero, acting like a freaked-out cocaine addict, indulged himself to the fullest by, literally, sprinkling his desk with happy dust and dropping his face into the white powder. This aspect of the show played like an episode of House of Cards or a Saturday Night Live parody of The West Wing. Uncanny!

Into this rather bizarre company strode countertenor Iestyn Davies’ more subdued bearing as Navy Admiral Ottone, a welcome respite from the lunacy. Baritone Duncan Rock’s solidly vocalized Pallante, in military uniform throughout, vied with countertenor Nicholas Tamagna’s nerdy Narciso in his makeshift combover for most obnoxious cohort. Both singers embodied groveling toadies, obsequious pawns in the manipulative Agrippina’s hands. Bass Christian Zaremba played the emperor’s press agent Lesbo. And high fives all around for the supernumeraries who did double duty throughout the program, especially the two security guards dressed up as Men in Black at the hotel’s bar.

Across the board, fast and slow runs, going up and down the scale, were flawlessly executed and accompanied, on the harpsicord and in the pit, by conductor Harry Bicket, a Baroque opera specialist leading the superb Met Opera Orchestra.

Poppaea (Brenda Rae) meets Ottone (Iestyn Davies) in the hotel’s bar

You could say that everybody and their mother — in this case, Agrippina— kept themselves busy with illicit affairs and off-the-record trysts in hotel lobbies, bars and apartments. Some silliness was bound to spill over, as in Agrippina giving a hand job to Narciso, an action straight out of Peter Sellars’ staging for John Adams’ Nixon in China. Good artists copy, great artists steal? Maybe. Others were routine or vulgar, yet stayed within the PG-parameters. The sole exceptions were the many hand gestures and raised middle fingers, which drew hearty laughter from an appreciative audience.

Anachronistic dance movements only added to the entertainment value. These were provided by choreographer Andrew George, with much of the routines seemingly tied to the plot or otherwise just plain outlandish. History meets theater, competing for viewer attention. It can often lead to absorbing material, or not. As for myself, I delight in such treatments as Verdi’s Don Carlo and Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots, operas based more or less on the historical record, with a preponderance of invention.

In Handel’s Giulio Cesare, which relayed the tempestuous affair between the noblest Roman of them all, Julius Cesar, and Egyptian Queen Cleopatra, David McVicar placed the setting in India during the British Raj (see the following link to my review: https://josmarlopes.wordpress.com/2013/11/28/handels-giulio-cesare-if-it-aint-baroque-dont-fix-it/). As for this musty old warhorse Agrippina, from another time and another place entirely, I am pleased to have given ample time to this piece so as to allow it to make its point.

The opera begins and ends in a mausoleum, with the principle participants perched atop their tombs. Although it’s our understanding the Met’s version had suffered some doctoring from its earlier Brussels incarnation, the nearly three hour and thirty minute running time flew by in a flash. From beginning to end, Agrippina remained a bawdy and sexy showpiece, as well as plainly over-the-top. If that’s what Baroque opera takes to draw attention to itself, then let’s have more of it. Those badass Romans can teach us all a valuable lesson about drama and art imitating life.

In sum, this was as happily realized an undertaking as they come, a welcome novelty that should help in expanding the boundaries of the Metropolitan Opera’s repertoire, one most audiences are unfamiliar with. Now, let me get back to reading a good book. I have it: Sir Robert Graves’ I, Claudius….

Copyright © 2020 by Josmar F. Lopes

Massenet’s ‘Cendrillon’: A Fairy-Tale Wish Comes True at the Met

Cendrillon (Joyce DiDonato) goes to the ball in Massenet’s ‘Cendrillon’

First Time’s the Charm

Yesterday, July 14, was the French holiday Bastille Day, or Le jour de la Bastille. In France, it is better known as la fête nationale, a national holiday. And in honor of said holiday, our topic today is French opera.

Jules Massenet’s charming Cendrillon, a rarely-heard late nineteenth-century work based on French author Charles Perrault’s fairy-tale rendering of Cinderella, was given its first Metropolitan Opera production nearly 120 years too late. Nevertheless, the opera worked its magic on Met audiences and on the Saturday afternoon radio broadcast of April 28, 2018.

Originally in four acts, this piece was presented in a lengthy two-act version with the first-night cast virtually intact. That cast featured, among others, mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato as Cendrillon, mezzo-soprano Alice Coote as Prince Charming, contralto Stephanie Blythe as Madame de la Haltière (the Wicked Stepmother), soprano Ying Fang and mezzo Maya Lahyani as the ditzy stepsisters Noémie and Dorothée, bass-baritone Laurent Naouri as Cendrillon’s father Pandolfe, and the stratospheric coloratura Kathleen Kim as the Fairy Godmother, called La Fée.

The Fairy Godmother, or La Fee (soprano Kathleen Kim), prepares the magic spell that will send Cendrillon to the ball

The opera was conducted by a fellow Frenchman, maestro Bertrand de Billy, and staged by Parisian-born Laurent Pelly who also provided the fanciful costume designs (it originated at New Mexico’s Santa Fe Opera in 2006). The sets were the work of Barbara de Limburg, and the Met Opera’s own Donald Palumbo served as chorus master.

French opera, as far as history records for us, has been deemed a close cousin to the Italian variety. And there is much truth to that connection. For centuries, Italy and France shared like thoughts regarding the genre. This extends to their respective musical language. Unusual for such an expressly Mediterranean art form as opera, its development in France ran almost parallel to what was happening in the Italian peninsula. Where the two countries branched off was in their choice of subject and performance styles, specifically the formulaic approach taken by composers Jean-Baptiste Lully (Italian by birth), Jean-Philippe Rameau, and Christoph Willibald von Gluck (of German background and birth).

Classicism, in the main, was most favored at the court of “Sun King” Louis XIV, where mythological themes from classical antiquity aspired to “enlighten” the ruling classes (fat chance of that!). The resultant fervor of the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte brought about many changes to French society and to opera as a whole: in other words, opera as pure entertainment but on a grand scale, where pageantry took precedence over the mundane. These changes had a profound effect on the likes of Luigi Cherubini, another transplanted Italian expatriate, and on his contemporaries, Gaspare Spontini and Antonio Salieri.

Interestingly, as the French style took hold and began to encompass repetitive performance practices — to include extended ballet sequences, leisurely pastorals, mighty choruses, florid solos, and other hackneyed elements — any connection to actual drama and perceived human emotions was secondary at best; they were given much less prominence in the overall structure than the meandering plots and clichéd interactions. Gluck’s innovations along this front were strategic in recapturing the essence of the story while refocusing the drama on the struggles of opera’s main protagonists. He was also a prime melodist, which lent his operas the primacy of originality.

It was a little after this time that opera, in Italy, started to capitalize on the bel canto advances developed by Messrs. Vincenzo Bellini, Gioachino Rossini, and Gaetano Donizetti. In due course, however, even the epicurean Rossini, accustomed to finery in all its richly embroidered form, relocated to Gay Paree where his final opera, the truly grandiose Guillaume Tell, made its rousing debut.

A return to classicism of a sort occurred with the advent of Hector Berlioz and his highly individual choice of subject matter (for example, The Damnation of Faust, Benvenuto Cellini, and Béatrice et Bénédict based on Shakespeare’s play Much Ado About Nothing). Many of these works followed the traditional path of elevated stories borrowed from classical mythology or other literary components. The most ambitious of which, the two-part Les Troyens (“The Trojans”), gave Virgil’s epic poem The Aeneid a colossal stage treatment that influenced a host of admirers, among them one Richard Wagner and his equally momentous Ring of the Nibelung saga.

Contemporaneously with  Berlioz, opera in France — in particular, at the artistic epicenter of the City of Light, the Paris Opéra — became the focal point for the career of Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864), one of the most wildly celebrated composers of that era. Born Jacob Liebmann Beer, the rechristened Meyerbeer, a Prussian-born Jewish descendant, began his studies in Berlin. While traveling to Italy, he developed his own brand of opera that emulated, for a brief time, the Rossinian model. Venturing forth to the neighboring France, Meyerbeer settled down in Paris where, with such oeuvres as Robert Le Diable, Les Huguenots, Le Prophète, and L’Étoile du Nord (each of them incredibly elaborate five-act monstrosities), he set the operatic world on fire.

Giacomo Meyerbeer (born Jakob Liebmann Beer)

But Meyerbeer’s flame, which burned so bright for so long, soon began to fade from view. After the posthumous premiere of his final work, L’Africaine (originally titled Vasco de Gama) — a startlingly derivative piece reminiscent of Les Troyens — the way was cleared for a variety of artists to make their individual marks on the art form: Charles Gounod (Faust, Roméo et Juliette), Fromental Halévy (La Juive), Georges Bizet (The Pearl Fishers, Carmen), Ambroise Thomas (Mignon, Hamlet), Léo Delibes (Lakmé), Jacques Offenbach (Les contes d’Hoffmann), Édouard Lalo (Le roi d’Ys), Camille Saint-Saëns (Samson et Dalila), Claude Debussy (Pelléas et Mélisande), Paul Dukas (Ariane et Barbe-bleu), Maurice Ravel (L’heure espagnole, L’enfant et les sortilèges), and Ernest Chausson (Le roi Arthus), were some of the more familiar names who thrived during the latter part of the nineteenth and into the early twentieth century.

Intricacy, delicacy and melody continued to be the hallmarks of mid-nineteenth century French opera, until Wagner’s music cast a different shadow over the European model. Although  French opera had staggered, both this way and that, from the sumptuously elaborate to the intensely personal, with the lighter-touched opéra-comique (known for an abundance of spoken dialog) serving as an intermediary between the two forms, relatively few composers had the wherewithal to artfully navigate between these forms.

Interspersed among the above-named masters of their craft, one must conclude that Jules Massenet (1842-1912), born near the Loire Valley of France, eventually emerged as one of his country’s finest proponents of opera. His major works traversed an immense range of subjects, styles, genres, and literary and poetic influences, from the heroic and the epic, to the biblical and pseudo-historical: Le roi de Lahore, Hérodiade, Manon, Le Cid, Esclarmonde, Werther, Thaïs, La Navarraise, Sapho, Grisélidis, Le jongleur de Notre Dame, Chérubin, Thérèse, and Don Quichotte.

French composer Jules Massenet (1842-1912)

With so much creative output to his credit, one has to stop and wonder when Massenet found the time to relax from his labors. To many critics and musicologists, he became France’s answer to Italy’s Puccini. That’s not entirely fair or accurate; still, for our purposes we can cite his one-act La Navarraise as the Gallic equivalent of Italian verismo. For the most part, Massenet was his own “made man,” a fellow who marched to the tune of whatever suited him best: namely, the feminine mystique. Whether on an epic or less than grand scale, Massenet never lost touch with the unique qualities associated with his female subjects.

Performance Becomes Art

Cendrillon meets Prince Charming (Alice Coote) at the ball

So where did Cendrillon fit in? In between Sapho and Grisélidis, the delightful Cendrillon was conceived and composed between 1894 and 1896. The libretto by Henri Cain adheres closely to the Perrault story, including all the manufactured hocus-pocus. The later version of the tale, compiled by the Brothers Grimm, introduced the grittier, less pleasant side of storybook life. We make note, too, of Rossini’s earthier La Cenerentola, an opera buffa as popular at the time (if slightly less so today) as the same composer’s The Barber of Seville.

In Cenerentola, the title character Angelina is a scullery maid in her adopted family’s service. The fantastical aspects of the Fairy Godmother, for instance, or the magical transformation, and, of course, the proverbial “glass slipper” (which may or may not be a mistranslation of the original pantoufle de vair, or “fur slipper”) are non-existent in Rossini, in exchange for a more down-to-earth sensibility.

Whereas in Massenet’s construct, the characters are more broadly etched, even one-dimensional (as is the case of the stern Stepmother and her meddlesome daughters), their humanity has been preserved in music of a sweetly caressing nature, with pathos and tenderness taking bittersweet turns with the romance of Cendrillon and her lovesick Prince Charming. It is here that we begin to appreciate that Cendrillon is anything but a cardboard figure straight out of a Disney animated feature. And the incredibly tantalizing depiction of the Fairy Godmother, as luminously effervescent a musical realization as any in opera, rings true for our time. We could all use a little magical help from time to time.

The one major character left out of previous versions of the story is Pandolfe, Cendrillon’s doting parent, the paterfamilias — a rather foppish fellow, but a caring individual nonetheless. There are a few moody moments in their tender third-act father-daughter duet (Massenet was a master of melancholy), which Parisian-born Laurent Naouri delivered in deliciously natural-sounding French. His rich enunciation of the text (again, based on Perrault) was the equivalent of a fine French wine come to sparkling life, alongside his fuddy-duddy interpretation.

Cendrillon confesses her dream to her father Pandolfe (Laurent Naouri)

The singing throughout the broadcast performance was on a respectably high level. Curiously, the normally spectacular Joyce DiDonato was more subdued than usual for an artist of her repute. Perhaps this opera’s late season start or the harshness of New York’s winter weather prevented DiDonato from expanding her vibrant mezzo into the farthest reaches of the Met’s massive auditorium. It is my understanding that the staging by Laurent Pelly had placed the characters well to the back of the theater. And the lack of physical structures to bounce one’s voice from may also have inhibited more accurate displays of vocal fireworks. No matter, since Ms. DiDonato’s portrayal onstage was instantly believable from her first entrance onward. In softer, gentler passages, Joyce was untouchable. There are few singers of her caliber who could establish a character with her presence alone.

British mezzo Alice Coote, as Prince Charming (a “trouser” role, in the tradition of Der Rosenkavalier’s Octavian, or Mozart’s Cherubino from The Marriage of Figaro), was also off her generally fine form. This wonderful singer, for whom this writer has often heard and long extolled the many virtues of, could have found, as DiDonato did, that Massenet’s music is a shade too high for either of them at this stage in their respective careers. DiDonato, who will be 50 next year, and Coote, who is already 50, may have approached the age when, vocally speaking, the effort at embodying youthful exuberance has given way to reality. That the voice tends to get less flexible with age; that tautness sets in when one least expects it; and that the requirements of agility and lightness of tone diminish, are all a given. Visually, both artists looked divine.

Physicality as a positive trait was the province of contralto Stephanie Blythe as the haughty Madame de la Haltière. This force of nature galvanized Met audiences with her patented Earth-Mother approach to the part of Cendrillon’s Wicked Stepmother. That she used her (ahem) natural endowment to the betterment of her characterization is one of the many reasons why Blythe remains a compelling artist. She, too, is fast approaching middle age; but in her case, there has been little diminution in vocal output. Too, Blythe has a natural talent for broad comedy and slapstick, which was used by director Pelly to exaggerate her character’s dubious nature.

Madame de la Haltiere (Stephanie Blythe, c.) with her two daughters, Dorothee (Maya Lahyani) & Noemie (Ying Fang)

The two stepsisters, sung by Maya Lahyani and Ying Fang, profited from the overly lavish costumes they and Ms. Blythe were given to wear, clothing that accentuated their broad, over-the-top personalities. As an example, both Fang and Lahyani wore dresses that made them look like upside-down pomegranates. Their gowns were also ridiculously gaudy. Beside DiDonato, Coote and Blythe, the incredibly able warbling of soprano Kathleen Kim, in her assumption of the Fairy Godmother, was the shimmering candle atop this wedding cake. Thanks to Massenet, who provided music of the most delectable quality — one hesitates to use the term “gossamer,” but in this instance, the word fits — Kim outshone all the others.

The staging left something to be desired, what with its overuse of Perrault’s text (in French, mind you!) lining the walls of the sets throughout. Unless one is fluent in French, the words lose their connection to the stage action. But never mind. The finest aspects of this long-awaited production were the marvelous stage pictures, among them the magical horse-drawn carriage that swept Cendrillon to the Prince’s palace, and the carrying-on of the participants (especially, the parade of potential brides for the Prince’s hand — a veritable eighteenth-century reality show a la The Bachelor) at the ball itself. Holding it all together was Bertrand de Billy, who only sped up the orchestra slightly during the Cendrillon-Prince Charming encounter.

In the final analysis, the winner had to be Massenet. If I were to describe this piece, I’d say that if you are familiar with the opening segments to Werther or Manon — that is, the hustle and bustle of daily life, and the scrambling about that occurs when people are trying to get on with their business — then you would have no problem deciphering what Cendrillon sounds like to initiates, but only to a point. The opera may not have scaled the heights that either Manon or Werther, or even Thais, had reached, but there are memorable moments nonetheless. Many surprises are in store for those who wait, and that includes the lovely Cinderella herself.

This is one fairy tale that really came true!

Copyright © 2018 by Josmar F. Lopes

More of the Same: Curtain Going Up on the Met Opera’s 2017-18 Radio Season

We Interrupt This Program

Scene from Laurent Pelly’s production of Cendrillon by Massenet

No sooner had one Metropolitan Opera broadcast season ended when the dutiful announcement came of productions yet to come.

By that, I mean General Manager Peter Gelb’s glib note of “an exciting lineup of live radio broadcasts and movie theater transmissions in store” for listeners in the upcoming 2017-18 season. No word, however, about the company’s growing financial concerns or the cost-cutting measures being taken behind the scenes (see the New York Times for details).

While there are some tantalizingly obscure items in the lineup, the coming Met Opera season is already shaping up to be another ho-hum event. Stepping up to the plate, listeners for the most part can be assured of all-too-standard fare, with precious few out-of-the-way works to enliven what promises to be exceptionally conservative programming.

Surely, there is nothing comparable to last season’s revival of Cyrano de Bergerac by Franco Alfano, based on Edmond Rostand’s play about the giant-nosed swordsman. Recalling your opera history, Alfano was the fellow granted the unenviable task of completing Puccini’s Turandot. The only thing that kept me from reviewing the 2005 production of Cyrano (with Placido Domingo receiving top billing) was my total unfamiliarity with the piece. I did listen to the May 6, 2017 broadcast, which starred the versatile Roberto Alagna in the title part, debuting soprano Jennifer Rowley as Roxane, and (to my surprise) Brazilian tenor Atalla Ayan as the tongue-tied Christian. To my ears, Cyrano was a pleasant-sounding, late verismo work with a moving final scene and few memorable tunes, but I do digress.

Roxane (Jennifer Rowley) with Cyrano (Roberto Alagna) in Franco Alfano’s Cyrano de Bergerac (Ken Howard / Met Opera)

There are no real novelties in the new season — that is, if you consider Bellini’s Norma (broadcast on December 16, 2017) and Verdi’s Requiem (heard December 2) and Luisa Miller (April 14, 2018) to be novelties in-and-of themselves. Still, when was the last time you raved over a live transmission of Norma, one of bel canto’s finest achievements? And when was it, really, that Luisa Miller, Verdi’s Sturm und Drang middle-period drama, stirred anyone’s blood?

Ah, well, at least one can drool over the broadcast of Norma, which stars power diva Angela Meade as the Druid priestess Norma (a dead-ringer for Greek mythology’s Medea), the equally endowed mezzo of Jamie Barton as her rival Adalgisa, Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja as Pollione, and British basso Matthew Rose as Oroveso. The orchestra will be presided over by Joseph Colaneri in this new Sir David McVicar production.

For Luisa Miller, we have what might be the final pairing of maestro James Levine with former tenor-turned-baritone Plácido Domingo as Luisa’s father, Miller. I have no idea how Domingo will deliver the vocal and dramatic goods this role calls for. Heck, I’m still in thrall over the sheer sound of the young Sherrill Milnes when he sang the part in the late 1960s, or the voluminous Cornell MacNeil in his heyday, with high notes to spare.

Of course, these were Verdian masters in their prime, but I’m willing to give old Plácido a try. And why not? He’s come through unscathed before, so don’t count him out just yet! Others in the cast are the rising prima donna Sonya Yoncheva as Luisa, mezzo Olesya Petrova as Federica, tenor Piotr Beczala as Rodolfo, and basses Alexander Vinogradov and Dmitry Belosselskiy as Count Walter and Wurm, respectively. I’m hoping James Levine can bring some thunder to the proceedings.

It Always Sounds Better in French

To say there is no adventurous oeuvre out there might be an underestimation on my part. In fact, one of the premieres planned for this season is of Jules Massenet’s rarely heard Cendrillon, an enchanting French retelling of the Cinderella fairy story that rivals La Cenerentola, the more familiar Rossini version. With a cast headed by mezzo Joyce DiDonato in the title role, Alice Coote as Prince Charming (yes, it’s one of those “trouser” roles for women), and stratospheric coloratura Kathleen Kim as the Fairy Godmother, this Laurent Pelly production, conducted by fellow Frenchman Bertrand de Billy, promises to be a truly Gallic affair. The opera airs on April 28, 2018, a simulcast with the Live in HD series.

Cinderella (Joyce DiDonato) goes to the ball in Massenet’s Cendrillon

There is also a new work in the offing, another of those operas based on this-or-that famous novel or movie: Thomas Adès The Exterminating Angel, adapted from the iconoclastic 1962 Luis Buñuel film. I’m no fan of Buñuel’s output, but if anyone can turn this director’s surrealistic horror story of guests trapped at a dinner party into a viable operatic vehicle, then Adès surely can. The production is by Tom Cairnes and premieres in late April 2018 (the performance will be recorded on November 18, 2017, for re-broadcast).

In addition to Cendrillon, Massenet’s Thaïs is also up at bat (scheduled for January 20, 2018), in John Cox’s lavish production. Soprano Ailyn Pérez sings the role of the Alexandrian courtesan, with baritone Gerald Finley as the enamored Athanaël, tenor Jean-François Borras as Nicias, and David Pittsinger as Palémon. The conductor will be Emmanuel Villaume. Most listeners will recognize the thrice-familiar “Meditation” for solo violin, this opera’s most famous concert piece.

Another French favorite, Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette (May 5, 2018) has been steadily gaining ground in popularity over its more familiar older cousin Faust. A surprise hit last season (due to the impressive combination of German soprano Diana Damrau with smoldering Italian tenor Vittorio Grigolo), this year listeners will be treated to the aforementioned Ailyn Pérez as Juliette romanced by her Roméo in the person of New Orleans tenor Bryan Hymel, in the Bartlett Sher-Michael Yeargan production. The conductor is Señor Domingo, of all people. Mercutio will be sung by Joshua Hopkins, Stéphano by Karine Deshayes, and Frère Laurent by Kwangchul Youn.

“Wherefore art thou, Romeo?” The Balcony Scene from Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette

The score so far: two for Massenet and one for Gounod. And that’s it for Les Français! What about the Saxons? Well, I’m afraid there’s not much improvement in that department: only three German works by an equal number of composers.

On February 7, 2018, there will be a repeat of the controversial but well-received François Girard production of Wagner’s Parsifal. The cast for this revival will include Klaus Florian Vogt as Parsifal (the role that Jonas Kaufmann made his own), returning bass René Pape as Gurnemanz, Evelyn Herlitzius as the sultry Kundry, the excellent Peter Mattei as the long-suffering Amfortas, and inky-voiced Evgeny Nikitin as the wizard Klingsor. Boy wonder Yannick Nézet-Séguin will be on the podium.

Starting the New Year right, we take note of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel in the weirdly fantastical production by Richard Jones, sung in English. Set for January 6, 2018, the cast stars Irish-born mezzo Tara Erraught as Hansel and soprano Lisette Oropesa as Gretel, with veteran mezzo Dolora Zajick as their mother Gertrude, Quinn Kelsey (a baritone star in the making) as their father Peter, and German tenor Gerhard Siegel (a wickedly nasty Mime in Siegfried) as the maniacally cackling Witch. Donald Runnicles is the conductor.

Wrapping up the paltry German contingent is Richard Strauss’ Elektra, broadcast on March 17, 2018. American soprano Christine Goerke will make her role debut at the Met as the titular protagonist. She will be joined by Dutch diva Elza van den Heever as her concerned sister Chrysothemis, mezzo-soprano Michaela Schuster as their murderous mother Klytämnestra, Jay Hunter Morris as her husband Aegisth, and bass-baritone Mikhail Petrenko as the revenge-seeking Orest. The landmark Patrice Chéreau production, with monumental sets by Richard Peduzzi, will be presided over by Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

Mamma Mia, That’s Italian!

Lucia di Lammermoor with Vittorio Grigolo as Edgardo

The remainder of the season will be taken up by Italian works, which is the core of any opera house’s repertoire. However, warming up in the bullpen are several items by Herr Mozart.

The Austrian composer is well represented with simultaneous revivals of Julie Taymor and George Tsypin’s Die Zauberflöte (sung in the original German) and, in a truncated English adaptation by J.D. McClatchy, The Magic Flute. We’ll be hearing The Magic Flute on December 9, 2017, with Hanna-Elisabeth Müller as Pamina, Charles Castronovo as Pamino, Nathan Gunn as the birdman Papageno, Kathryn Lewek as the Queen of the Night, Alfred Walker as the Speaker, and Tobias Kehrer as Sarastro, with Evan Rogister on the podium.

Two weeks later, on December 23, Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) will be performed in Sir Richard Eyre’s Upstairs-Downstairs meets Downton Abbey rendition. It will be populated by Czech bass-baritone Adam Plachetka as Figaro, soprano Christiane Karg as his betrothed Susanna, Rachel Willis-Sørensen as Countess Almaviva, basso Luca Pisaroni as the womanizing Count Almaviva, and mezzo-soprano Serena Malfi as Cherubino. The work will be conducted by Harry Bicket.

Towards the latter part of the season (on March 31, 2018), the last of the Mozart-Da Ponte collaborations returns in Phelim McDermott’s Così fan tutte (“So Do They All”). It’s a madcap affair, updated to the 1950s; a drawing-room comedy of sparring couples, featuring Amanda Majeski and Serena Malfi as the sisters Fiordiligi and Dorabella, along with Broadway’s Kelli O’Hara as Despina, Ben Bliss and Adam Plachetka as Ferrando and Guglielmo, respectively, Christopher Maltman as the suave Don Alfonso, and maestro David Robertson presiding.

The Met’s madcap version of Mozart’s Così fan tutte

As we mentioned above, this will be a predominantly Italian season, which kicks off with Verdi’s Requiem on December 2, 2017 — a rather ominous note, if you ask me. James Levine, the company’s Music Director Emeritus, will be leading the forces of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus in a performance of the Manzoni Messa da Requiem (its original title). The soloists will include soprano Krassimira Stoyanova, mezzo Ekaterina Semenchuk, tenor Aleksandrs Antonenko, and bass Ferruccio Furlanetto. I cannot vouch for the other participants in this staggeringly forceful piece, but most certainly Signor Furlanetto will lend his potent voice and signature artistry to one of the Italian master’s most noteworthy accomplishments.

This pillar of the Italian repertory will be joined the following month by the double-bill of Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci (January 13, 2018), with Roberto Alagna doing double-duty as Turiddu and Canio; the new David McVicar production of Puccini’s Tosca (January 27, 2018) with Sonya Yoncheva (replacing Kristine Opolais), Vittorio Grigolo (in lieu of Jonas Kaufmann), and Sir Bryn Terfel in the leads; Verdi’s potboiler Il Trovatore (February 3, 2018), featuring Maria Agresta, Yonghoon Lee, Quinn Kelsey, Anita Rachvelishvilli, and Štefan Kocán; and Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore (“The Elixir of Love”), starring Pretty Yende, Matthew Polenzani, Davide Luciano, and Ildebrando D’Arcangelo.

Along similar lines, there is the classic Franco Zeffirelli production of Puccini’s La Bohème (February 24, 2018), with Yoncheva, Susanna Phillips, Michael Fabiano, and Lucas Meachem; the same composer’s Madama Butterfly (March 3, 2018) in the now-iconic Anthony Minghella production, with Ermonela Jaho, Maria Zifchak, Roberto Aronica, and Roberto Frontali; Rossini’s Semiramide (March 10, 2018), with Angela Meade, Elizabeth DeShong, Javier Camarena, and Ildur Abdrazakov; the Zeffirelli mounting of Puccini’s Turandot (March 24, 2018), which features Martina Serafin, Guanqun Yu, Marcelo Álvarez, and Alexander Tsymbalyuk; and, last but not least, Mary Zimmerman’s version of Lucia di Lammermoor (April 7, 2018) by Donizetti, starring Olga Peretyatko-Mariotti, Vittorio Grigolo, Massimo Cavalletti, and Vitalij Kowaljow.

The sole non-Italian, non-French, and non-German work is famed Austro-Hungarian composer Franz Lehár’s operetta The Merry Widow (broadcast on December 30, 2017) in Jeremy Sams’ veddy British translation. The cast includes the ever-popular Susan Graham as Hanna Glawari (the cheerful widow of the title), Paul Groves as Danilo, Andriana Chuchman as Valencienne, Taylor Stayton as Camille, and veteran baritone Sir Thomas Allen as Baron Mirko Zeta (!). The conductor will be Ward Stone for this Susan Stroman production.

Renee Fleming (Hanna) and Kelli O’Hara (Valencienne) in The Merry Widow

Where’s the Beef?

One thing I noticed is the prevalence of non-Italian artists in major Italian roles. For instance, the female lead in many of the Met Opera broadcasts are to be taken by the likes of Sonya Yoncheva (Tosca, Mimì, Luisa), Olga Peretyatko-Mariotti (Lucia), Aleksandra Kurzak (Nedda), Ekaterina Semenchuk (Santuzza), Pretty Yende (Adina), Ermonela Jaho (Cio-Cio-San), Angela Meade (Semiramide), Anita Rachvelishvilli (Azucena), Susanna Phillips (Musetta), Martina Serafin (Turandot), and Guanqun Yun (Liù).

The same issue goes for the lower-voiced artists: Željko Lučić (Alfio), George Gagnidze (Tonio), Sir Bryn Terfel (Scarpia), Quinn Kelsey (Count Di Luna), Štefan Kocán (Ferrando), Matthew Rose (Colline), Alexey Lavrov (Schaunard), Ildur Abdrazakov (Assur), Alexander Tsymbalyuk (Timur), and Vitalij Kowaljow (Raimondo).

I’ve complained before about the mushy diction and indecipherable vowel sounds from some of the foreign artists engaged by the Met of late. While that’s always a pet peeve of mine, I have come to the realization that it’s unfair for me to judge a singer through a radio broadcast alone, when compared to that of a live performance.

There are so many factors that go into a theatrical presentation, intractable hurdles and variables of one kind or another (i.e. acoustics, venue, crowd response, orchestral and choral forces, and the like). So to criticize singers for poor delivery of the text — or not sounding Italian enough (or French, or German, or Russian, or what-have-you) — is just plain carping on my part. I will temper my views in the foreseeable future.

We should be grateful that opera, my favorite pastime (along with movies and music), is given at all these days, considering the current state of the art — that is, the sky-high cost implied in its production. Opera has always been, and will continue to be, an expensive proposition. It’s an art form that demands huge financial outlays and extraordinary commitment. The reason for that goes back to the vast number of artisans, performers and musicians, in addition to stagehands and crafts people, involved in its implementation.

The world’s greatest singers, conductors, producers, and directors are more than happy to participate in opera. That’s why they are booked solid so many years in advance. The difficulties implicit in the conception, however, can be off-putting and frustrating to professionals as well as to non-professionals. Opera is no place for initiates, nor does it have time for amateurs or first-timers. Consummate artists and musicians are called for, which explains, too, the high cost of production. The time and investment required to reach their level of professionalism are astronomic and, despite the efforts, infrequently attained.

Yet opera can be as rewarding for the amateur as it is for those thoroughly trained in its intricacies. Keeping all this in mind, one can only hope for the best.

Will the Met hit a home run this season? Stay tuned for late-inning developments!

Copyright © 2017 by Josmar F. Lopes    

A Bel Canto Bonanza (Conclusion) — Rossini a Day Keeps the Doctor Away: ‘La Cenerentola’ and ‘The Barber of Seville’

When One Season Ends, Another Begins

Joyce DiDonato in La Cenerentola (Ken Howard / Met Opera)

That’s how it is with opera: as soon as we marvel at how well the cream of the bel canto crop has performed on the air, along comes a production that completely undoes whatever positive impressions came before.

I’m referring to an once-in-a-lifetime transition whereby the 2013-14 Metropolitan Opera radio season ended with a bang with Gioachino Rossini’s La Cenerentola, the Italian version of the Cinderella story, while the 2014-15 season began with a thud via the broadcast of the same composer’s The Barber of Seville. Two comic-opera delights which, on paper, featured ideal casts — yet only one of them came out holding the glass slipper, or gold bracelet in the case of Rossini’s work.

Let’s discuss that work, the May 10th broadcast of La Cenerentola starring the fabulously gifted American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato as Angelina, our fairy-tale heroine and a major interpreter of this repertoire. The other cast members included bel canto specialist Juan Diego Flórez as Don Ramiro (or Prince Charming), Luca Pisaroni as Alidoro, Alessandro Corbelli as Don Magnifico (the mean stepfather), Pietro Spagnoli in his broadcast debut as Dandini, and Rachelle Durkin and Patricia Risley as, respectively, the vain stepsisters Clorinda and Tisbe. The conductor for the afternoon was Fabio Luisi, the Met’s principal podium master.

This 1997 production is by Cesare Lievi, with charming box sets and costumes by designer Maurizio Balò. As any follower of this infectious piece knows, Rossini and his librettist, Jacopo Ferretti, grounded their adaptation of Charles Perrault’s enduring tale less in the magical arena and more in the everyday drudgery of its title character. Not that enchantment was banished altogether from this realm, but instead of the usual “hocus-pocus” and “bibbidy-bobbadi-boo” prestidigitations we have the behind-the-scenes intrigue of Ramiro’s wise tutor, Alidoro, who takes on the gutsy role of the Fairy Godfather (not Godmother), but sans magic wand.

Angelina, as she’s called here, wins the hand of her prince through a kind and loving heart as well as modest displays of sympathy and largesse for her loutish step-parent, Don Magnifico, and his two insipid daughters. This is as it should be, for the subtitle of the piece, “ossia la bontà in trionfo” (“or the triumph of goodness”), tells listeners all they need to know about this kind-hearted character’s motives. As corny as it may sound, Monsieur Perrault, the creator of the original tale, and Walt Disney himself I daresay, would have approved of these harmless alterations.

What matters most, of course, is the music, which follows the general pattern of Rossini’s earlier The Barber of Seville — i.e., fast tempos, rapid-fire ensembles, and soft-to-loud passages — and how it enhances or detracts from our enjoyment of the piece, whether or not it was successfully transmitted by the artists involved. On that front, we need have no concerns, for this performance of La Cenerentola proved to be one of the Met’s finest to date.

Don Ramiro (Juan Diego Florez) with Angelina (Joyce DiDonato)

Ms. DiDonato, who debuted at the house in 2005-06, has been performing the Rossini catalogue for nearly two decades. Ergo, her spirited Angelina is one of this singer’s premium assignments, a role she has vested with personality, affinity and persuasiveness at every turn. Physically, she personifies both the scullery-maid aspects as well as the “storybook princess” elements called for in the text. Her joyful second act rondo, “Non piu mesta accanto al fuoco” (“Now farewell, dark days of weeping”), which readers may recall was borrowed from Rossini’s Barber, was a vocal triumph of the first order. All her roulades and repeats, along with runs up-and-down the scale, were carried out with refinement and skill, as worthy a depiction of her artistry as any I’ve heard to date.

DiDonato was deftly seconded by her partner, Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez, one of only a handful of artists at the Met (the others being Javier Camarena and Lawrence Brownlee) who have successfully maneuvered through the vocal rigors of Prince Ramiro’s tricky tessitura. It’s not just about hitting the notes that have made this singer (and the above-mentioned team of performers) so special but his knack for conveying a regal demeanor combined with ease of flow, while also spewing forth those abundant Cs and Ds in alt.

Lately, Juan Diego has been venturing into heavier tenor repertory. We need not fear for his vocal life, however, since the heaviest he’s been involved with (so far) is Rossini’s Arnold in Guillaume Tell. And from all reliable reports, he has acquitted himself with honor. Fortunately for the listener, Flórez has kept that nimbleness and buoyancy throughout his range, absolute requisites in this preeminent company. He and Ms. DiDonato are two artists who never seem to force their naturally lyrical instruments to points beyond their limits. To find and hear such savvy professionals in this day and age is a wonder indeed; that they were accompanied by singers of near-equal stature is more than we can expect.

It’s certainly been proven that a native Italian, in those mile-a-minute Rossinian patter songs, with rare exceptions can manipulate those arias’ complicated lyrics better than most non-Italians. And audiences were blessed with not two but THREE such sturdy talents: the bassos Pisaroni, Corbelli and Spagnoli. Alidoro is the mover and shaker of the piece, and Signor Pisaroni, whom I’ve heard previously in Handel and Mozart, was fluid in his runs and exceedingly adept at both the highest and lowest ranges of this part.

The same can be said for Signor Corbelli, a full-voiced, plumy buffo in the tradition of Fernando Corena and Paolo Montarsolo, but with a lighter timbre more reminiscent of baritone Renato Capecchi — a singer well acquainted with tragic and comic parts. New to me was Signor Spagnoli, who complemented these fine gentlemen as a vocally commanding Dandini. We can thank Rossini for that: he’s provided his lower-voiced characters with an embarrassment of riches in this work — take your pick of the litter, fellows!

The two stepsisters, sung by Durkin and Risley (sounds like an ambulance-chasing law firm, doesn’t it?) played their parts to risible perfection. Maestro Luisi let the music flow, with plenty of snap, crackle and pop in the pit and in the immensely satisfying ensembles, of which there are plenty. His attention to detail and knowledge of how this work should be played and sound assisted in bringing down the curtain on a most magical season replete with luscious gardens of vocal delights.

The Forecast: Dull with Continuing Dullness

Isabel Leonard, Lawrence Brownlee & Christopher Maltman in The Barber of Seville

So what happened between May and December? Something must have gotten lost in translation during the long summer-to-fall hiatus. I am still trying to wrap my arms around the meager quality of the Met’s The Barber of Seville broadcast of December 6, 2014, the first of the Saturday afternoon 2014-15 radio transmissions.

Perhaps it was the flu that got everybody bugged, or maybe a really bad case of repertory negligence. Whatever the reason, there was no excuse for the piteous display of vocalism that ran rampant during this Bartlett Sher production of one of the repertoire’s best-loved masterworks.

A notorious failure at its 1816 premiere, under the banner of Almaviva, ossia l’inutil precauzione (“Almaviva, or the Useless Precaution”) so as not to conflict with an earlier adaptation by composer Giovanni Paisiello, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, to cite its original Italian title, was based on a trilogy of plays by French dramatist Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, whose The Marriage of Figaro (the second work in the trilogy) became the basis for Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro.

While Paisiello’s opera was still being lauded, Rossini and his collaborator, the poet Cesare Sterbini, decided to rework Paisiello’s piece, much to the dismay of his followers, to include Signor Paisiello himself. That infamous fiasco of February 20th when The Barber premiered at the Teatro Argentina in Rome has been thoroughly discussed by scholars ad absurdum, its faults explored and re-examined as to why the work flopped at the outset.

As near as can be determined, the performers were thrown off by the audience’s negative reaction to what they heard and saw; that is to say, not so much by the music itself as to the lack of polish on the part of those same performers. That may sound like heresy to readers, but it was a common situation during those raucously unsound times. Verdi and Wagner — and Puccini, too, if truth be told — had to contend with any number of disruptive forces, among them unruly patrons, inferior casts, listless conducting, substandard playing, and subpar surroundings.

Our modern expectations of professionalism and the superior degree of musicianship that, today, has been taken for granted were in short supply back then, even in such esteemed institutions as La Scala and Bayreuth. Rossini, Donizetti, and Verdi and their ilk, along with an army of musicians slaving away in the “galleys” as they were known, faced this problem on a daily basis. About the best they could do was to deal with the lack of preparedness head-on and as the issue arose. Would that some of their spunk and ingenuity to overcome the many hurdles thrust upon them have rubbed off on their present-day counterparts!

Act I ensemble of The Barber of Seville

With that lead-in in mind, the broadcast of The Barber of Seville featured the redoubtable Lawrence Brownlee as an extremely accomplished Count Almaviva, Christopher Maltman as the jack-of-all-trades Figaro, Maurizio Muraro as a tongue-tied Dr. Bartolo, Isabel Leonard as his ward Rosina, and Paata Burchuladze as the mealy-mouthed music master Don Basilio. Michele Mariotti was the conductor for this performance and, as we’ve noted in prior posts, the haste-makes-waste maestro whose fast-paced leadership of this and other bel canto works lent considerable verve to the proceedings, if without pause for respite.

That’s not to say that artistry was left in the dust, but on this broadcast I got the impression that some of Saturday’s participants were “winging it” on their own. I’ve mentioned before about presenting complete performances of standard and non-standard bel canto items, which has much improved over the years, especially with regard to early and middle-period Verdi.

With Rossini’s Barber, the more there is of this piece, the better-sounding it becomes (to me, at least). Small cuts here and there, such as the brief scene with Fiorello after Figaro and Almaviva’s three-quarter-time duet in Act I, scene i; the comic interplay earlier on with Dr. Bartolo and Rosina at her balcony; or the extended exchange between Bartolo, the sneezing Berta and a yawning Ambrogio, while providing grist for the slapstick-comedy mill, can be easily dispensed with and suffer no damage to the overall plot.

A Matter of Casting

But the biggest bone I have to pick is some of the slipshod quality of the major performers themselves, by which I mean the egregious casting of Paata Burchuladze as Basilio and the blustering Bartolo of Maurizio Muraro. In last year’s discussion of J.D. McClatchy’s English-language version of the opera (see the following link: https://josmarlopes.wordpress.com/2013/01/02/opera-review-the-barber-of-seville-in-english-shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits/), I complained furiously about his translation as not being riotous enough or nearly as intelligible to novices as it needed to have been.

This time, I found grievous fault with Burchuladze’s vocal mannerisms, which were abysmally below the expected level for an artist of his longevity and repute. His rise to prominence in the 1980s and subsequent appearances with Luciano Pavarotti and Herbert Von Karajan, in addition to participation in various Verdi performances at La Scala and thereabouts, paved the way for his 1989 Met debut as Ramfis in Aida. A solo recording of scenes from Russian and Italian opera (well received, but with reservations as to his lack of dramatic thrust), as well as DVDs of La Scala performances, fueled the notion that here was another Fyodor Chaliapin in the making. Uh, not quite!

One critic claimed his Don Basilio was better acted than sung, which may have given rise again to comparisons with Chaliapin. This is disparaging to Chaliapin, who until a ripe old age had a superbly disciplined and mellifluous voice, preserved for us on old 78s and on film. The unfulfilled promise of the once-potent Paata, however, who struggled with both ends of Basilio’s “La calunnia” — normally, a sure-fire showstopper for any bass worth his low F — spilled over into Mr. Muraro’s undisciplined, sloppy, and irritating interpretation of Bartolo’s “A un dottor della mia sorte” (“A doctor of my reputation”).

Artists of the caliber of Salvatore Baccaloni and Melchiorre Luise, Corena and Montarsolo, Sesto Bruscantini, Enzo Dara, Angelo Romero, or this country’s John Del Carlo, have all executed this vocal tirade with more panache and comic timing than Muraro could muster. To top it off, he concluded the torturous piece by gasping for air while wavering perilously off pitch. This could have been part of the show, but on the radio Muraro sounded over-parted.

In like manner, Burchuladze’s stab at an unwritten high note to “La calunnia” was calumnious in itself, in the way it completely blew the composer’s cadenza to the four winds. And to think he was following in the illustrious footsteps of such past luminaries as Chaliapin, Ezio Pinza, Tancredi Pasero, Cesare Siepi, Giulio Neri, Italo Tajo, Nicolai Ghiaurov, Samuel Ramey, and Ferruccio Furlanetto. Ah, it pains the ear…

In this company, Mr. Maltman’s sharply refined Figaro and Ms. Leonard’s neatly vocalized but mature-sounding Rosina, escaped the bad notices, but neither did they shine as they normally would have. I did like Maltman’s basic timbre, though, which was right for the playful town barber; but Leonard’s inability to convey exuberance on the radio was disheartening.

Lawrence Brownlee as Count Almaviva

The best performance of the day, dear readers, I have saved for last: Lawrence Brownlee outshone his colleagues with a masterfully phrased, delectably sung and ingratiating traversal of the wily Almaviva whose name, as translated, means “lively soul.” That he was! Although short of stature, Brownlee gave a master class in Italian diction and coloratura leaps and runs. He was also an estimable ensemble player who put to shame some of the so-called veterans on display in that vast Met Opera auditorium. I can’t say enough good things about this enthralling young artist, one of the finest interpreters of bel canto anywhere.

Brownlee, an African American tenor from Youngstown, Ohio, has made a specialty of this repertoire. He stands out from the not-so-crowded field of contenders by talent and ability alone, as one of the opera world’s most sought-after voices.

Thus, Brownlee both ended and began another Met Opera broadcast season in fine fettle; likewise, we should consider ourselves privileged to have heard the likes of Javier Camarena and Juan Diego Flórez, mentioned in the same breath as Brownlee. And may we continue to hear more of these supremely confident young artistes.

In an historic meeting of the minds, Beethoven once urged Rossini to “Remember to give us more Barbers.” I say to the Met, “Remember to provide the singers capable of singing them!”

Copyright © 2014 by Josmar F. Lopes