Director: Marco Armeliato Production: Margarethe Wallmann
Tosca Sondra Radvanovsky Mario Piotr Beczala Scarpia Thomas Hampson
This production of Puccini's Tosca at the Vienna State Opera is very popular. I can see why. In Act I the church shows members of the Swiss Guard. I was going to question this when I remembered we are in period, the time of Napoleon, when Rome was ruled by Naples. I associate the Swiss Guard only with Vatican City. Perhaps the Bishop of Rome is attending.
This performance is from last year. I love Sondra in this. She dominates her male partners. She sings and acts with such wonderful intensity. Tosca is a diva of the greatest quality, and should seem so.
There is a lot to like here. Unless I am hallucinating, Piotr gets a bis for "E lucevan le stelle." Cool. I don't seem to tire of Tosca as long as it's new people each time.
Anna Bolena (Anne Boleyn).......Anna Netrebko
Giovanna (Jane Seymour).........Ekaterina Gubanova
Enrico (Henry VIII).............Ildar Abdrazakov
Riccardo (Lord Richard Percy)...Stephen Costello
Mark Smeaton....................Tamara Mumford
Lord Rochefort..................Keith Miller
Sir Hervey......................Eduardo Valdes
In the announcement before Donizetti's Anna Bolena, 2011, began we were told that this was the first time this opera had played at the Met. When Beverly Sills sang her three queens, it was across the plaza at City Opera.
We are not to see the happy time when Anna Bolena married Henry VIII. Instead we come in at the point in her marriage where he has already moved on to his next wife, Jane Seymour. In this context she as portrayed as loved by many men, but still remaining faithful to her husband. The sets are dark and uninviting, but much love has gone into creating costumes that are true to the period of Henry VIII. In this era of modern black business suits in virtually any opera, we are grateful.
Donizetti is the closest to Verdi of any of the Italian composers. This could be early, or even middle Verdi. There is much bombast. Everyone earns a big aria. The top three singers are all Russian, so we are treated to some magnificent Russian style singing characterized by big voices and big production. Perhaps this is what prompts Stephen Costello to sing in this big voiced style. It's the heaviest I remember for him.
Netrebko wished to sing this. It is probably the intensity of emotion that attracted her. The duet with Gubanova is especially dramatic. Ildar makes Henry an angry asshole. Seen from this perspective, he does seem like a megalomaniacal pervert.
Dear Anne Boleyn, Someone has written this opera for you, and now some other people have made this wonderful performance. I think it's the best we can do for you.
What we love so unreservedly about Anna Netrebko is how completely she commits to the inner emotions of her performances. She gives it all. Viva.
The daily rerun from the Metropolitan Opera is Puccini's La Rondine with Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna. Now I know that the maid Lisette is played by Lisette Oropesa who is far more famous today. It is lovely to see her.
Wonderful things in Act I: Angela's lightness and enthusiasm, Roberto's youthfulness, the gorgeous art nouveau set, the aria, Lisette's charm. Not so wonderful is the sharp decline in the voice of Sam Ramey from earlier years. At his peak I loved him madly, but here not so much. Prunier the poet says he wants Salome or Berenice, larger than life women. Magda is a kept woman, but sneaks out of the house looking for love.
In Act II Magda has gone to a place with small round tables and bentwood chairs where there is dancing. She happens on Ruggero whom she did not notice in Act I. Magda and Ruggero dance. Then couples come out and do what I would call Apache dancing where the men throw the women around. Roberto is rather incredibly adorable. I realize that I can't remember the ending.
Lisette and Prunier also come to entertain themselves in this student hangout. Both Magda and Prunier think they will not see anyone they know, and when they do see someone they know they pretend not to know them. Lisette is not sophisticated. Magda asks Prunier, "Is she Salome or Berenice?" No longer pretending. Love music is followed by the arrival of Rambaldo, the man who is keeping her. She tells him she's leaving him for true love. He is rather nice about it. "I hope you don't regret it."
In Act III Magda is still with Ruggero, this time in another gorgeous art nouveau set. They are still in love. The ending is not happy.
This is not like any other Puccini opera. I suppose it is nearest to Fanciulla in plot, but the music here is much sweeter. It started its life as an operetta and was later turned into an opera. So this is more like Lehar than Puccini. It never quite feels like Puccini, but one might still love it, especially this one.
Cast
Stephanie Blythe | Mezzo-soprano (1999)
Javier Camarena | Tenor
Yusif Eyvazov | Tenor
Michael Fabiano | Tenor (2014)
Christine Goerke | Soprano (2001)
Quinn Kelsey | Baritone
Angela Meade | Soprano (2011)
Anna Netrebko | Soprano
Nadine Sierra | Soprano (2017)
Christian Van Horn | Bass-baritone
New York Choral Society,
Members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra
Marco Armiliato | Conductor
They are all like old friends. I am embarrassed to say I needed a program. Someone has found one for me, but it's still hard to work out.
PROGRAM Opening Speech Barry Tucker Giuseppe Verdi, Nabucco sung by our winner Christian Van Horn.
Jerónimo Giménez / Manuel Nieto, El Barbero de Sevilla II: "Me llaman la primorosa" with Nadine Sierra. Giuseppe Verdi, Luisa Miller II: "Quando le sere al placido chiaror d'un ciel stellato" with Michael Fabiano
Richard Strauss, Ariadne Auf Naxos, Op. 60 "Es gibt ein Reich" with Christine Goerke. Wonderful.
Small speech by Javier Camarena telling how he was robbed and was thus wearing Richard Tucker's cuff links and studs. Good luck?
Manuel Garcia, Florestan II: "Dieu!... pour venger un père, faut-il devenir assassin…" by Javier Camarena from his CD, spectacularly sung. Giuseppe Verdi, I Lombardi Alla Prima Crociata II: "Oh madre, dal cielo…No, no! giusta causa" with Angela Meade also spectacularly sung.
Giuseppe Verdi, Falstaff II, 1: "È sogno? o realtà?" with Quinn Kelsey. Giuseppe Verdi, Il Trovatore III, 2 - Scena ed Aria : "Ah! Sì, ben mio" with Yusif Eyvazov.
Giuseppe Verdi, Don Carlo (revised version in 4 acts) III, 1: "Ella giammai m'amo!" with Christian Van Horn
Gioachino Rossini, Armida "Amor! Possente nome" a duet with Angela Meade and Javier Camarena. Pietro Mascagni, Cavalleria Rusticana Regina Coeli...Inneggiamo with Christine Goerke. Leonard Bernstein, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Take Care Of This House with Stephanie Blythe. Jules Massenet, Manon "Toi! Vous!" (St. Sulpice duet sung Nadine Sierra and Michael Fabiano.) Vincenzo Bellini, I Puritani II: "Riccardo! Riccardo!" with Quinn Kelsey and Christian Van Horn. Georges Bizet, Carmen "L'amour est un oiseau rebelle" with Stephanie Blythe. Umberto Giordano, Andrea Chénier IV: "Vicino a te s'aqueta" big finish provided by Anna Netrebko and Yusif Eyvazov.
It was a terrific concert in the Richard Tucker style of big voices. For some reason I expected an ensemble at the end but did not get it.
👍🏻
Conductor: Marco Armiliato
Production: David McVicar
Leonora: Anna Netrebko (soprano)
Azucena: Dolora Zajick (mezzo-soprano)
Manrico: Yonghoon Lee (tenor)
di Luna: Dmitri Hvorostovsky (baritone)
Ferrando: Štefan Kocán (bass)
This is the performance of Verdi's Il Trovatore where Dmitri Hvorostovsky steps forward and is showered with white roses from the orchestra. Since he originally sang this Met Live in HD performance, he has died. I cried in the theater today. Everything is simply wonderful. It plays again in the evening so be sure to see it.
👍🏻
Conductor: Marco Armiliato
Production: Franco Zeffirelli
Mimi: Sonya Yoncheva
Rodolfo: Michael Fabiano
Musetta: Susanna Phillips
Marcello: Lucas Meachem
Schaunard: Alexey Lavrov
Colline: Matthew Rose
Benoit/Alcindoro: Paul Plishka
Today was the HD for Puccini's La Bohème from the Metropolitan Opera. Michael explained that they don't really get to rehearse. Nevertheless it was a beautiful ensemble performance with excellent conducting.
Between scenes was a lot of hammering. My impression was that the workers were repairing the ancient and well used sets. Each set slides in on the stage machinery. Garret stage left, Momus stage right and snow scene from the back. There was a film of this happening. So why all the hammering?
Sonya and Michael are both wonderful singing actors who play well with one another. They both have beautiful emotional range which is the secret to great opera. Or maybe opera has a lot of secrets and this is just one.
She died a couple of seconds before her chord, but I have decided to forgive everyone. Look. There is scene painting in the orchestration in this opera. First you hear the flames going up in Act I when Rodolfo throws his play into the fire. And there is a chord at the end that signals Mimi dying. Am I the only one who knows this?
It was lovely to see Paul Plishka who once appeared frequently in San Francisco. The magic worked once again.
Gradually this has become my favorite version of this aria. Anja's version is the inner Tosca, the real woman who has lived for art and love and does not understand why the Madonna has turned against her. Armiliato is with her in every note.
The film I posted before is gone. This one is more recent.
Conductor: Marco Armiliato
Production: David McVicar
Leonora: Anna Netrebko (soprano)
Azucena: Dolora Zajick (mezzo-soprano)
Manrico: Yonghoon Lee (tenor)
di Luna: Dmitri Hvorostovsky (baritone)
Ferrando: Štefan Kocán (bass)
Heard in the theater during intermission of the Metropolitan Opera Live in HD simulcast of Verdi's Il Trovatore, "Does it get better than this?" Followed by, "No! No, it does not!" It truly does not.
People get really confused by the plot of this opera, and I think the main reason is because it spends so much time explaining things that took place in the long ago past. A young prince got sick right after he had been visited by a gypsy woman who seemed like a witch. When the gypsy woman was taken off to be burned at the stake, her daughter Azucena kidnapped the sick child. Then seeing her mother burning and her mother shouting out "avenge me," Azucena grabbed the nearest child and threw her own baby into the fire. She kept the kidnapped child and raised him as her own. This story gets told twice and then is referred to constantly by the different characters. We would just rather watch the people we are seeing on the stage.
Azucena is really quite mad and is really quite happy when the son she has raised and loved is killed because at last her mother is avenged. Yes. Being avenged is what matters most. And no one either sings or plays the really quite mad Azucena better than Dolora Zajick who owns this role. She is the first block in the "four greatest singers" quadrangle required for this opera.
The plot on the stage is just your garden variety love triangle. Both Conte di Luna and the gypsy Manrico love Leonora. Manrico serenades Leonora and di Luna just lurks around looking dour. It isn't hard to grasp why she prefers Manrico. Enough about the plot.
Two, Anna and Dmitri, of this trio of singers are my absolute favorites in their respective Fachs. (Or what is the plural of Fach?) Much fuss was made over Dmitri because he is still in treatment for his brain tumor. He spoke to us and thanked us for all the love. His singing was powerful and emotional, a genuine experience.
A year ago after watching the stream of this opera from Salzburg I wrote, "I love Anna and find that she almost achieves the greatness here that she desires and will do so in the future." I am very pleased to report that she has. This is the greatest Leonora I have ever seen. Her gorgeous voice is receiving spectacular attention to detail while retaining all of her wonderful emotion. She is the opera singer for our age.
Yonghoon Lee would rate a lot more raves if he were in any cast but this one. Nevertheless he was outstanding. It was all in all an emotional day at the opera.
At the end the orchestra repeated their ovation of white roses for Hvorostovsky. Be well, maestro.
Footnote. The San Francisco Opera also uses the McVicar production for this opera.
Today's simulcast from the Metropolitan Opera, Zandonai's Francesca da Rimini, 1914, was just the production for those who like their opera to be pretty. Every frame will remind you of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
Francesca da Rimini: Eva-Maria Westbroek Paolo: Marcello Giordani Giovanni: Mark Delavan Malatestino: Robert Brubaker Samaritana: Dina Kuznetsova Smaragdi: Ginger Costa-Jackson Garsenda: Dísella Làrusdóttir [Debut]
Conductor: Marco Armiliato Production: Piero Faggioni
At least a bit. Eva-Maria Westbroek in the title role has to be the most Pre-Raphaelite opera singer you've ever seen. This was my fourth role for her after Jenůfa in Munich, three different performances of Sieglinde and her wonderful outing as Anna Nicole. Her work in this opera was intensely passionate.
This opera is also about the Guelphs and Ghibellines, it turns out. The Malatesta family, Paolo the beautiful, sung by Marcello Giordani, Gianciotto the deformed, sung brilliantly by Mark Delevan, and Malatestino the one-eyed, sung by Robert Brubaker, are Guelphs. What a sorry lot they are.
The plot is not complicated. Originally Francesca is just a reference in The Inferno. Francesca is tricked into marrying Gianciotto. She thinks she is marrying Paolo, but all the men know she is not. In spite of the fact that he knows she is married to Gianciotto, Paolo falls in love with her. Everything turns out badly.
Ginger Costa-Jackson is our gorgeous contralto Smaragdi. The music is for a plush, romantic orchestra, perhaps after Mascagni and Boito. I don't really hear Puccini in it. The opera is a bit long, but not really long enough to justify starting an hour early. We were out by 1:00. Every once in a while one should see it. #ad
This broadcast of Aida was the second opera in the 6 years of simulcasts from the Metropolitan Opera that is a repeat of the same production with a new cast. The other one was Lucia.
Renée Fleming was back as host. She interviewed the horses who were very well behaved. She gave them each a treat. Their trainer explained how to select and train horses for the opera. Apparently they recognize their musical cue and get in character.
Roberto Alagna was Radames. I prefer him to Botha, probably because he looks heroic in his costumes. This was the role he was booed off the stage for at La Scala 6 years ago. This time around he took the high note sotto voce. Perhaps it is time to forget the incident at La Scala. Pardonez-moi. I admit, though, there was some grousing in my audience. For some reason I always enjoy Roberto.
Amneris was sung by Olga Borodina. I enjoyed her very much in this role. She sings to the legato rather than to the rhythm. She isn't nearly so sinister as Zajick.
Liudmyla Monastyrska was our Aida. She sings big, but not so heavy as Violetta Urmana. She is a new star on the scene, and has only recently been heard outside her native Ukraine. This means that her voice and technique grew to maturity before she began an international career. I am ignoring the secondary cast.
The best thing about this outing was the direction for television. This set is imposing and magnificent, but that effect only rarely comes off in filming. This version was excellent.
I went to Ernani Live in HD from the Metropolitan Opera to see Angela Meade. She is older than I thought. When she won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2007, she was 30. In 2008 she covered Sondra Radvanovsky in Ernani, which I reviewed here, and one day when Sondra was ill, Angela made her professional opera debut as Elvira at the Met. Let's just skip all that comprimario role stuff, what do you say?
So then in 2011 she won the Richard Tucker award, and in 2012 the Beverly Sills award. Last fall she alternated with Anna Netrebko in Anna Bolena. Believe it or not, she's done some other stuff. You can see how a person would be curious.
This is the kind of voice anyone is looking for. It's a pretty sound, and it's heavy enough to soar easily over the orchestra and chorus. What does anyone want? Coloratura with weight. If you've got it, flaunt it. And to top it off she appears to be easy to get along with and does whatever she's told. This is the magic combination. Richard Tucker only goes to singers who bring weight to the table. Oh. Sorry. That means her voice has weight. She is best described as a spinto, I think. She makes it all look easy.
I would like to hear her in an opera I actually liked. Ernani is very annoying. Two of the cast, Ferruccio Furlanetto and Marcello Giordani, were in this the last time I saw it. The cast added Dmitri Hvorostovsky as Don Carlo. He sticks to his smooth lyricism, and it works very well.
I felt concerned for Giordani again this time. He struggled with his part the entire time. He should listen to Luciano, who did the best version ever of this opera, for the way he resonates his vowels. Vowels are the key. Instead Giordani muscles his voice around in a very disturbing way.
The Met puts together such fabulous casts for Verdi. Marco Armiliato conducted.
Interviews at Intermission
Joyce DiDonato was the host for the Met simulcast. I'm afraid everyone makes me miss Renée Fleming
In
his interview Ferruccio Furlanetto said with Verdi it
is vital to be very familiar with the role and confident about how to
sing each note. Perhaps he was giving this advice to Marcello Giordani
who spoke about the change in technique required for Verdi. My advice
would be to try singing it with his verismo technique and see what
happens. Whatever it is he's doing, it isn't working.
Dmitri
Hvorostovsky brought his children who greeted Joyce in three
languages. They said something to her in Russian and she thanked them.
Dmitri mentioned that this would be the first time his mother gets to
see him on the screen in the movie theater at home in Russia.
Joyce asked Dmitri about breath control. Dmitri thought this was pretty funny but gave a game response.
Angela
mentioned Callas and Caballe as her role models. I entirely approve of
Monserat Caballe as a role model for her, but she doesn't have the heft
of Callas.
Anna Bolena (Anne Boleyn).......Anna Netrebko
Giovanna (Jane Seymour).........Ekaterina Gubanova
Enrico (Henry VIII).............Ildar Abdrazakov
Riccardo (Lord Richard Percy)...Stephen Costello
Mark Smeaton....................Tamara Mumford
Lord Rochefort..................Keith Miller
Sir Hervey......................Eduardo Valdes
If you look at the numbers running along the left side of the screen, you will see that the singer with the most blog entries is Anna Netrebko. There is a reason for this. Over the period that I have been blogging by far the most exciting singer out there has been Anna Netrebko.
I used to correspond with another fan of Cecilia Bartoli, and he was mystified that I would like both Cecilia and Anna. To him they are apples and oranges. Cecilia is heavily articulated in the fast notes while Anna is slurred. Why would the same person like both of them? This is because each sets out to define her musical universe and then works to produce the best possible examples of this universe. Art is about individual expression. When you go to see Anna or Cecilia, she brings it.
Today Anna brought it to Anna Bolena. By the end of the opera I was sobbing, a first for the simulcasts. She was magnificent. La Cieca has designated her the prima donna assoluta. Perish the thought that I would agree with La Cieca, but I do. As her voice expands, so does her presence. She dominates the stage as few opera singers ever have, and I've seen a few opera singers. There is simply no one like her.
The production was smooth and somber. I liked seeing Princess Elizabeth in the first scene. For two of the four main singers, Ekaterina Gubanova as Seymour and Ildar Abdrazakov as Enrico, were new to this opera. I don't doubt that it has been better to see them late in the run. I thought both of them projected their characters well. Ildar was astoundingly arrogant in his role, as the real Henry VIII must have been.
Stephen Costello was new for me. He's not in a category with Rockwell Blake, the great Rossini singer, the other person I have seen sing this role. Costello cranes his neck forward and then raises his chin to compensate. This looks terrible and can't be good for his technique. I suppose I shouldn't say stuff like this. He's cute and has a good voice, though it's more neo-Verdi for my ears than bel canto. Nascent-Verdi. One of those words.
I hear more and more Verdi in Donizetti. This is only apparent in the serious operas which aren't heard that much. The opera was performed as though it were Verdi. Perhaps this is current Italian practice.
You would want this for Netrebko, to see her transformation into an immortal. I was pleased to see she has not matured so much that she forgets to clown for the camera.
I made it to the rerun of Il Trovatore in HD last night, and it turned out to be a rerun of Il Trovatore in San Francisco in 2009. The sets and costumes and even some of the cast were the same, except this was the first cast instead of the stand-ins.
And what a cast it was:
Manrico: Marcelo Alvarez
Leonora: Sondra Radvanovsky
Azucena: Dolora Zajick
Count di Luna: Dmitri Hvorostovsky
Conductor: Marco Armiliato Production: David McVicar
I agree with Renée Fleming, the hostess--to assemble such a cast is an event. There was quite a bit of excellent information in the interviews. All the performers liked the rotating set by Charles Edwards because it allowed the action to flow without stopping for set changes. All the interviewees agreed that their character is crazy.
The plot was explained by Dolora Zajick. Azucena tries to get Manrico to kill di Luna to avenge her mother's death, and when he won't, she arranges for di Luna to kill Manrico. This makes her happy. I see it now. Opera plots are so sick.
Each singer was more wonderful than the last. Sondra Radvanovsky just gets better and better. Zajick owns her role. Marcelo is the most insane troubadour I've ever seen.
But my award has to go to the incredible singing of Dmitri Hvorostovsky. It doesn't get better than this. #ad
I detected a complete lack of crashing and burning in today's Lucia di Lammermoor in HD from the Metropolitan Opera. Where to begin?
How about the production by Mary Zimmerman? She talked about traveling around in Scotland for the look of the scenes and told where each one took place. I would place the date around the American Civil War. Photography was invented, but women still wore long dresses. Mary added ghosts to the scenes to great effect. When Lucia sings about the death at the fountain, the ghost is there. And at the end when Edgardo learns that Lucia is dead, she appears as a ghost. The production filled my criterion for a good production--it clarified the action extremely well. I loved every bit of it. Brava!
How about Natalie Dessay as host? She was enthusiastic about Anna Netrebko, today's Lucia, but was eager for us to know that it was she who opened the production. I thought this was less than high class. The interviews with everyone else except Anna were good. She and Marco Armiliato, today's conductor, agreed that the Metropolitan Opera orchestra are the best in the world.
How about the orchestra? There was the fabulous harp solo and wonderful glass harmonica. The effect of a glass harmonica is like nothing else.
And the singing? I loved all of them. Anna, I have decided, has a legato technique rather than a leggiero technique, such as one would hear with Beverly Sills, or maybe Natalie Dessay. But I love her. I think I enjoy this style more than the other one. She has put on a few pounds, it's true, but her voice sounded fabulous. We will all have to argue later about whether these two things are related. She did an excellent trill. Welcome back!
The replacement tenor, Piotr Beczala, was very fine, very Italian sounding, though he obviously isn't Italian. He's also cute. In the act break the baritone, Mariusz Kwiecien, discussed the fact that the third act duet between Edgardo and Enrico was left uncut in this production, and pointed out how heavy it is. At the point where it was decided to cast Rolando, it should also have been decided to cut this scene. He probably could have gotten through the rest of it.
Am I supposed to complain about more? Lucia's ghost helps Edgardo commit suicide. Weird.
Technically this was the worst simulcast from the Metropolitan Opera ever. I highly recommend putting a receiver setup in the control room so the director, in this case Brian Large, can simultaneously review what is actually going into theaters. We could not make out any of Renée Fleming's interviews. Nada. Angela and Roberto were in especially good moods so this was an opportunity missed. We got complete silence. We got loud popping noises. We got fluctuating loudness. It was crap. I may have to go again to see if it is any better the second time around.
La Rondine is exactly the right opera for my present mood. Magda as a kept woman has her fixed place in society and is surrounded by wealth, glitter, even poetry while dreaming of romantic love. She sets out to find it. [In my own life there was no dreaming or planning. Things came along in a manner much like stepping in front of a moving bus.]
Magda does not notice Ruggero when he comes to her house and sits next to him at the dance hall quite by accident. It seems to me that Roberto Alagna is exactly the sort of man one would meet by accident and fall madly in love with. But perhaps this merely reflects my own taste. Clearly he is ready for the moment of passion, ready to leap into romantic love. They find exactly the sort of perfect love anyone would wish for and find in the end that it has no place in practical reality--that it can result in no home in the country and children. Magda cannot be taken home to mama. Roberto isn't the greatest tenor that ever lived, but he is a sweetie, and his rapport with his wife, Angela Gheorghiu, is very special. They clearly love working together, and they clearly love this opera. Angela was in form, though it was announced that she had a cold.
This is an opera that is ideal for HD treatment. To communicate intimacy it helps a lot if the viewing is intimate. This is my second viewing of this production, and I find it quite beautiful. La Rondine is a beautiful opera, beautifully cast, beautifully sung, beautifully acted, beautifully staged, beautifully photographed. And then the crappy transmission.
The maid Lisette was played by a woman named Lisette Oropesa. Is this more than a coincidence? I think she said in the interview (but who really knows) that she was born to be a maid just like the character. She was fabulous, sang well and looked cute on camera.
I predict for the characters that they will never see one another again and will always recall the feeling of overwhelming passion. Ruggero will marry a girl from the village, and she will know that his greatest love is for another. #ad
Cal Performances brought the Angela Gheorghiu show to Zellerbach Auditorium in Berkeley on Saturday night. With her were the San Francisco Opera Orchestra with Marco Armiliato conducting. Marco is from Genoa and specializes in Italian repertoire.
Four numbers--overtures to Nozze di Figaro and La Cenerentola, intermezzos from Manon Lescaut and Cavalliera Rusticana--were for the orchestra alone. I liked very much his version of the Cavalliera Rusticana but felt throughout the concert that the orchestra and the conductor were unfamiliar with one another and uncoordinated. The Rossini was actually pretty bad. He is obviously looking for greater subtlety in tempo than they are accustomed to.
They played far too loud for Angela. Normally they are down in the pit of the opera house where the volume is somewhat muffled. I couldn't help wondering if anyone bothered to sit in the house and listen to the balance. It's painful for me to write about this, and if you enjoyed the concert I apologize. She stood close to the conductor, on his left, our left, and faced him much of the time. I was seated on the side where her face was turned away.
I love Angela. She even does the queen's wave with great expertise. She wore three outfits--white, black and red to close--and looked fabulous throughout.
Best was "Ch'il bel sogno di Doretta" from La Rondine, a piece she owns. A surprising selection was "Pace, pace, mio Dio" from Verdi's La Forza del Destino. This aria is usually done by dramatic sopranos, but Angela's version was excellent.
I love "Non ti scordar di me" but she was covered by the orchestra the worst in this number. Most pieces ended with loud high notes and arm waves.
What separates Natalie Dessay from the pack is that you completely believe whatever she does. If she frowns, you frown. And if she smiles, you smile, too. When she smiles at Juan Diego, it is true love.
Donizetti's La Fille du Regiment may well be the most naive and joyous comic opera of them all. Or maybe it's the production from the Metropolitan Opera. One can't help wondering why she longs so heartily for a life where she does laundry and peels potatoes all day? Or where her keepsakes include a sprouted potato? Perhaps it is love.
Is it my imagination or does Juan Diego Florez get handsomer and funnier by the day? He admitted in the intermission interview that the high D in the second act aria is his own addition. I think we can expect more of this. All 9 high C's were spectacular as well, but there was no encore.
And one can certainly see why Peter Gelb is attracted to Felicity Palmer, the Marquise of Berkenfield in this production. She also appeared in Peter Grimes. Singing actors are what opera is about these days. Everyone is talking about Regietheatre, and this opera is one of the best examples. We're not completely clear about the difference between Regietheatre and Eurotrash. One is new and exciting and the other is hated and reviled. I'm not really sure they aren't just terms for the same things.
If you want real photographs of this production which came from the Royal Opera, see here. I shouted out a "brava" in the movie theater, but it felt foolish.
